By: Daren Jaime on February 27, 2025
According to the U.S Census, in 2023, the official poverty rate fell 0.4 percentage points to 11.1 percent. There were 36.8 million people in poverty in 2023. As poverty remains on the decline for most of my home city of Syracuse, New York has a poverty crisis. It leads the nation in extreme concentrated poverty…
By: Chad Warren on February 27, 2025
What if loneliness became so overwhelming that people started renting families just to feel connected? In Japan, this isn’t just a hypothetical—it’s a reality. Companies like Family Romance provide actors to fill roles as family members, friends, or romantic partners for people craving human connection.[1] While this may seem extreme, it highlights a larger issue…
By: Julie O'Hara on February 27, 2025
It happened almost immediately. I started reading about Wicked Problems, and I could feel the metaphorical head smack followed by the thought, “How have I never heard of this before?” I was further surprised by reading about the many ways that a Wicked Problems framework is popular and widely applied across many disciplines. I may…
By: Elysse Burns on February 27, 2025
“Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble” (Job 14:1)—a verse that comes to mind when reflecting on Joseph Bentley and Michael Toth’s Exploring Wicked Problems. Drawing from the work of social scientists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, Bentley and Toth distinguish between two categories: tame problems and wicked problems. Tame…
By: Kari on February 27, 2025
I live in a breeding ground for wicked problems. My host country is in the Sahara. It is listed as the fifty-sixth poorest country in the World.[1] Limited resources are a daily struggle for everyone living here. Conflicting values in the country stem from topics such as slavery, ethnic conflict, and colonialism. The country receives…
By: Debbie Owen on February 27, 2025
I have a deep passion for spiritual formation and discipleship. However, I have found that before discussing discipleship with someone, I must begin by clarifying with which of the many definitions they are most familiar. With so many interpretations of discipleship, there is a lot of ambiguity regarding “what” it is, “how” to do it,…
By: Graham English on February 27, 2025
In my weekly interactions with church leaders, I frequently encounter discussions centred around various problems they are experiencing. Rather than offering immediate advice, I adopt a listening stance, posing numerous questions to facilitate a deeper understanding of the issue. This approach often enables the individual to arrive at a solution independently, with my guidance catalyzing…
By: Diane Tuttle on February 26, 2025
Problems are a common part of living. Solving many of them may be relatively simple. They give people confidence to try new things, thinking that the strategies for problem X would likely work for other problems. In addition, problem solving has other benefits such as giving life meaning, building mental growth, stimulating thinking and helping…
By: Ryan Thorson on February 26, 2025
“I’m not sure I can do this anymore…” That was my wife and I in 2018, 8 months into our journey as foster parents. We had been trained and called to foster kids in our community as a way to serve Jesus, but had no idea the complexities of caring for young children who had…
By: Jennifer Eckert on February 26, 2025
I love watching birds, especially now that my kids bought me one of those fancy feeders with a camera that sends live stream images to my phone. Seeing each one flitting in and out, pecking at seeds with a calm purpose, makes me smile. The simplicity of their actions is a peaceful backdrop to the…
By: Shela Sullivan on February 25, 2025
‘Exploring Wicked Problems: What They Are and Why They Are Important’ by Joseph Bentley and Michael Toth explores into the concept of wicked problems—complex, ill-structured, and ambiguous issues that are difficult to solve. I enjoyed reading this book for the second time. It is an easy read and practical. In some organizations, wicked problems arise when…
By: Adam Cheney on February 25, 2025
Towards the end of our time living in Kenya, my family and I were deep in the muck. Truly, we so stuck in the swampy mess that we did not even really realize where we were at. We had become a bit disoriented, struggling to keep finding our way through the mess. We were unhealthy…
By: Jeff Styer on February 24, 2025
After reading Joseph Bentley and Michael Toth, Exploring Wicked Problems: I realize that our country no longer has an immigration problem; our country has an immigration mess. In this post I will define tame and wicked problems, define a mess (it may or may not be my son’s bedroom), show why immigration is a mess,…
By: Glyn Barrett on February 24, 2025
“Exploring Wicked Problems” [1] by Bentley and Toth offers a brilliant, albeit lengthy, exploration of the distinction between “wicked and tame” [2] problems. Many leaders are likely acquainted with this concept, which is difficult to dispute at its core. The authors highlight that while some problems are clear-cut and easily addressed, others are intrinsically complex,…
By: Christy on February 24, 2025
In 1973, Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber introduced the term “wicked problem” to describe the complexities and challenges of addressing planning and social policy problems. Unlike the “tame” problems that occur in science, wicked problems lack clarity in both the problem and solution. Examples include: climate change, homelessness, border control, poverty, terrorism, and healthcare access.…
By: Noel Liemam on February 21, 2025
Introduction One review stated that the rewiring of childhood has led to a decline in physical play and independent exploration which are crucial for healthy development in our children. And Haidt called for both parents and educators to recognize this issue and to adapt in order to support the mental health of the children.[1] This…
By: Julie O'Hara on February 21, 2025
In The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt provides the research behind what I thought I already knew: devices can be dangerous. Our Story It was late 2012 when our then-sixth-grade daughter convinced us she needed a phone. Her youth pastor communicated…
By: Joel Zantingh on February 21, 2025
It was a couple of years ago that I did a quick informal survey of the prevalence of mental health diagnoses among young adults in my world. It aligned with what the Canadian Association of Mental Health reported, that “Mental illness is the leading national cause of disability among those aged 15-29, with an estimated…
By: Chad Warren on February 20, 2025
“You’re killing me, Smalls!” I grew up watching The Sandlot, which is easily one of the most oft-quoted movies among my friends and now my kids. It reminds me of the magic of a childhood spent outdoors—pick-up baseball games, daring adventures, and friendships forged through scraped knees and summer mischief. The boys in The Sandlot…
By: Debbie Owen on February 20, 2025
I put another log on the fire and closed the door to the wood stove. I waited a moment until the flames caught, sending warmth into the room. I sat down, opened The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, and picked up where I had left off the night before. Just as I started reading, my…
