Innovating for Love with Rev. Dr. Kenda Creasy Dean

Why do we innovate? The goal is never innovation itself. As Rev. Dr. Kenda Creasy Dean says, “The goal is always loving people well.” This conversation is packed with insight and wisdom that gets to the heart of why innovation matters. We often feel pressure to innovate in big ways that make things bigger, faster, stronger but Kendra reminds us that the innovation present in the incarnation was smaller, slower, and more vulnerable. How can we cultivate a balance between prayerfully listening and holy impatience so that we meet people where they are and love them well? This conversation ignited our imagination for innovation in ministry–we can’t wait for you to hear it!

Quotations

“We know we’re supposed to love our neighbor, but we don’t always know how to love well.” (8:29)

“Social innovation is a way of making change that keeps human relationships at the center. We are creating new ways to relate to one another that are helpful and life giving and dignity restoring.” (11:38)

“We don’t have to go out and look for people who need ministry. We just look around and figure out how God has called us to be Christ’s envoys in that setting.” (13:49)

 “We don’t want to make our goal innovation. We want to make our goal loving people well.” (16:03)

“We often think about innovation as helping things get bigger, faster, and stronger. But in the incarnation, God got more limited. God got smaller, slower, and more vulnerable.” (25:18)

“The innovation we are behind is about slowing things down, breaking things apart, making people more human and vulnerable.” (25:26)

“The point is to disrupt and to re-enter our large systems with the perspective of love. There’s nothing more disruptive than sacrificial love.” (27:45)

“There's nothing that gives me more hope than the young leaders who are out there. They have holy impatience in spades. They will make a hundred mistakes. They will jump the gun, and they will be eager and in their own way.  They are completely smitten with God and with the people who God has put on their path. It's really hard not to be hopeful when you get to work with young leaders.” (38:36)

We discuss:

• Owen Ross shares what he means by “every church planting” (4:43)

• Kenda Creasy Dean on the point of innovation (10:27)

• Where the focus of the church needs to be (14:02)

• How innovation is connected with loving people well (17:30)

• The two things Kenda is hearing from leaders in the church right now (18:42)

• The role of connection and permission in innovation (21:18)

• Leading ministry that is responsive to the Spirit (22:32)

• Innovation that is centered in relationships and vulnerability (25:22)

• Learning to prayerfully listen (30:57)

• Discerning the difference God is calling us to make (33:44)

• Where Kenda draws the most hope (38:37)

About Kenda Creasy Dean

Kenda Creasy Dean is the Mary D. Synnott Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary and an ordained United Methodist pastor in the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference. In addition to teaching in practical theology, education, and formation, 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 includes Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church,  Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church Eerdmans, and The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry with Ron Foster Upper Room, 1998).

Kenda has directed numerous grants on youth, innovation, and the church, including The Zoe Project (2017-2021), and was co-director with Harold Masback of The Joy and Adolescent Faith and Flourishing Project through Yale’s Center for Faith and Culture. In 2013, she co-founded Ministry Incubators, Inc., an educational and consulting group that supports Christian social innovation and entrepreneurial ministries. A graduate of Wesley Theological Seminary, she served as a pastor in Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey and as a campus minister in suburban Washington, D.C. before receiving her PhD from Princeton Seminary in 1997.

Show Notes

Kenda Creasy Dean is the Mary D. Synnott Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary and an ordained United Methodist pastor in the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference. In addition to teaching in practical theology, education, and formation, 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 includes Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church.

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