“Imagining A New World” – In times like these with multiple pandemics:  COVID-19, persistent racism and continued violence against black people, economic devastation and the persistence of poverty, ecological devastation, and the so-called “decline” of mainline and denominationalism, what does God say to the church?  How are we to be a new church prepared to shape a new world and be the reflection of God’s love and the gospel of Jesus Christ in it?  We must have the courage to imagine that new church for a new world, and give ourselves permission to change, to let go of processes and structures that  no longer serve our mission, that no longer work as we live out our call to be the reflection of God’s love.  We must also walk in freedom from fear of what will happen as we change, try new things, let other things go.  Above all, our confidence must be placed in God, who has begun this good work in us, and will be faithful to complete it, as Paul writes in Philippians 1:6.