On My Mind:

Hope as an Act of Imagination

What gets me through the long, dark months of January, February, March and April is a vivid imagination. I look out at the gray, dull landscape and imagine what COULD be, what WILL be. Casually turning the pages of seed catalogs, I consider the potential of heritage vs. hybrid tomatoes, and wonder if purple carrots are worth the effort. In my dream garden, there is room for watermelons, cucumbers, and squash plants. In the garden of my imagination, there is no blight, no late May freeze, and no marauding deer. Even though I know the real garden will fall short of the dream, it still gives me hope to imagine what might be. As the saying goes, “Shoot for the moon and, if you miss, you will still land among the stars.”

For the last 18 months, The Peoples Church has been involved in its own exercise of imagination. As many of you know, we’ve had a team actively discerning and exploring the possibility of taking on some major capital improvements. There are three areas of focus in the church: Snider Social Hall, the sanctuary, and the pipe organ. The pipe organ is a well-defined project, but the social hall and the sanctuary provide us with an opportunity to dream big and imagine what the Peoples Church should and could be in the future. 

In March, we held two listening sessions where people pondered questions posed by the architects from Elevate Studio. We considered things like, “How could a renovated social hall support youth ministry?” “What technology would enhance our worship life?” “If we had a bigger chancel space, how would we use it?” It was an exciting conversation, full of hopes and dreams for the future of the church. All the ideas were shared with the architects who are now creating preliminary designs for the social hall and the sanctuary.

Once we have these drawings, we plan to share them with the whole congregation as part of a series of conversations about these potential capital projects. Everyone will have a chance to ask questions, get a clear sense of the scope, scale and cost of the work, and imagine how this might transform the church. This will lead to a congregational meeting and vote on whether we feel called by God to take on the first project (Snider Social Hall). The exact dates and times for these meetings depends on when the architect comes back with the drawings. It is an exciting time to be the church!

But the part of this process that has brought me the most joy is dreaming about the fourth area of focus – an external outreach project. From the beginning of our conversations about capital improvements, we’ve been clear that we do not want to simply take care of ourselves. What has always defined Peoples Church is our commitment to care for others. So, in addition to imagining how we might improve our facility, we’ve spent time dreaming about how we could make the greater Lansing community a better place. After careful, considered conversations, we have identified the project that we feel will have the greatest impact. Want to know more? It will be part of our series of presentations once we get the architectural renderings!

It is fun to imagine what might be possible – in my garden and at Peoples Church. The truth is we likely won’t achieve everything we dream of, but it is in the dreaming that hope takes shape. My prayer is that God will lead us boldly forward to serve in Christ’s name.

Yours faithfully,
-Rev. Dr. Shawnthea Monroe