Ian first discovered Pete's work through his 2018 Harvard commencement speech that is just so incredibly thought provoking, so we feel very honored that he was willing to sit down and chat with us for this episode! As a staff, we've been sitting with the way Pete speaks to commitment for a little while now, and his points only become more convicting with time. There are so many gems to unpack in here!

To learn more about Pete's many projects, check out his website at petedavis.org. His recent undertakings include a book that we speak to throughout the episode, Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing, that we 100% recommend and you can also read more about at his website here.  Additionally, he has co-directed a film with his sister Rebecca Davis that has premiered at all sorts of film festivals and is called Join or Die. Based around similar concepts, the film centers around the work of Robert Putnam whose groundbreaking book Bowling Alone we at The Neighboring Movement frequently reference. Learn more about the film at joinordie.film!

Darla won Missouri's Good Neighbor Week Top Acts of Neighboring Award in 2023, and she's also a prolific writer, writing many books and blogs. She has so much wisdom to share with us! So, you can imagine our excitement when she reached out regarding our podcast, and we were so thrilled to record this episode with her.

Darla is a person of faith, so in this episode, there are a few references to the ways in which her Christian faith influences her neighboring. And, at the time this episode was recorded, Darla's newest book was not yet released, but we're so happy to announce that it's out and available now! You can find and purchase Brighten the Corner Where You Are...Mastering the Art of Being a Good Neighbor here.

Finally, there are so many ways to connect with Darla! She has a blog called "Darla's Dash of Salty Grace", which is the website she mentions in the episode. You can find this here! She's also very active on social media under her name, or you can email her at dnoblewrites@yahoo.com.

Enjoy this fun and insightful episode!

Throughout his years of community-building work, Kent has gotten up to all kinds of shenanigans, including cofounding entities like the Eden Center for Regenerative Culture and the Luke 10 Community. The work has also led him to the practice of sociocracy, a form of social governance in which everyone plays a role and collaborates together in order to reach decisions to which everyone consents and that are "good enough for now and safe enough to try". In the episode, both Kent and Ian discuss this form of governance further and how they see it relating to their own work contexts.

Because Kent's faith greatly contributes to his passion for community, this episode in particular contains in-depth discussion of topics related to Christian faith. This being said, regardless of faith background or religious tradition, we hope you find this episode a helpful and wisdom-giving one; we certainly have!

To learn more about the Eden Community and the Eden Fellows, click here.

To learn more about the Eden Center, click here.

And, for some resources on sociocracy, click here and here!

In this episode, Karen documents how neighboring became such a huge part of her life and daily practice. One of our SoCe neighbors, Karen participated in our Community Animator Network program (learn more about this here!) and then proceeded to begin very intentional neighboring right where she lives, along with dreaming about how to help revitalize a neighborhood park across the street from her house. Every single one of her stories is so inspiring, and Karen is one of those people who is wholeheartedly committed to the wellbeing of her neighborhood and taking real steps in order to create that very wellbeing.

For those with or without the experience of intentional neighboring, we hope this episode proves encouraging and insightful for you! Karen is nonstop and has so much wisdom to share from all of her passionate neighboring work.

A neighbor-led organization, the Hub is a wonderfully diverse gathering space in the neighborhood, providing resources such as a community garden, community market, and clothing closet - all through the lens of abcd. The truly relational work being done there is so incredible, so we can't wait to share this amazing episode with you all!

Conducted by co-founder Catherine, this interview walks through the history of the Hub, the way their programming matches neighborhood gifts with gaps, and the way that individual neighbors are both mobilized and celebrated. For anyone who's interested in how asset-based work might tangibly look in the context of a neighborhood, or how to curate a more asset-based space, this is an episode you won't want to miss!

Click here to visit the Hub's website and learn more!

As this conversation is a continuation of our first episode with Joseph titled "Joseph Rathinam (Part 1): Neighborocracy- Global Governance From Below", you will definitely want to tune into that discussion first, if you have not done so already, where we introduce neighborocracy and Joseph as a key practitioner of the form of governance. In today's episode, Joseph continues that conversation by making a case for the practice of neighborocracy in America and by sharing incredibly powerful stories around some of what neighborocracy has accomplished across the globe.

Once again, if you're looking for further connection, you can find Joseph and key resources from the movement at https://ncnworld.org/.

