In 1971, my friend Don Gill referred me to the book Urban Dynamics by Jay W. Forrester, who is considered the founder of the social science of systems thinking. Systems thinking looks at large systems like businesses, organizations, cities, and cultures from a wide perspective, taking in overall patterns and cycles in the whole system instead of focusing on isolated fragments or single events.

The first and most basic positive contribution of systems thinking to urban ministry is that any real, long-lasting change must come from within the system. Forrester speaks of powerful “internal forces in most social systems” which contribute to “internally generated revival” (his word, not mine!)¹. This concept - change coming from within - really resonated with my Christian beliefs, and I began to talk in terms of “internal revitalization.” Forrester adds the idea of long-term as opposed to short-term responses. Further, he applies it to the city. As he puts it, the city is a “living, self-regulating system which generates its own evolution through time.”²

To Forrester, the city was a life form with its own capacity for generating change. To me, this meant that if we, as Christians, could somehow tap into and work with change within the system of the city in a way that could last over the long term – that would really be something! I began to call this “long-term internal revitalization.” Reading Forrester verified and gave language to what I had already seen – that the problems of the city can and must be met by the city itself.

With this new systemic understanding of working from the inside out, EGC has continued to work in the city over the decades to the present. Living System Ministry operates from internal dynamics; it works inside-out.

Some of the basic strategies that we have used have been to: (1) identify and understand the internal dynamics within our culture that are working both positively and negatively, (2) learn how to nurture the positive elements in the culture so that it works as a healthier social system, and (3) determine how to help Christianity contextualize to the healthy, vitally operating aligned “cat” part of the culture.

As the Holy Spirit chooses to operate within the life of individuals, he also chooses to operate within the life of living social systems. As Christians tap into and work with the internal, living forces that God, as Creator, has placed within the living system of the city, then our own work will be empowered by that same God-given energy of the living social system, and what we do will be consistent with his living system design. By doing this, we will see social systems themselves nurture the growth of Christianity.

Let’s work with the Spirit from the inside out!

1 Forrester, Urban Dynamics, 120.
2 Forrester, Urban Dynamics, 129.

Parts of blog excerpted from: The Cat & The Toaster: Living System Ministry in a Technological Age, by Douglas A. Hall with Judy Hall and Steve Daman. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010.