Gospel entrepreneurship as Christian formation

I have the bad habit of reading too many books at once - and therefore not reading very quickly at all. At present, I'm reading Lesslie Newbigin's A Word in Season, James Hunter's Death of Character, Michael Hyatt's Platform, and (as of today) Desiring the Kingdom by James Smith.

One of the things that slows me down is finding so much wisdom and insight with which to interact. For example, today I came across this paragraph in Desiring the Kingdom:

“Because our hearts are oriented primarily by desire, by what we love, and because those desires are shaped and molded by the habit-forming practices in which we participate, it is the rituals and practices of the mall - the liturgies of mall and market - that shape our imaginations and how we orient ourselves to the world. Embedded in them is a common set of assumptions about the shape of human flourishing, which becomes an implicit telos, or goal, of our own desires and actions. That is, the visions of the good life embedded in these practices become surreptitiously embedded in us through our participation in the rituals and rhythms of these institutions. These quasi-liturgies effect an education of desire, a pedagogy of the heart. But if the church is complicit with this sort of formation, where could we look for an alternative education of desire?”

Smith's word 'complicit' jumped out at me in describing the 'habit-forming practices' of the market that 'shape our imaginations and how we orient ourselves to the world.' He's saying that we're doing something wrong, and that we need to 'look for an alternative education of desire.' I think that there is an even more exciting possibility.

Given the habit-forming power of the practices of participation in human culture to shape our vision of the good life and human flourishing, we need to lean into them, not away from them.

Let me explain why. Over the past two months, I have been meeting regularly with a young gospel entrepreneur who is prayerfully, thoughtfully, actively moving into "the market." He is scheming good for his neighbors in ways that proclaim and embody the gospel. Our work together has has a formative impact on me and my family. Our brainstorming sessions in my living room in which my daughter doodles in crayon on the block paper where we're mapping neighborhood assets and needs is formative.

This rhythm of life of gathering to pray, dream, and work together to create a new business that is a sign, instrument and foretaste of the kingdom is shaping our desires. It is forming in our children the assumption that the impulse of Christian participation in public life is love, not covetousness. They're learning that the fact that the market and the mall are disfigured is precisely why they need redeeming.Our formative practices of leaning into the broken world of commerce in obedience and faith is the enacted prayer, "Hallowed be your name; Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." This, I hope and trust, will shape my children's imaginations to see all the glorious possibilities of God's redemptive work in us - and in that a tiny foretaste of the consummation of redemption.