And, here are some helpful articles:

Child-led governance builds a sustainable world:

https://www.theearthandi.org/post/child-led-governance-builds-a-sustainable-world

Children's Parliaments and Sociocracy: https://www.sociocracyforall.org/childrens-parliaments-sociocracy-case-study/

A great interview with Joseph on Neighborocracy: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-qkwv9-133d647

Joseph is a wealth of knowledge, experience, and stories, so these will be longer episodes! But you will definitely want to stick around 'till the end of this one! You can find Joseph and key resources from the movement at https://ncnworld.org/.

Helpful articles:

Child-led governance builds a sustainable world:

https://www.theearthandi.org/post/child-led-governance-builds-a-sustainable-world

Children's Parliaments and Sociocracy: https://www.sociocracyforall.org/childrens-parliaments-sociocracy-case-study/

A great interview with Joseph on Neighborocracy: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-qkwv9-133d647

By consulting gigs, we mean that Seth consults for entities like the World Bank and U.S. State Department, so we're very appreciative that he gave us some of his time! His work is absolutely fascinating, which you'll hear about in this episode, and it's telling that a person like him is now arriving at neighborhoods as a focal point of his work...the larger neighboring movement is real, folks!

Aside from his consulting work, Seth is also an author, and his newest book Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society, One Zip Code At A Time just came out today! This episode is based around our host, Adam, reading the book and dialoguing with Seth about it, so we encourage you to go check it out here!

To learn more about Seth's work, visit his website here. Enjoy this amazing episode!

In this episode, Ian and Samantha cover both the incredible stories of hope coming from the region governed by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, colloquially known as "Rojava," and the realities of war. Most of the episode is spent painting the picture of how the "Rojava Revolution" has made neighbors living on their blocks the most important political actors and imagining how Western countries might take neighboring farther to reimagine governance.

Samantha works for the Rojava Information Center, the best resource connecting international media outlets to live updates from on-the-ground. The best source for news, analysis, and explanations of the system is their website.

Ian also posted a blog on The Neighboring Movement website that goes much more in-depth into the context behind the Rojava Revolution. In 2018, he also made a documentary on the system of neighbor-powered direct democracy in North and East Syria. You can check that out here.

Finally, if you want to help the people of NES in their struggle, see the above blog post.

It was such a joy to interview Majora for the podcast, and we are so appreciative that she said yes. With countless accolades to her name, and so many projects she is always taking on, she could have been doing anything else, so we were so excited to get a chance to sit down with her and share her wisdom with you all!

Born, raised, and still living in the South Bronx, Majora has been championing her low-status community her entire life. Now, she's at the forefront of incredibly massive and innovative neighborhood development projects that are not predatory or gross but instead are neighbor-driven and give neighbors a slice of both the communal and economic benefits. Her work is so so inspiring, and as a nonprofit that is also now starting to dip its toes into economic development in our neighborhood - and attempting to do so in a way that is not harmful to, but instead happily rooted within, the identity of the neighborhood - we cannot get enough.

The subtitle of Majora Carter's 2022 book Reclaiming Your Community, also quoted on a wall at the Smithsonian Museum of African-American History and Culture in DC, says it all: "You don't have to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one." Enjoy this powerful episode!

And, to learn more about Majora's work, check out the links below:

• Majora's 2022 book Reclaiming Your Community: You Don't Have To Move Out Of Your Neighborhood To Live In A Better One
• Majora's website
• Majora's projects
• Majora's Instagram
• Majora's LinkedIn

Nate Regier, PhD, is the CEO and founding owner of Next Element Consulting, a global leadership consulting and training firm helping build cultures of compassionate accountability. Dr. Regier is a former practicing psychologist and expert in social-emotional intelligence, interpersonal communication, conflict skills, and leadership. Recognized as a Top 100 keynote speaker, he is a Process Communication Model® Certifying Master Trainer. Nate is the author of four books: Beyond Drama; Conflict without Casualties; Seeing People Through; and his newest book, Compassionate Accountability. He hosts a podcast called “On Compassion with Dr. Nate,” writes a weekly blog, contributes to multiple industry publications, and is a regular guest on podcasts.

To check out and purchase Dr. Regier's newest book, click here. Or, to see what all Next Element is up to, visit their website here! Finally, to get in touch with Dr. Regier and his team, email them here.

Amongst so much more, Ian is an incredibly kind, thoughtful, and intentional person. Conversations with him tend to end up around deeper subjects, and he has a true gift for drawing out a person's giftedness! As you hear in this episode, Ian has been very intentionally practicing neighboring for many years now and also brings with him so much organizing wisdom. Whether with folks on Zoom in different countries, or on his own block, Ian is truly committed to the neighboring life, and it's so inspiring to hear his many neighboring stories.

