The Cat and the Toaster: Living System Ministry in a Technological Age

by Douglas A. Hall, Judy Hall (Contributor), Steve Daman (Contributor)

Living System Ministry is an approach to Christian ministry in the Western world that recognizes the differences between cats, the world God created, and toasters, the world we create using our technology and our capacities, limited as they are.

The church is the Body of Christ, a living system. Neighborhoods, cities, and cultures, too, are complex and interrelated living social systems. Why, then, would we try to do God's work in a church or social system using tools and methods designed for non-living systems? We do it because our culture is very organizationally-and technologically-centered. We have grown accustomed to thinking of our social contexts not as living systems, but as things we can easily measure and control.

Embracing both perspective and procedure, Living System Ministry is about doing better ministry by seeing a better picture of what exists in the total system. Like farmers, rather than technicians, we learn to be involved in and to be "in tune with" what causes fruitfulness. We never cause fruit to happen. God does! But as our work becomes better aligned with what God is already doing in his complex, living-system environment, there is an explosion of life. We discover the fruit that remains.

Writing from his forty-five years of experience as an urban ministry practitioner in Boston, Dr. Doug Hall introduces us to an approach to missions that recognizes the lead role of God's larger, living social systems as powerful engines for doing far more in our world than we can even begin to imagine.

The Cat: representing the living creations that God makes, a highly complex and thoroughly interrelated living system.

The Toaster: representing what people make, a comparatively simple constructed thing.

390 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Marco Ambriz · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's beefy and a little much to take in all at once, but it is full of insights on seeing ministry with people from an organic approach verses a mechanical approach. One of the phrases I still use today is the "Law of Unintended Negative Effects". When a leadership team decides to do something positive and missional for their church or organization, there will always be "unintended negative effects" of those who are feeling resistance to the change. That is just to be expected and it's important to navigate that with care because we are working with Living Systems and not with Toasters. Great book. Also some really Great faith filled testimonies of Doug and Judy Hall in their mission work in urban Boston.