Good news is hard to come by these days. All our news media outlets are filled with troubling stories, disturbing images, and frightening predictions. It can be very difficult to read the newspaper or watch the evening news.

And so I am delighted to offer a positive and uplifting story — one especially gratifying — as we mark Black History Month. Good news is welcome and needed, and I am happy to report that there is good news in Springfield.

Three-plus years after it was set ablaze by an arsonist, the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Presbyterian Church will reopen this summer. The fire, on Dec. 28, 2020, was a hate crime and the church community and all of Springfield were deeply shaken by the vicious attack on a beloved Black church that had a long, deep, and proud legacy in the city.

Immediately after the fire, the church’s pastor, the Rev. Terrlyn Curry Avery, and her congregants announced in steadfast and faithful terms that the church would be rebuilt — and they would, someday, welcome the community to worship in their sacred space again.

The rebuilding began, and the church slowly began to rise again, literally from the ashes. While the rebuilding proceeded (along with fundraising events, insurance claims, and countless prayer circles and lengthy building committee meetings) church members remained united and worshiped together in the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center and online.

Speaking about the trauma of the fire, the Rev. Curry Avery said, “In the face of the adversity, we are determined to rise stronger, united, and rooted in the love that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. advocated.”

And rise stronger they certainly have. A beautiful, light-filled, expansive, welcoming rebuilt church is now almost complete, and the Rev. Avery and her flock anticipate gathering in celebratory worship by summertime.

The MLKing Church community has created a video called “Rebuild MLK,” which can be viewed on their website. The video describes the vision of the rebuilt church.

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Using the tragedy of the fire as an impetus to reimagine what their church — the building and the congregation — could do in and for Springfield, the video, with inspiring words and powerful images, tells the story of the next chapter in the church’s life and explains what the church family envisions in their future.

“We want our church to be a place of worship,” the Rev. Curry Avery says in her narration of the video, “and we want it to be so much more.”

When the church reopens, it will be a place available to the wider community — welcoming young and old alike to the redesigned and expansive, multipurpose sanctuary. They intend to offer yoga classes; mentoring programs connecting youth and adults; community forums that focus on mental health issues in the Black community; exercise classes; theater productions; workshops on a range of topics; wellness programs that discuss all aspects of mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health; recovery programs for formerly incarcerated individuals; and a place that people can drop in for prayer, meditation, and to walk a labyrinth.

The video is profoundly uplifting. Reimagining, recommitting, and rebuilding, the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Presbyterian Church now stands as a tangible, powerful, and remarkable source of hope during these times of division and despair. The video makes you want to call out, “Hooray and Hallelujah! How can I get involved?” And, lucky for us, there is a way to get involved, right now!

The MLKing Church is hosting a celebratory gathering to raise the remaining funds needed to complete the rebuilding of the church, and to lift up the resiliency of the African American community. The gathering is called the first annual Agape Gala: The Called to Conquer Awards and will be held on March 2 at the Sheraton Springfield Monarch Place Hotel at 6 p.m. (tickets are available at mlkagapagala@eventbrite.com).

The celebrity host for the gala is Rolonda Watts, and three awards will be given to individuals and groups that actively contribute to social justice work in the wider community. Agape love, often called the highest form of love — lifting the deepest desire for the good of others — is the theme of the church gala.

Writing about the coming gala, the Rev. Avery has said, “The March 2nd event will be an opportunity for our community to come together. It is a celebration of our shared vision, an infusion of hope for a more peaceful and loving world, and a demonstration of our faith in our shared humanity.” She added, “By participating, you become an integral part of this journey towards healing, rebuilding, and fostering a spirit of love in the face of adversity.”

After the fire, the MLKing Church declared with conviction and power that the response to a hate crime is love. That statement took courage, strength, and faith to proclaim so boldly.

The church has been resurrected. And, in the process, a faith community has been resurrected and reinvigorated. The ripples of this rebirth will be felt throughout a city and a valley that long for examples of love and reconciliation. Bless them. And see you at the gala.

The Rev. Andrea Ayvazian, Ministerial Team, Alden Baptist Church, Springfield, is also founder and director of the Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership.