Search results for ""Author Ted Turnau""

What should the church's cultural witness be? Too often, it has been marked by political strong-arming or fearful withdrawal into the "Christian bubble." There is another way: creative cultural engagement, using our imaginations to plant oases in the desert, breathable spaces that refresh, challenge, and draw together Christians and non-Christians alike. Oases refresh the soul, provoke discussion, challenge assumptions, and lead the imagination to a new place. In Oasis of Imagination, Ted Turnau lays out the Biblical mandate for engaging culture, and why the imaginative path holds promise. He explores the nature of the imagination from both Scripture and nature. He asks, "What makes a Christian imagination that resonates with non-Christians different?" He explores examples of Christian creativity done well from video games to movies to music to The Lord of the Rings. He challenges the church, artist and non-artist alike, to be intentional about their own imaginative lives, how artists and non-artists can support each other, as they together engage in building bridges and being cultural ambassadors to the wider community. In-depth and wide-ranging, Oasis of Imagination equips and encourages Christians, whatever their calling, to consider how to imaginatively enter into the broader cultural conversation, beyond the culture-warring and Christian bubbles. It seeks to provoke a conversation within the church between its artists and non-artists about how best to unleash our God-given creativity to shine light into the broader culture.

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Ted Turnau introduces readers to the major themes of his in-depth Oasis of Imagination by collaborating with Ruth Naomi Floyd. Floyd brings her distinctive experience as a Christian artist to make this a practical guide that distils the "why" and "how" of embracing Christian creative cultural engagement. Why does the church need to pay more attention to the imagination? How can we, in this day and age, best enter our cultural conversations for the common good? How can the local church better support its creatives, enriching its own imaginative life and building bridges to their neighbours and the wider culture? Whether you are a Christian artist or creative yourself, or an everyday Christian searching for a path beyond the culture wars and Christian bubble, Imagination Manifesto will give you biblical foundations, practical pointers, discussion starters, and inspiration for "planting oases" in today's culture.

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