An Alternative Imagination

Dave Blanchard - CEO & Co-Founder of Praxis

“The future of culture depends largely on the worldview of the next generation of entrepreneurs.”

That’s a perspective we often find ourselves sharing as we tell people about the reason we do what we do at Praxis. Dave Blanchard, in this seminal talk, shares from the conviction that entrepreneurs are culture makers, artists of a unique flavor that paint on a blank corporate canvas, which gives them an incredible platform to create new visions of the larger construct of the world. For this reason, we must approach innovation with an intentional theological, cultural, and entrepreneurial lens, so we can discover a “way to live” for each of us as creators made in the image of God, the Imago Dei.

If the culture does indeed depend on the next generation of entrepreneurs, our opportunity is to provide an Alternative Imagination of the future, a foreshadowing of the Kingdom to come.

 

HOSTING OFFLINE?

 

OPEN IN PRAYER

WATCH (23 min)

REFLECT (3-5 min)

Spend a couple minutes in silence, praying and reflecting on the videos. Ask participants to jot down questions that were raised, significant points, where they felt encouraged or challenged by the Lord, etc.

DISCUSS (50 min)

  1. How has your imagination been formed? What are the primary institutions that form the imaginations of your neighbors, friends, and colleagues?

    Alternatively, identify a part of your imagination (romance, success/failure, freedom etc) and work backwards to identify what institutions have influenced it.

  2. How is “cultural exegesis” different from market research and trend analysis?

  3. What make a good entrepreneurial idea good? (Think in terms of the venn diagram Dave showed on Theology, Culture, & Entrepreneurship.

  4. How could you apply an alternative-imagination approach to identify a renewal opportunity that the market has either ignored or failed to incentivize.

  5. Do you have one or more “cherished topics” around which you’d like to change people’s thinking? What is the shift of thinking or behavior you’d like to see?

FINISHED THIS SESSION?

PROTOTYPE (3 min)

Try one of the ideas to change people’s thinking that came up in your discussion of question #5. Let the group know how it went.

 

END IN PRAYER

INCUBATE

ADDITIONAL READINGS

Augustine: On Christian Doctrine, Book 1 Chapter 1 Section 3-8, (p 9-12)

Nigel Biggar: Good Life Reflections on What We Value Today, Ch 4 (p 46-56)

James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, Chapter 1: Homo Liturgicus: The Human Person as Lover (repeat)