We hope you enjoy this fun episode in which we introduce Ian to you all, and we also hope you can meet him some day soon! To learn more about the Good Neighbor Experiment and our faith-based organizing work Ian is helming, click here.

In short,  Elizabeth is the director of the Community Animator Network (or CAN), in which we hire folks from various communities, train them in the principles of asset-based community development, and then companion them in their organizing work within their individual communities. You can learn more about CAN here! Melissa, Emily, and Eric are three neighbors from a neighborhood in Austin, Texas, three of our community animators, and neighboring rockstars! We have been so honored to journey alongside them as they experiment with neighboring in their own context.

So, we were super excited for the chance to sit down with them on the indoor front porch and interview them about their recent neighboring efforts. This episode is the second part of a two-part conversation, so if you have not yet tuned into "Texas Neighboring (Part 1): Good Neighbor Fest", we would encourage you to do so now. As always, thanks for listening, and happy neighboring!

And, don't forget to check out the work of Emily and Eric's nonprofit We're All Neighbors at: www.wereallneighbors.org! They're doing such incredible work!

In short,  Elizabeth is the director of the Community Animator Network (or CAN), in which we hire folks from various communities, train them in the principles of asset-based community development, and then companion them in their organizing work within their individual communities. You can learn more about CAN here! Melissa, Emily, and Eric are three neighbors from a neighborhood in Austin, Texas, three of our community animators, and neighboring rockstars! We have been so honored to journey alongside them as they experiment with neighboring in their own context.

So, we were super excited for the chance to sit down with them on the indoor front porch and interview them about their recent neighboring efforts. In this first episode, we dive deep on their recent neighboring mega-event: Good Neighbor Fest. There's so much neighboring wisdom in this episode, so we're very excited to share it with you all. Enjoy!

And, be sure to check out the work of Emily and Eric's nonprofit We're All Neighbors at: www.wereallneighbors.org!

In this episode, hosts Aileen Rueda-DaCosta, Adam Barlow-Thompson, and Kristopher Swanson give some updates on how the podcast will look moving forward, plus what our nonprofit as a whole is looking towards in the coming year. One of the updates is that - perhaps unsurprising to some after our long break - we will from here on out be releasing episodes irregularly. Because things are really busy here at the moment (in the best way, too!), and because we desire to put out episodes as the conversations naturally come up between us and our colleagues, we are moving to this system of sporadic release. If you've been listening for a long time, thank you, and you will know that this has always slightly been our release style anyway; we are now seeking to formalize this and simply put out content as the conversations spring up. As ever, we hope the content will be helpful and encouraging to you in your neighboring experiments.

Once more, thank you so much again for being a loyal listener and sticking with us, even as we adjust and pivot. We really appreciate you and your support. Happy neighboring!

Young Latino Professionals of Wichita (or YLPW) was started in 2018 and "aims to create and leverage an entire network of Latinos to positively influence our community". As you'll discover in this interview, their work is so grounded upon relationship and connecting, and it's truly wonderful to see the amazing impact - and growth - they've had in the Wichita community over a period of only 4 years. Cecilia and Danny are both leaders within the group, and they have so much wisdom and insight around leading in these kinds of community spaces in an asset-based way. We're so excited to share this episode with you all!

You'll learn so much about YLPW in the midst of this interview, but to learn even more, check out their website here! And, to get more details about their Art After Hours event mentioned in the episode, check out their Instagram here!

We hope you enjoy this episode, and to sign up for our emailed, weekly neighboring tips, scroll to the bottom of our home page at https://neighboringmovement.org/.

In this series - which we can attest is exponentially more thought-out than pretty much all of our other staff episodes - Elizabeth and Maddie walk listeners through their personal journeys of how they arrived at The Neighboring Movement. These episodes are, in many ways, deeply personal, so we thank Elizabeth and Maddie for their willingness to share their stories with us and our audience.

It goes without saying, but as this is the final episode of a five-part series, we would encourage you to listen to Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 first, as the content of Elizabeth and Maddie's episodes follows a chronological order. Within this series finale, the two hosts discuss the moments immediately following their final decisions, how they felt after leaving their respective toxic places, and the wisdom they now carry into their next phases of life and have to share with us all. We hope you enjoy this final episode, and we would love to hear your feedback. As always, thank you for listening, and happy neighboring within!

