“Legitimate peripheral participation means that adolescents make real contributions to our shared life in God, even while they are still figuring out how to be part of the community of faith. As teenagers become more proficient in the church’s language… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share Image
“Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, say Smith and Denton, seems to be “colonizing many historical religious traditions and, almost without anyone noticing, converting believers in the… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share Image
“The essential mark of maturity in Christians—as in peach trees—is generativity. Mature faith bears fruit. Mature Christians are branches on which God’s love is multiplied and offered for the nourishment of others. As Jesus pointed out, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples” (John 15:8). By nurturing and offering the life-giving fruits… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share
“Foolish faith comes from the security of knowing that we live in God’s embrace, and with that knowledge comes a peculiar kind of courage. Foolish faith flies in the face of the self-fulfilling norms of consumerism and addresses issues of identity and openness, not by avoiding the cross, as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism would have us do, but by clinging to… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share
“As young people contribute to the faith community, their competence as members of that community grows; it is in doing the work of ministry… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share Image
“If teenagers lack an articulate faith, maybe it is because the faith we show them is too spineless to merit much in the way… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share Image
“What we can say with some certainty is that American young people have enormous trouble putting faith into words. It was unclear whether the young people we interviewed in the NSYR were unfamiliar with religious language or just uncomfortable using it in public (a number of youth we talked to thought talking about religion at school was illegal). The difficulty… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share
“Part of our skittishness about Christian perfection is linguistic confusion. The English word "perfect" has absorbed the Greek notion of "teleos". When the Greeks looked at a building's blueprint, they pictured the building whole and complete. They envisioned the blueprint finished down to the bathroom tile and announced, "Ah, this is perfect." The problem is that "teleos" suggests that perfection… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share
“When we downshift Christian education from the paradigm of expertise to a paradigm of love, we do not dilute the importance of rigorous theological… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share Image
“divine grace is a gift, but not one we get to keep. Christ sends us into the world as he was sent: to embody… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share Image
“We may question what we believe, but most of us are pretty clear about who we love, and who loves us. It is such… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share Image
“Faith does not mean mimicking Jesus, but participating in his self-giving love—not because we have somehow chosen to be like him, but because, incredibly,… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share Image
“With God's breath in the church we are called to exhale, but not because it's a morally good thing to do but because we… — Kenda Creasy Dean Copy Share Image
