Don’t Start With ‘Why’! – Webinar
Thursday, Sept 19, 3 – 4 PM CST | ZOOM
Kenda Creasy Dean is a culture-shaping author and Princeton Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture. She’s author of the groundbreaking book Almost Christian, among many others. In her new book Innovating for Love: Joining God’s Expedition Through Christian Social Innovation, she makes the cast that “starting with why” is the wrong place for Christian ministry to begin. The idea, popularized by business consultant Simon Sinek, is that if we understand someone’s purpose, we’ll be persuaded to join them. But Kenda says that what we do has more to do with what we feel than what we think. Our model and source of power for a compassion-driven, grace-drenched version of humanity is Jesus. Our vocation always involves becoming more profoundly human, becoming more like Jesus, divinely wired and earthly-born. We are not called to build better churches. We are called to be better humans who reflect God’s love.
Join us for a one-hour webinar as Kenda offers her distinctive approach to social innovation—we’re not called to build a better church; we’re called to go and tell about Who is doing a “new thing.” This webinar will leave you feeling a little bolder, a little lighter, and a little more ready to join God in the risky work of innovating for the sake of redemption in the lives of everyday people.
Kenda Creasy Dean is an ordained United Methodist pastor in the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference, and the Mary D. Synnott Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary. In addition to teaching in practical theology, education, and formation (specifically youth and young adult ministry, Christian social innovation, and theories of teaching), Dean works closely with Princeton’s Institute for Youth Ministry and the Farminary. Dean is the author of numerous books on youth, church, and culture, the best known of which include Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church (Oxford, 2010), Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church (Eerdmans, 2004), and The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry with Ron Foster (Upper Room, 1998).