Leisure Resurrected

As the church emerges from the impact of COVID, how will it reimagine its mission? With all the disruption COVID caused comes an opportunity for congregations. How will the local church organize itself, engage with the neighborhood and world, and offer pastoral care to a planet dealing with the significant issues heightened during COVID? Returning to old patterns of behavior is a wasted chance. A theological opportunity for the church lies in rediscovering the classical aim of leisure. The early church during the first two centuries offers us an understanding of leisure quite unique from the dominant expressions of leisure, such as Greek schole, Roman otium, and the Jewish Sabbath. By exploring early Christian practices, we can find insights about leisure for mission today. These practices include setting aside a single day of the week to worship, sharing in a common meal open to all, and, following the meal, incorporating into nonwork time care and engagement in the health and vitality of the community in the name of Jesus Christ. The followers of Jesus were consistent, if extraordinary, in meeting weekly, on the Lord’s Day, to worship, eat together, and go out into the neighborhood to live out their faith.

This third edition continues the tradition of examining how change reshapes recreation and leisure in our society, and the challenges to recreation, park, and leisure services that accompany such changes. Ideal for an issues or senior seminar course, this book also challenges every recreation, park, and leisure service professional to rethink what he or she is about.

For this new edition the book has been completely rewritten, bringing the subject up to date in line with recent developments. Key changes to the text address issues surrounding the election of a Labour Government, the National Lottery, global conditions such as the world economic climate and the Single European Market, and communication and travel advances such the Channel Tunnel. New content also covers: play, recreation, leisure and the needs of peopleleisure trends, planning and governmentthe legacy of CCT and the introduction of Best Valuemanagement, training and operational aspects of Leisure Recreation management. Leisure and Recreation Management deals with the theory of leisure studies as well as the day-to-day practicalities of managing a recreation facility, ensuring its continued success as a student textbook and a guide for the practitioner.

No single introductory book has until now captured the range of thought appropriate for scrutinizing the ambivalent idea of leisure. After analyzing key definitions, concepts and theories, Blackshaw offers his own theory of liquid leisure, which asks some demanding questions about the present and the future of the idea in people’s lives and its role in civil society.