The Church after Innovation (Ministry in a Secular Age Book #5)

Questioning Our Obsession with Work, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship

Root, Andrew

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781493438358
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Ministro del culto cristiano

Outreach 2023 Resource of the Year (Church) Named One of Fifteen Important Theology Books of 2022, Englewood Review of Books Churches and their leaders have innovation fever. Innovation seems exciting--a way to enliven tired institutions, embrace creativity, and be proactive--and is a superstar of the business world. But this focus on innovation may be caused by an obsession with contemporary relevance, creativity, and entrepreneurship that inflates the self, lacks theological depth, and promises burnout. In this follow-up to Churches and the Crisis of Decline, leading practical theologian Andrew Root delves into the problems of innovation. He explores where innovation and entrepreneurship came from, shows how they break into church circles, and counters the "new imaginations" like neoliberalism and technology that hold the church captive to modernity. Root reveals the moral visions of the self that innovation and entrepreneurship deliver--they are dependent on workers (and consumers) being obsessed with their selves, which leads to significant faith-formation issues. This focus on innovation also causes us to think we need to be singularly unique instead of made alive in Christ. Root offers a return to mysticism and the poetry of Meister Eckhart as a healthier spiritual alternative. This is the fifth book in Root's Ministry in a Secular Age series.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. Only the Creative Survive
• 2. We’re All Sandwich Artists Now
• 3. Hungry, Hungry Markets
• 4. Let’s Get Extra
• 5. Leave It to Management
• 6. The Viennese Worm That Exposes the True Self
• 7. Justification by Creative Works Alone
• 8. Why You’re Not That Special but Feel the Need to Be
• 9. Standing Naked against Money
• 10. The Three Amigos of the Mystical Path
• 11. Aesthetic Epiphanies, Mad Poets, and a Humble Example of What This All Looks Like
• Index
• Back Cover