| abstract |
Placemaking is foundational to the life of a community of faith. It is a process and discipline that has been passed down through millennia as a tactic for the survival of marginalized peoples and groups. Dominant culture has claimed space as the ubiquitous, unbound, cerebral realm where one exercises complete freedom. For those not belonging to the dominant culture, they have had to do the painstaking work of carving concrete place out of this space. Making place is the work of survival, meaning making, and hospitality; and with few exceptions, this work is done primarily by wo/men.
Between May 2022 and December 2023, 20% of United Methodist congregations in the U.S. voted to disaffiliate from the denomination. At the dawn of 2023, four congregations in the Azle, Texas, area voted to disaffiliate, displacing a resilient remnant of wo/men and men who then formed a new congregation. Unified in making a place for LGBTQI+ folx to be welcomed and affirmed, Revive United Methodist Church was birthed as a place that would be open to all sexual orientations, races, and abilities. As this new church came into being, its congregation, especially its wo/men unknowingly employed the eleven principles of placemaking as set forth from the Project for Public Spaces. Following the example of biblical women like Miriam, a placemaker extraordinaire, the wo/men and men of Revive United Methodist Church have made a place of acceptance and welcome where none existed before.
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