293. The Gospel of Imagination: Creativity, Culture and Discipleship with Caleb Woodbridge

Yeah, we certainly found when we did the story slam, the stories opened up conversation.

and you know loud as a way in to then having conversations with people in the pub what did you think about what they said about and i think it's great can we just carry on that imagination

yeah

through line i want to i'm going to be up front i'm going to ask you two things about imagination so you don't have to drift into the second one without we're talking about the first one first i do want to talk in a minute with you about imagination and culture And how, you know, those two things collide.

But I also want to just talk now about imagination and discipleship.

Now, we

can't separate culture from discipleship.

We know that.

We're all being discipled in culture.

But I do want to talk, in some ways, I want to talk about in church, out church.

You know, imagination within the faith community and imagination then played out outside the faith community.

So if we talk then about just imagination and discipleship, where are you seeing those theological connections

that

are just really stimulating how you think about disciple-making?

Yeah, so I would see imagination as mapping quite closely onto what the Bible calls the eyes of the heart.

Imagination is about how we see the world and how we shape the world.

It's also a way that imagination reveals our hearts and also shapes our hearts.

So it's And so let's just unpack that a little bit.

So say, for example, the way we see the world and see reality.

Tozer said that the most important thing about you is what you think about when you think about God.

And I'd say that the way we imagine God is really key to our discipleship and whether we've got a a healthy rich way of imagining God or maybe one that's somewhat reduced or distorted so for example there's a world of difference between really understanding and imagining God as in terms of a loving self-giving father versus an angry judge and there is a place for God's judgment in our understanding of God but Again, it's how we imagine that it's not just having the bare idea of of a judge, but a judge who is bringing justice and fairness and all of these things and how we put all of these images together and How we round out our images of God biblically, that's really key.

But it also relates to other things like how we see the world and whether we see the world as God, God enchanted, as full of meaning, as speaking of a good and generous creator, whether we see it as raw material stuff.

to be exploited and Malcolm Gait is wonderful just in terms of casting a good spell with his Arthurian retelling Galahad and the Grail in terms of giving us a richer way of seeing the world and that's Story, art, poetry, songs, all of these different things can help shape the way that we see God, see reality, see our neighbours, imagination as empathy, seeing our neighbours, imagining our neighbours as ourselves.

There's all these different connections.

So I think imagination isn't simply making stuff up.

Yeah, we certainly found when we did the story slam, the stories opened up conversation.

and you know loud as a way in to then having conversations with people in the pub what did you think about what they said about and i think it's great can we just carry on that imagination

yeah

through line i want to i'm going to be up front i'm going to ask you two things about imagination so you don't have to drift into the second one without we're talking about the first one first i do want to talk in a minute with you about imagination and culture And how, you know, those two things collide.

But I also want to just talk now about imagination and discipleship.

Now, we

can't separate culture from discipleship.

We know that.

We're all being discipled in culture.

But I do want to talk, in some ways, I want to talk about in church, out church.

You know, imagination within the faith community and imagination then played out outside the faith community.

So if we talk then about just imagination and discipleship, where are you seeing those theological connections

that

are just really stimulating how you think about disciple-making?

Yeah, so I would see imagination as mapping quite closely onto what the Bible calls the eyes of the heart.

Imagination is about how we see the world and how we shape the world.

It's also a way that imagination reveals our hearts and also shapes our hearts.

So it's And so let's just unpack that a little bit.

So say, for example, the way we see the world and see reality.

Tozer said that the most important thing about you is what you think about when you think about God.

And I'd say that the way we imagine God is really key to our discipleship and whether we've got a a healthy rich way of imagining God or maybe one that's somewhat reduced or distorted so for example there's a world of difference between really understanding and imagining God as in terms of a loving self-giving father versus an angry judge and there is a place for God's judgment in our understanding of God but Again, it's how we imagine that it's not just having the bare idea of of a judge, but a judge who is bringing justice and fairness and all of these things and how we put all of these images together and How we round out our images of God biblically, that's really key.

But it also relates to other things like how we see the world and whether we see the world as God, God enchanted, as full of meaning, as speaking of a good and generous creator, whether we see it as raw material stuff.

to be exploited and Malcolm Gait is wonderful just in terms of casting a good spell with his Arthurian retelling Galahad and the Grail in terms of giving us a richer way of seeing the world and that's Story, art, poetry, songs, all of these different things can help shape the way that we see God, see reality, see our neighbours, imagination as empathy, seeing our neighbours, imagining our neighbours as ourselves.

There's all these different connections.

So I think imagination isn't simply making stuff up.