Together in pursuit of God’s imagination

I am thankful to have gathered with other WCC, ACT Alliance, and other specialized ministries at the 2025 Working Together event. Over three days, we listened to one another’s work, processed the evolving nature of our contexts, made new linkages, and brainstormed future strategies. 

Through it all, here is my takeaway. This is a pivotal moment to join regularly and to once again open ourselves to the creative imagination of God. The challenges before us are more complex than any one organization or denomination can handle alone, but by coming together through God’s grace we can be more complete instruments of God’s work at this critical moment. 

Gathering for dinner our first night, we started recounting these challenges to one another: shrinking denominational resources, the ever-perpetuating harm of government isolationism (especially the US), and expressions of cruelty throughout our world. We shared how this looked in each of our contexts, and how our agencies were organizing ourselves in the face of such challenges. 

What became clear is that many agencies are tackling similar challenges; there is such an abundance of creative thought, and yet these ideas have limited space to catalyze off one another. Our adaptations are understandably being brainstormed and implemented internal to each agency, and yet there might be a more imaginative approach found by increasing our ongoing dialogue with one another.

For this reason, I found the richest conversations to be those that went like this: We recently navigated something similar. Here is what we learned. What might we learn from one another? This rhythm of conversation echoed throughout our meals, over coffee, on walks, and of course during our regular sessions.

Thus, I am left wondering today: In what ways might we keep the conversation going? How might we engage at different levels of agencies more routinely? How might we collaborate on projects based in the same regions addressing the same challenges? I wonder if through these conversations we find the hope we are seeking. 

For these words have been sticking with me, from one of our mornings together: 

“You ask me what hope is – I wonder
God gave it to help us along:
a yearning in hearts that are darkened
to action, to speech, and to song.
And just as you think it will never appear,
You find hope is singing
is singing right here.”

We have been seeking God’s hope in this time. And maybe, just maybe – we will find that there is hope expressing itself right here, right now. That through continued dialogue, we might be amazed by the creative imagination of God in our midst and in the sinews of this compassionate work. My prayer is this is true.

Music: Mads Granum 2022, Lyrics: Lisbeth Smedegaard Anderson 2021, Trans.: Edward Broadbridge 2022