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Affordable housing and a new sanctuary rise together in Columbia City
After 16 years of a dream and promises yet to be fulfilled, Church of Hope is finally on its way to hosting a community space for churchgoers and the broader community.
By Larson McDonagh | For FāVS News
SEATTLE — The City of Seattle is currently reviewing the design structure that the Columbia City Church of Hope will soon call home. El Centro de la Raza, an advocacy program dedicated to Seattle’s Latino community, has completed construction of the Four Amigos Beloved Community affordable housing, a commercial condominium that houses 87 currently occupied units. The building will also host a childcare center and a sanctuary for the Church of Hope.
In 2010, Church of Hope developed as a new congregation, meeting at the Bethlehem Lutheran Church. However, in 2020, the congregation joined the world in meeting online, and the building where they met needed a tune-up.
“Their hope at the time that they closed was that there would be affordable housing one day on that site, as well as a new congregation,” said the Rev. Darla DeFrance, Church of Hope’s pastor.
Changing hands and keeping promises
After Bethlehem Lutheran dissolved in 2010, it deeded the property to Compass Housing Alliance on the condition that affordable housing and a new worship facility be built. El Centro de la Raza offered to purchase the property from Compass, thus retaining responsibility for the prior agreement with Bethlehem Lutheran, said Northwest Washington Synod Director of Properties Jay Edgerton.
“They deeded the land to Compass Housing Alliance with the understanding that the new development would include housing and space for a new church community,” DeFrance said in an email. “As a result, I was called by the NW WA Synod to be the mission developer for that new church, which formally organized in 2017 as Church of Hope.”
In the original space, Church of Hope made many community connections. The congregation hosted not only its own gatherings but also opened the space for other groups such as 12-step programs and Mary’s Place, an organization dedicated to supporting families experiencing homelessness.
“There aren’t enough places where people can gather and create community, and churches are really one of those few spaces that have affordable access for community groups,” DeFrance said. “Here’s a way that we’re able to have a really welcoming space for church folks, and then to build out the space, so it can be a really welcoming place for the whole neighborhood.”
El Centro has been largely responsible for the Four Amigos Beloved Community development decisions, Edgerton said.
The interior of the Church of Hope unit belongs to the Synod, and designing it for them into a place for community gathering and worship is a joint project between the Synod and the Church of Hope.
Honoring history in a modern space through art
“There’s something really beautiful about historic church spaces and sacred architecture that we don’t have the budget to recreate,” DeFrance said. “But we wanted to bring forward some representation of our faith tradition.”
The design plan is to adapt a modern space using art and historical iconography. One of the first things people will see when walking into the space is a Tree of Life sculpture integrated into the staircase railing.
The old space had a large stern, white Jesus, or, as DeFrance calls him, Manifest Destiny Jesus. She said that the image of God failed to represent other images of what people believe God to be.
“What do we see in this, what do we feel in this, what are other images of God that we want to kind of connect to as a community?” DeFrance said. “Even more important, what does this image mean to people who are not white, people who have not been to church? How is this image failing to really communicate the grace and acceptance of God?”
An artist in the community experimented with ideas for covering the window, not to distance the Church of Hope from Jesus, but to create a new narrative beyond the message conveyed by the specific image of Jesus in the window.
The artist strung up pieces of foam in the configuration of a tree in front of the window, allowing the light from the stained glass to pass through. DeFrance said this helped to offer another image from their history in a way that engages the community.
The old building also had bottle-mosaic windows made from glass bottles found in the attic. Unfortunately, over time, these windows became a safety hazard.
The Church made a Facebook post asking if there were local photographers who could document the windows. DeFrance hopes to integrate the photos as art in the new space.
“I think that DIY energy is still really strong in our congregation, and this idea of making beauty from broken things is so much a part of our spirituality too,” DeFrance said. “So we’re bringing forward some of that art.”
How building community supported the foundations of the sanctuary
After 16 years of a vision, the Church of Hope is finally beginning to come to fruition and organizers are hopeful it will open in August. Many people have been a part of the project, representing the strong community connection the church has built during its time as a congregation.
“The number of people who’ve been part of this project is really moving to me,” DeFrance said. “The building project itself has been so representative of strong community connections, and I can’t even count how many times we have just happened to know the right person for the right stage of our development.”
The Synod is asking for donations to close the final 10% funding gap before the sanctuary’s anticipated completion.
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