It’s no secret that the dawn of a new year brings new possibilities.
New hopes.
New fears.
New questions.
New endeavors and commitments.
And we are incredibly excited about the new possibilities 2023 holds for Ace in the City’s work.
Possibilities for greater collaboration, fresh imagination, and even some reinvention.
Since diving fully into the work of placemaking with churches, we have been humbled by the posture of the churches we’ve engaged with: a posture most often marked by humility and hopefulness, courage and faithfulness, even in the midst of what is perhaps the most challenging climate the American church has ever faced.
As our work progresses with these amazing churches, the year ahead looks to be marked by an exciting array of collaborative potential—
everything from consulting with a church on how it might restructure the way it manages its property
to partnering with a church in bringing new life to a massive building it is about to inhabit
to helping several other churches completely reimagine how they might open the use of their building to new missional partners.
Yet we’ve also found that the best way to approach this work isn’t by focusing on the new and discarding the old. New life and new possibilities—the kind of changes that last and are truly healthy—come about when we embrace the artistic work of understanding the beauty and goodness of our past (of our story as it has been written to this point) and connect it to that future vision.
The story of each church started, in one way or another, out of a desire to bring God’s dream of flourishing to its community. While every story takes its own unique path, full of twists and turns, we’ve found Ace in the City’s work taking us into this space of helping churches creatively move their story forward by reconnecting it with that original spark.
So that all may flourish.
Exciting things ahead, friends.
