The American imagination today is distressingly sluggish. Right now, one of the essential Christian ministries in our ruined world is the recovery and exercise of the imagination.
We have a pair of mental operations, Imagination and Explanation, designed to work in tandem. Explanation pins things down so
that we can handle and use them - obey and teach, help and guide.
Imagination opens things up so that we can grow in maturity - worship and adore, exclaim and honor, follow and trust. Explanation restricts, defines and holds down; Imagination expands and lets loose.
Our technological and information-obsessed age has cut Imagination from the team. -
Under the Unpredictable Plant, Eugene Peterson pp. 171-172
Say what you will about the Emergent church, it seems to me they have attempted to re-engage the imagination of Jesus followers.
If the Emergent church could focus on re-introducing Christians to the power of the Holy Spirit as well they might really have something.