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Letter From the President Click here to return to the Church Innovations web site. Missional Enchantment My wife and I loved reading to our children, especially at bedtime. We read to them whenever they asked or would agree to it. We read some books several times to them, including reading the Chronicles of Narnia three times with four years in between so that the girls experienced the enchantment of Narnia in very different ways. And so we experienced it differently, too. The truth be told, I was not into tales requiring Narnia’s enchantment when young; I had to grow older and wiser to be willing (able) to be enchanted by them. I borrow this image of being willing and able to be enchanted from a marvelous book about C.S. Lewis entitled The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs. Jacobs believes “Lewis’ mind was above all characterized by a willingness to be enchanted” (p.xxi). He further notes that being enchanted was not a rejection of the rational capacities, or reason, but a further engagement of them. I quite agree both about Lewis and about appropriate enchantment. I actually think that one of the most absent qualities of so many Christians, especially Christian leaders who are simply unable to see the reality of the new Missional Era (Cf. my new book We Are Here Now), is the absence of this sort of ability or willingness to be enchanted by what God is doing in the world, both quite apart from the church and uniquely and specifically in the church. Actually it may be more than an absence of this capacity to be enchanted; it may be that they are more enchanted by Christendom, especially as modern European/American culture forms and shapes their sense of reality, reason, and expectations of Christendom. Time and time again I see this enchantment of Christendom. I see the colonization of their imaginations and practical reasoning skills by a narrative that amounts to a practical atheism. These enchanted folk look into their communities and ask, “What in the hell is going on here?” The missional imagination looks at the same community and asks, “What in God’s name is going on here? Indeed, what is God up to here?” They practice a Christian imagination and wisdom that opens their lives up to expecting God to be so active and to invite them in on the mission. Church Innovations joins those who have such missional imaginations and Christian wisdom, and we do everything we can do to elicit such Christian imagination and wisdom from all of those with whom we work whether in research or consulting. I hope you get a chance to be enchanted by such a narrative this Christmas and the days of Epiphany following. I pray that you allow the Christmas story to become your story, your church’s story, and tell it and read it and sing it to whomever will listen in the hopes that they too will live within its enchantment. Peace, Pat Keifert Spring Conference Our first annual conference, Sustaining Missional Transformation, is being planned for Thursday, April 26th until midday Saturday the 28th. Mark you calendars and look at our recent e-mail for more information about the conference. |
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