Systems Practice

Affordable housing. Systemic racism. Urban education. Refugees and migrants. These are just a few of the pressing issues that persist in Boston despite long, hard work by many people. Why?

Working with many Christians and community leaders across the city, EGC has identified some limited ways of thinking that hold back many people working for Boston’s well-being—and what we can do about it.

For example, ministries may focus too much on individual initiatives, missing the broader context of efforts in Boston. Or we may use methods that continue injustice instead of helping everyone thrive. Despite wanting to honor God and love others, our well-meaning ministries sometimes work in ways that don’t truly help, and our ministry approach may even prevent positive change or make things worse.

Over decades of ministry, EGC has found that systems thinking and practice can address these problems. ‘Systems thinking’ provides concepts and tools that expand our understanding of complex social issues. ‘Systems practice’ makes wise use of those tools to foresee and address any unintended negative consequences of our work in the community.

Systems thinking and practice are central to EGC’s approach to ministry in Boston. EGC partners with those committed to Boston’s ‘shalom’ (justice, peace, and holistic well-being). As a shalom-seeker working with EGC, you will grow in understanding the concepts and tools of systems practice and their relevance to everyday Christian ministry and social change efforts. You will gain a transformed outlook and develop effective approaches to challenge systems burdened by trauma and injustice.

In every working partnership, EGC seeks to foster cooperation with the Holy Spirit. We focus on postures and methods that align us with God’s transformative capacity. We believe God inspires wisdom and imagination and empowers us to work together in surprising ways.

Working with EGC can help you develop the spiritual awareness, heart posture, and practical skills to support life-giving social systems, so you work alongside others to help bring into reality God's vision for human thriving in Boston.

What We Do

Systems Orienting
Through training, thought partnership, and consultation, we help shalom-seekers develop systems-savvy lenses, postures, and practices so that their initiatives and efforts are ready for long-term, effective engagement in complex, dynamic systems. These offerings include:

  • Consulting: EGC provides customized training and consulting on applying systems practice to specific urban ministry situations. We help shalom-seekers who are designing or running individual initiatives to mitigate unintended negative consequences or approaches to what God is giving them to tackle and make the most of their systems-oriented application.

Systems Mapping
The Rev. David Wright, executive director of BMA TenPoint, has poignantly remarked that many of us in and around the city live in what amounts to different “movies,” as our social location, opportunities, and networks give us profoundly different experiences and vantage points into urban life. Systems mapping helps collaborative leaders recognize and merge the different movies into a more holistic picture ​​by building shared understanding of their system’s dynamics as it currently exists and behaves, revealing blindspots, building consciousness, identifying leverage, and releasing discernment and imagination for more effective praxis.  

Systems Innovation
We develop systems innovations in partnership with courageous leaders, ideating, testing, and incubating systemically oriented new ministry expressions and structures that address a gap in our collective efforts to advance shalom.

System Practice Online Community
EGC is developing an online community of practitioners interested in learning how to apply systems concepts and tools to Christian ministry and who want to share their thoughts, approaches, learnings, and experiences.

Past Projects

Youth Violence Systems Project
With funding from the Barr Foundation and working with systems expert Steve Peterson, EGC spent two years working with local community leaders, youth, gang members, and academics to understand the root causes of youth violence in Boston. Project outputs included a computer simulation, a widely cited academic paper, and a summary report. Key findings included community trauma’s key role in youth violence and the need for different parts of the system to work together to make a difference. 

The Cat and the Toaster
Published in 2010, The Cat and the Toaster: Living System Ministry in a Technological Age tells the story of how EGC learned effective ministry from the city and the language of systems thinking through friends at MIT. The book also introduces the helpful analogy of the cat and the toaster as well as the concept of Living System Ministry.

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