Note: From, Missional Imagination: Preparation for Kingdom Innovation (Orbis Books, 2026). Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Citations have been omitted.
Theologian Kevin Vanhoozer warns contemporary believers, “Disciples must beware of having their imaginations taken captive or being put to sleep.” Referring to C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, Vanhoozer continues, “Many of Screwtape’s strategies have to do with capturing the disciple’s imagination. If you can control the metaphors and stories people live by, you’ve got them.” [“In Bright Shadow,” plenary address at The Romantic Rationalist conference, September 28, 2013]
He is pointing out that contemporary secular society has often captured our imagination such that we no longer ponder the stories and metaphors of the mission of God (missio Dei); instead, we are captive to a secular imagination. Even worse, the comforts of an affluent society have dulled our dreams about the kingdom of God, along with the excitement of God’s invitation for us to participate in it. At times, churches can succumb to this malaise in missional imagination when they make their own self-enlargement or bare survival their primary task. Vanhoozer sums up the contemporary situation by proclaiming, “We’re suffering from imaginative malnutrition.” This lack of missional imagination is a root issue influencing the decline in the church and mission today. So how did we get to the point where we are suffering from a lack of missional imagination?
Recognizing the Prevalence of Secular Imagination
Anthropologist E. T. Hall noted, “Culture hides more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants.” [The Silent Language, p. 29-30] In essence, our cultural environment often conceals aspects of reality that we remain unaware of, to the extent that our perception is clouded by the unconscious biases shaped by our cultural lens. In contemporary society, secularism has so deeply captured our imaginations that it has eclipsed our missional imagination—without us even being aware of it.
For philosopher Charles Taylor, the phrase “social imaginary” can helpfully describe how changes in contemporary society are more than just institutional or chronological. In our secular age, we have moved away from intuitions and assumptions shaped by religion and replaced them with those of secular society.
What to Do When the Wood Is Evil
A personal story may help explain this better. I am a professional civil engineer and have built several homes (and even deluxe tree houses). In the United States, the design and construction process is clear: meet with a client, draw the plans, get the permit, and start to build. After construction is complete, an inspector walks through the building and then provides a permit stating that the house is ready for occupancy. The home building process seems rather straightforward. Then I lived in a village in Ghana, West Africa.
After living in Ghana for three years, we started constructing a house in the village of Fumbisi. I quickly learned that the steps to building a home were much different than in the United States. First, we met with the church leaders and did a prayer walk around the town to determine the best spot to build. Once we agreed on a location, we brought the nearby landowner gifts. Next, we brought gifts to the local chief and had a conversation with him about our intentions to build a house and live in the village. The selection of the gifts required careful consideration and discussion with others who knew the recipients well. Once the nearby landowner and chief agreed, we were set to move forward with breaking ground.
Before the first shovel penetrated the earth, we held a ceremony to pray and reflect on a message from Naawen Wani, the Bible. We dedicated the ground to God and asked for his blessing on this project. Late one night, after months of working on the house, a huge storm destroyed a portion of a wall. The nearby landowner arose before the sun arose to visit a bano (local diviner) in order to determine the cause of this accident. The bano explained that the wall fell because the window frames in the wall were made of evil wood. He recommended that we burn the window frames and make new ones. After conferring with the church, we replied to the nearby landowner with an alternative solution. We suggested that we pray to Naawen and ask him to cleanse this wood. We explained that yes, it was true that evil has entered the world, but the creator God, Naawen, has provided a remedy to the problem of evil. It is Naawen’s power, and not the fire, that can cleanse the wood of any evil.
The nearby landowner agreed and joined us in prayer. We continued with the building process without any further incidents. At the conclusion of the house construction, we invited all our neighbors and church members for a dedication ceremony. We first shared a large meal of goat stew, and then we thanked Naawen for the successful completion of the home and placed the house into Naawen’s hands. At the conclusion of the ceremony, we recalled the story of when the wall fell. The crowd then laid hands on the building, anointed it with oil, and asked Naawen to occupy the house we built. We proclaimed Naawen as owner and protector of the house; therefore, any evil forces attempting to disturb the occupants of this house would need to submit to Naawen. Local believers then placed a sign over the door from the words of Naawen’s son Yezu, “My house shall be a house of prayer for all the nations.” Of course, this was followed by drumming and dancing, like any respectable celebration in the village. Once these events were concluded, it was now assumed that the house was ready for occupancy.
The scene in this Ghanaian village describes what Charles Taylor has termed an “enchanted society,” where it is naturally assumed that unseen spiritual forces are at work that affect the affairs of this world. Jesus entered into an enchanted society and engaged those powers fearlessly. The story above describes how a Ghanaian church employed a missional imagination to make meaning of the local events and describe God’s mission amid them.
Compare this to the US context, where secular assumptions guide the building process. There are simply civil laws to obey and engineering design/construction practices to follow. Without any second thoughts, engineers, landowners, local officials, and even the local church have bought into a secular imagination by following a secular building process. This is not to say that the US process is wrong. It is efficient, effective, and necessary to maintain quality and safety standards at scale. Yet it lacks a missional imagination.
A missional imagination could prompt us, though, to consider how God is at work within our standardized, cultural procedures for construction. For example, our missional imagination could compel us to walk the streets of a future neighborhood and pray for our new home’s location, along with our new neighbors. This missional imagination could also envision opportunities during difficulties in the building process to engage with the tradespeople (or neighbors) on conversations about God. And finally, we could invite friends, family, church members, and neighbors for a housewarming celebration that involves prayer to dedicate our new home to God. The question is, how can we approach the way things are done and then envision new possibilities to reveal the kingdom of heaven on earth?
This building construction analogy is also relevant in the church. When the church experiences decline, as is often the case in the Global North today, then quick, secular solutions are often presented: add this marketing program, apply this innovation solution, or use this tactic from business or innovation literature. Karen Swallow Prior astutely recognizes that “today’s entrepreneurs and business leaders fill the roles once held by prophets, priests, and poets!” [The Evangelical Imagination, p. 211] While these solutions are not wrong in themselves, they do not address the source of the issue. Andrew Root recommends, “We should be tossing and turning, asking, ‘How can we help our people encounter the living God in a secular age that blinds them to anything beyond the here and now?’” [Andrew Root and Blair D. Bertrand, When Church Stops Working, p. 89] To rescue us from a secular imagination, we need to cultivate a missional imagination first. This will help us to sense the same things as others but envision God’s bigger picture—possibilities toward the mission of God that reveal the kingdom of heaven on earth.
This is particularly important if you are working in a cross-cultural environment, whether that is in a foreign country or in your homeland. Without a missional imagination, people often defer to their home culture by assuming, “If it worked at home, then it must work just as well here.” This ethnocentrism is hard to overcome, which often leads to cultural blunders in mission. By cultivating a missional imagination first, you are better prepared to step back and envision other possibilities in the bigger picture before responding with a knee-jerk reaction.
Excerpt from W. Jay Moon, Missional Imagination: Preparation for Kingdom Innovation (Orbis Books, 2026).
W. Jay Moon, professor of evangelism and church planting, Asbury Theological Seminary
