Thoughts About Issues Raised in Cynthia Adcock's Eye Rolling Blog

I wrote the below thoughts as a comment and realized it was way too long to post at the bottom of Cynthia's blog, Eye Rolling and/or What?

So I'm sharing my thoughts here:

Thanks Cynthia. Your blog is making me think. This may seem like a stretch, but
when you talk about a leap, I too have thought about jumping over hurdles.
Specifically about how opportunities for change are rising out of impending
repairs, greening and rebuilding of the physical parts of our church.

I think they have much to offer our efforts in multiculturalism. For example, a
re-examination of how we use our existing space and whether it is flexible
enough to be aligned to our goals. And at the very least, the space should not hinder the manifestation of them.

What do I mean? Well, let's look at the downstairs space vs. the
upstairs office and conference room real estate. What if they swap places? I
think this idea was explored in the past, or so a long time member told me.

But perhaps we should look at the idea again:
What if the offices and conference rooms go downstairs and, then, up comes RE
with its younger generations and multicultural families, several of whom
include parents who wait in the halls during class but don't venture upstairs. Heck, the creative arts dept. is already housed down there - so there's a precedent, at least one that I know of. What we use our space for is important. It's gotta be comfortable for
staff and for the congregation. So we'd need to accommodate them if staff were to move downstairs.

Why not be radically hospital and make it effortless for our RE families to be more of a
part of church life? Those waiting in the halls will hear our worship and
undoubtedly be attracted in to the sanctuary or Fellowship Hall. The capital
campaign initiative is in prep mode with congregational conversations going on
about a number of issues that could be funded by it. The subject of adding new
space comes up in some of these conversations because of opportunities in
fixing our sinking Activity Room. And then, space needs come up because of
conversations about Reeb Hall and cost-saving additions we could make now,
piggybacked on to renovations.

I question whether the interior layout and flow of the building is flexible enough to
transform with the church. Right now I don't know. But what I do know is that
the dynamic life downstairs created by parents and kids who live
multiculturalism every day, is a great source of inspiration, energy and
differing points of view. It seems odd to me that we speak of being
multi-generational and we aspire to be multicultural but we've separated
ourselves along those lines physically in our own building. I think it's worth
taking a look at our space and how it has determined priorities, in some ways,
and whether it might actually be a deterrent to what we aspire to be.