In many ways, Ace in the City has always worked at the intersection of church and community. Having spent so many years providing direct service programming within our neighborhood, we relied heavily on the time, energy and expertise of our church partnership base, who provided immense volunteer support.
Even as we pivot our work to placemaking—of reimagining and repurposing space and how we inhabit it for the flourishing of us all—this remains true. And we believe what happens in this crossing, at this intersection of church and community, can be foundational to the health and wellbeing of our neighbors.
Whether we are working with churches in reimagining their space or with community groups and practitioners dreaming fresh expressions of neighborhood flourishing, collaboration continues to be the center of everything we do.
Collaboration // We offer our best only as we receive the best from others. Together, the whole is greater than all our parts.
Reimagining space in new ways for churches can be hard, oftentimes suffocated by the Sunday-morning boxes many churches have put themselves in. But moving from dream to delivery is even harder, with the hardest work yet having the posture to understand, grow and humbly accept new ways of how to inhabit these new spaces. Several values are catalytic to this type of movement, none more crucial than collaboration.
Churches, like community organizations and the local corner store and our homes and the park down the street, are part of a broader ecosystem—one that’s designed for our flourishing IF the parts within it are in sync and working well with each other. We hope to be one small player in the broader work of flourishing within our communities, calling us back to each other. Together, the whole is greater than all our parts.
