✞ LETTERS TO 2075

A Church for 2075

Real people, real mess, real HOPE

Angel Doss
Member, RTMC • Writing in 2025

Bangalore, 2025

To the congregation of RTMC in 2075,

🌿 A Dream Begins in the Sunday School Room

Walking into the Sunday school room on the first floor of CEB Hall, sunlight streaming in so brightly that the group is already dragging chairs out of its path — laughing over the same inside joke they always start with — I find myself dreaming of the church we could become tomorrow.

There is something about that room — the way the group settles in with a kind of relieved eagerness — that makes me think about how much life happens for people long before they walk through the church gate.

It makes me dream of a Sunday shaped by real stories, not perfect ones.

A Sunday where no one feels the need to hide their week behind a practiced smile, but can settle into the room with the quiet relief of being fully seen.

A Sunday shaped by real stories, not perfect ones.

💛 The Faithfulness That Came Before Us

I write this in the year of RTMC’s 150th anniversary, and I am aware as I write that the church has been doing versions of this — quietly, imperfectly, faithfully — for a very long time.

The seniors’ fellowship.
The women’s circle.
The Sunday school teachers who showed up every week for decades.
The medical outreach at LR Nagar.
The congregation that surrounded Ruth Macwana in hospital and prayed for Saraswathi’s one-year-old.

These are not small things.

These are the reason I dare to dream what comes next.

✨ A Church That Is Open All Week

And from that bright classroom, my dream spills into the rest of the week.

I imagine a church that opens its doors wide from Monday to Saturday, not for grand events but for simple, human reasons.

A place where women wander into the seniors’ home, some carrying their daily chores along, just to sit and quietly work — quiet enough to focus, present enough to be a comfort.

A place where the smell of ginger tea drifts through the corridor, and someone is sorting through piles of twice-loved clothes for the small group down the road.

🧵 A Place Where Ordinary Things Matter

I imagine a sewing class on a Wednesday afternoon — toddlers tumbling around on mats that don’t stay straight, volunteers showing up because they genuinely want to be there.

A church where even play is unhurried, because children deserve joy that isn’t rushed.

🕊️ A Place Where People Can Be Real

I imagine recovery groups meeting quietly in a side room — people arriving with nervous steps and leaving with lighter hearts.

A church where struggles aren’t swept under the pews on Sunday morning.

A church where people can be real without fear.

A church where struggles aren’t swept under the pews.

🏠 A Safe Place for Families

I imagine construction labourers from the next lane dropping off their children at a small weekday school run by the church.

Kids arriving with mismatched slippers and school bags smelling of cement dust.

A church that becomes a safe place for families who rarely get safety anywhere else.

🌈 A Sunday That Celebrates the Whole Family of God

And I dream of a different kind of Sunday — a cultural Sunday that doesn’t divide us by language or region, but celebrates the strange, beautiful family of God that stretches across:

privilege and pain,
visibility and invisibility,
joy and sorrow.

A Sunday where difference does not become distance, but another reason to celebrate the breadth of God’s family.

🙏 A Dream That Feels Too Big

It is a big dream.

Honestly, it scares me a little.

It feels too ambitious to even write down.

But it keeps nudging me — every time I see the group in the CEB Hall classroom, or notice quiet stories sitting in the pews.

What Will RTMC Look Like in 2075?

As we celebrate 150 years of our church, I find myself thinking about 2075.

What will RTMC look like then?

Will it be braver?
Softer?
More open?
More human?

I don’t know.

But I hope — nervously, stubbornly — that we will dare to dream together.

“And maybe, if we keep dreaming long enough, this vision won’t stay a dream. It might just become our future.”

✞ WITH HOPE

With hope — nervous and stubborn,

Angel Doss
Member, Richmond Town Methodist Church • 2025