Mission and the Future
Thinking about the “future of mission” (or of anything for that matter) requires imagination.
A couple of decades ago I began to collect ideas and images of the future. One of several descriptors I used to paint portraits of the future was this:The future is violent.
This seems more obvious today than it was 20 years ago, but it was obvious then too. The attacks on New York of September 11 made imagination less necessary to picture a violent future. And, given the fact that there were more terrorists attacks in 2009 than in any year since 9/11, I see no reason to project anything other than that the future is still violent.
But I’m not writing about violence today. I am hoping to provoke your imagination about the possibilities for creating a different future. It is the act of embodying this imagined future in the concreteness of “now” that makes for leading a missional life and adventure. Because of the huge space between the world “as it is” and the world as it will be, it is impossible to think about the future of our mission without thinking about the role of imagination.
The faculty of imagination is at the center of what it means to be human, and is often overlooked in our churches. In fact, more often than not, we consider the imagination the source of heresy, a playground for the the things that haunt the soul. I suggest that perhaps the imagination is also where we engage with God.
Think about it like this. The Bible is a book for the imagination and only the imaginative can begin to comprehend it. It describes a world that no one of us has ever seen. In that future world the lion lays down with the lamb, instruments of war are converted into agricultural tools, there is a harmonious community of nations, an Earth Tribe, so to speak, and God and man sit at the same table.
Imagination is the power to create space for the new, to see connections where there are none, and to act as if worlds not-yet-born are a fully functioning reality.
Religions are forged in the imagination.
Civilization is conceived in the imagination.
The future is born in the imagination.
Walt Disney is famous for the idea that “if you can dream it, you can do it.” He understood the power of the imagination. So must we. The people who follow Christ are an “imagine”-”nation”, a nation, a clan of imagineers, of seers. Like the characters in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, this nation is moved by compelling visions that are not fully realized but are fully imagined. In our traditions and in our churches we often value reason, intuition, sobriety. I think we should also value those who are inebriated with imagination that shapes the world towards the kind of future and world none of us has ever seen.
What do you think?
The art for this post is from Larry Price Art — http://www.larrypriceart.com/
Tags: All Things M, mission, missional leadership
Greg, Wow. I am so rarely accused of overestimating “Christendom”. I want to bask in that for a moment. Ok there. Thanks.
Now, as you know, I’m not an advocate of Christianity or Christendom, but of Jesus and following him. And, I know that cultural Christianity is a definite issue where you’re at…actually, where we’re all at. But here’s a question for you, Why do you think that recycling is the top priority on God’s mind for the residents of your part of the world?
Also, Why does spiritual imagination begin with a deep introspective look, as opposed to beginning wherever it wants?
After all, that’s what imaginations are good at.
God has already given us imagination, humble or not. In fact, without it we could never even begin to imagine Psalm 14.
Best…
I don’t know Alex. Forgive my cynicism but I mostly see followers of Christ as lethargic, uncaring, selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed and self-satisfied. Some do have spiritual maturity and a sense of imagination, but it strikes me that most pick and choose what they’d like to “imagine” about God.
I ride around my high-end Christian neighborhood here in 98% Christian and 99% Republican northeast Tarrant County Texas and see that the most fervent Christian leaders in my area don’t – for example – recycle at all. You can identify the homes of the president of the local Christian school and a couple of local churches by their complete lack of any semblance of social conscience. They’ve got it all figured out. God fits very neatly in the nice little package they have designed for him.
I think you grossly overestimate Christiandom. I say it’s time for some Psalm 14 kind of thinking: “There is no one who does good. The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
Spiritual imagination begins with the deep introspective look, with honesty about who each of us is as part of fallen humanity. God cannot give us His imagination until we humble ourselves to receive it.
You must live in a totally different kind of community than the one I live in. I see some imagination in the leaders of the church I attend, but the truth is that I think Christianity has mostly failed the world and people God has given into our care.
Something within me jumped at this line: “This nation is moved by dreams that are not fully realized, but that are fully imagined.”
And I though back to one of the Greatest “Imagin-eers” when he said “I Have A Dream”! It wasn’t fully realied but he cast that dream to a nation and they responded!
“imagine-nation”; absolutely great concept alex