John Roberto begins his new book by stating: “What does it mean to reimagine? Dictionaries define it to ‘reinterpret imaginatively,’ ‘rethink,’ ‘imagine again or anew,’ ‘form a new conception of,’ or ‘recreate.’ Reimagining Faith Formation or the 21st Century is true to these definitions. I this book I rethink and recreate a faith formation for the twenty-first century world. In so doing, I am proposing a ‘new conception’ of faith formation that is faithful to our continuing mission of making disciples and promoting lifelong growth in faith – designed for people in the twenty-first century” (Naugatuck, CT: LifelongFaith Assocaites, 2015, 1, emphasis as in original). The book invites readers to take into account the challenges facing faith communities today and, then, to reimagine the ecosystem, models, and foundational understandings of educating in faith within our contemporary, postmodern era. The book is a valuable resource for all who are concerned about how communities educate in faith. On a broader level, the book highlights the power and potential of imagination to reshape, renew, and re-energize our understanding and practice of religious education in local church communities today.
As we prepare for the November 2015 REA Annual Conference, I recommend the book to you. It can help us to think about the potential of imagination to disrupt taken for granted understandings of religious education, make new connections between everyday life and Christian faith, and even transform the ways we think about educating in faith.