Summer Worship Series: See Visions and Dream Dreams: Imagination & Play as Sustenance for the Journey

Assembly Summer Worship 2025

This year so far has been heavy with lament, with fear, with anger, with protest, with prophecy, and with exhaustion. More than perhaps any time in modern America, there is more opportunity to follow the Christian call to care for the vulnerable and seek justice. The bad news is so prevalent and the future so uncertain; it would be easy to run ourselves ragged and, perhaps literally, lose faith.

But the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth does not leave us to toil without hope. Instead, God’s creative, life-giving Spirit has been poured upon us all. How do we choose to incorporate her leading in our lives? Parents and educators know that the play of children is fertile ground for their learning. For decades, doctors and sociologists have been preaching the benefits of play for adults as well: laughing with friends and loved ones, wondering at the beauty of nature and the miracle of science, making and sharing art.

Imagination, both playful and prophetic, gives us the vision for a better world, for the good news to all, for Heaven on Earth. It gives us the joy to resist, to live not in response to the bad news but wholly counter to the bad news.

This summer, we will hear stories of how dreams, imagination, and play invigorate those in our community, now more than ever. We will let ourselves tap into the creative, life-giving and unpredictable Spirit of God – not to distract us from a very hard time, but to give us what we need to continue the journey and dream up a new future.