church: dream release risk imagine

from the book, ‘The Shaping of Things to Come’ by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch:

“We need to dream again, and to do this we must cultivate a love for imagination. Before we can do it, we need to dream it...Considered philosophically, all that a great visionary leader does is awaken and harness the dreams and visions of the members of a given community and give them deeper coherence by means of a grand vision that ties together all the ‘little visions’ of the members of the group...My task as a leader is to so articulate the vision that others are willing to embed their sense of purpose within the common vision of the community...It is this capacity to articulate a preferred future based on a common moral vision that allows people to dream again. This is true of all true apostolic leadership. And in a profound sense the leader is the key person in the release of the spiritual creativity and innovation in any setting – the catalyst for reconceptualising the mission of the church (p.188).

But imagination takes courage, as it involves risk. In fact if there were no courage, there could be no imagination. And if there were no risk, there could be no apostolic leadership, only priestly maintenance and more of the same boring stuff that is keeping people from getting in touch with that most radical and dangerous person...None other than Jesus (p.189).”