Over the previous few years I have been privileged to be a part of a few writing projects thus adding ‘author’ to my resume. I thoroughly enjoy the writing process with all of its twists, turns and challenges. I believe people write books for many reasons. Some write to simply make money, while others want to position their influence in some strategic way. Still others usually resonate with both the money and influence motivations. There is another reason that is altogether idealistic but worth mentioning: a message so burns in your heart and soul that it must be shared. In other words, there is a sense of calling involved in creating a manuscript for the purpose publication. My latest writing project called ‘Reimagine: What the world would look like if God got his way’ falls in such a motivational category. Now don’t get me wrong, I hope it helps me continue to influence for the glory of God and provide a living for my family but at the end of the day I would have written Reimagine even if it didn’t accomplish those two goals. The idea is one intimately related to my own spiritual journey. It kept me up at night scribbling away in my journal hoping that by putting my thoughts down it would somehow afford me the ability to turn my brain off and sleep. I found myself inevitably drawn to the idea behind this book in my preaching, teaching and conversations. Simply put, the book is the combination of several ideas that culminate in a (hopefully) profound and life altering question. Consider the following:
- God has told a story (the Bible) that expresses his desired will for our lives.
- In that story he gave humans several gifts, one of which was imagination.
- The greatest use of this gift would be to imagine how and what it would look like if God’s desires were actualized through human obedience.
- God’s story provides a complete template by which one can use the gift of imagination (what I call a redemptive imagination) to answer the question: What would the world look like if God got his way?
Furthermore, I didn’t want to simply write a book and hope people would enjoy it and that it would impact their lives. Rather I wanted to create an initiative to resource people with application after reading the book. Therefore we would like to introduce ‘The Reimagine Initiative‘ with the launching of www.redemptiveimagination.com. Essentially this is a site that allows people to express their answer to the ‘what would the world look like if God got his way’ question by shooting a short video in which they use God’s story as a template for a redemptive imagination. My hope is that as people share, two things would happen. First, people would be encouraged from watching other people dream-cast a better world and thus become inspired to engage themselves. And second, there would be a synergy of imaginary activity leading to collaboration on reimagining a better world.
Therefore in the coming weeks I will be sharing much more concerning a redemptive imagination. For now I hope you will purchase Reimagine: What the world would look like if God got his way? at www.slustore.com and start a journey that could redirect the trajectory of your life!
