The language of future ministry

I'm not always a big fan of Thomas Hofstadt; but I do think he has a point in his latest reflection: Post Modern Christianity: The Future of the Church and Post Modern Ministry in the 21st Century. This really resonated with me: "But we can’t understand the language of the future until we realize that the power in Virtual Reality is a metaphoric power. Whether eternal images frozen in time or living narratives moving in time, the future belongs to those who can create and communicate prophetic metaphor. ..."
In a sense that has always been true, Hofstadt's strength here is in linking it up with the metaphoric possibilities of new media and ICT. Also important is that he links up the emerging potentialities with the inherited:
"And, we commonly call Virtual Reality only 'virtual'—not really real. Of course, every art form, ritual, symbol, or metaphor is 'virtual.' And, in all of them, their hidden feelings represent something 'not there'—something beyond themselves, something not seen. Yet, like faith, they give 'substance' to their vision.5 More important, they have the power, through God’s grace, to transform us—to recreate us—even to heal us.
Why? Because they speak an incarnational language—a language that points out of the power to which it points."
I think that where I'd want to push this further is to link this insight up with the chief insights from 'Philosophy in the Flesh' (see my recommeded books in the marginal column) etc noting the embodied nature of metaphor and of the fundamentality of metaphor to language (it's more than an epiphenomenon, folks). The point being, imo, that metaphor in artistic and ritual forms is very much more powerful than worded metaphor, being more closely allied to embodied experience.