This week our Exec met for the last time in 2022. One of the themes that kept coming up as we spent time looking ahead into 2023 was the need to refresh our property. More than just a maintenance issue, we are wanting to be very intentional about welcoming the hundreds of people who enter our property each week, so this is also about hospitality and mission.
There is a further, theological dimension, however. Each week our flower team remind us that beauty and creativity are part of our worship. There is a reason that artists and workers spent decades, sometimes centuries, producing magnificent cathedrals that pointed eloquently to the power and beauty of God. Thomas Troeger writes, “In a world filled with terrors, the heart longs for a vision of divine beauty, and when the church fails to attend to beauty, the life of faith often becomes grim and onerous. We distort the image of God in ourselves and in our understanding of God’s character, often concentrating on the power and might of God to the neglect of other divine attributes. An unimaginative and aesthetically starved faith not only diminishes God, it also diminishes us. We are no longer all that God made us to be.”
So, we don’t yet have a clear plan of how we intend to refresh our buildings and grounds, but if you have a creative bent and would like to help shape this vision, we’d love to hear from you!
There is a further, theological dimension, however. Each week our flower team remind us that beauty and creativity are part of our worship. There is a reason that artists and workers spent decades, sometimes centuries, producing magnificent cathedrals that pointed eloquently to the power and beauty of God. Thomas Troeger writes, “In a world filled with terrors, the heart longs for a vision of divine beauty, and when the church fails to attend to beauty, the life of faith often becomes grim and onerous. We distort the image of God in ourselves and in our understanding of God’s character, often concentrating on the power and might of God to the neglect of other divine attributes. An unimaginative and aesthetically starved faith not only diminishes God, it also diminishes us. We are no longer all that God made us to be.”
So, we don’t yet have a clear plan of how we intend to refresh our buildings and grounds, but if you have a creative bent and would like to help shape this vision, we’d love to hear from you!