In this series - which we can attest is exponentially more thought-out than pretty much all of our other staff episodes - Elizabeth and Maddie walk listeners through their personal journeys of how they arrived at The Neighboring Movement. These episodes are, in many ways, deeply personal, so we thank Elizabeth and Maddie for their willingness to share their stories with us and our audience.

It goes without saying, but as this episode is Part 4 within the series, we would encourage you to listen to Parts 1, 2, and 3 first, as the content of Elizabeth and Maddie's episodes follows a chronological order. Within this fourth episode, the two hosts discuss how they entered some final meetings in their respective toxic places and the narratives they experienced as a part of this. Enjoy, and stay tuned for next week's series finale!

In this series - which we can attest is exponentially more thought-out than pretty much all of our other staff episodes - Elizabeth and Maddie walk listeners through their personal journeys of how they arrived at The Neighboring Movement. These episodes are, in many ways, deeply personal, so we thank Elizabeth and Maddie for their willingness to share their stories with us and our audience.

It goes without saying, but as this episode is Part 3 within the series, we would encourage you to listen to Parts 1 and 2 first, as the content of Elizabeth and Maddie's episodes follows a chronological order. Within this third episode, the two hosts discuss how they began taking action within each of their respective situations, doing so in a way in which they were able to examine their values. As always, stay tuned for next week's Part 4, and enjoy!

In this series - which we can attest is exponentially more thought-out than pretty much all of our other staff episodes - Elizabeth and Maddie walk listeners through their personal journeys of how they arrived at The Neighboring Movement. These episodes are, in many ways, deeply personal, so we thank Elizabeth and Maddie for their willingness to share their stories with us and our audience.

It goes without saying, but as this episode is Part 2 within the series, we would encourage you to listen to Part 1 first, as the content of Elizabeth and Maddie's episodes follows a chronological order. Within this second episode, the two hosts discuss their processes of reflection as they began to ponder leaving their respective toxic places. As always, stay tuned for next week's Part 3!

In this series - which we can attest is exponentially more thought-out than pretty much all of our other staff episodes - Elizabeth and Maddie walk listeners through their personal journeys of how they arrived at The Neighboring Movement. These episodes are, in many ways, deeply personal, so we thank Elizabeth and Maddie for their willingness to share their stories with us and our audience.

For this first episode, Elizabeth and Maddie examine the first segments of each of their journeys of leaving toxic places. In their words, they're "spilling some tea"! We hope you enjoy this first episode of the series, and stay tuned for next week's Part 2!

Doughnut Economics, you say? That's right, Doughnut Economics! This fun name describes an idea that was first coined and written about by economist Kate Raworth and which essentially outlines how humanity might thrive in this modern era - reimagining economies in which everyone's basic needs are met while also respecting the beauty and boundaries of the planet we call home. And yes, all of this is symbolized by none other than a doughnut! Tune in to the episode to hear Rob describe this fascinating concept and how it intersects with community development.

To learn more about Rob's work and Doughnut Economics, visit the Doughnut Economics Action Lab's website here. You can also visit Kate Raworth's website here to learn more about her work and purchase the Doughnut Economics book.

Enjoy!

"Relational organizing?", you might ask. Relational organizing! It's the amazing way in which the work of our nonprofits intersect. In short, relational organizing is a fancy term for getting things done through the power of your pre-existing network of relationships. In the voting world, this looks like encouraging your family, friends, and neighbors to vote - the idea being that they are way more likely to do so if someone they know is encouraging them to, rather than a complete stranger. This is the work of The Voter Network, an arm of The Mainstream Coalition, where Lindsay is Associate Director. Tune in to the episode to hear more about this work...and maybe get intrigued enough to take part in it!

To learn more about the work of The Voter Network, visit their website here. And, for any Kansans out there listening, to join our Neighboring Movement team on Voter To Voter, click here!

As host Adam names in this episode, if you've been in the ABCD (asset-based community development) world for long, Howard's name is gonna crop up! He has been experimenting with various neighboring and ABCD practices for years, and he is also at the helm of this work within a city with incredible neighboring infrastructure. In this episode, Howard dives deep into how this work looks on the ground in Edmonton and also other contexts, and it's jam packed with resources, stories, and learnings. We are so very excited to share this one with you all, and we hope you enjoy!

And, to learn more about Howard's work and the Abundant Communities Initiative, visit Edmonton's city website here.

Amongst so much more, Jennifer is an extremely bubbly individual with a deep passion for her community and boundless energy to connect. In the conversation, she talks with host Adam about how she lives into this personality in the midst of her work and the theories and practices that form the backbone of her organization. Listeners, you're in for such a treat! ICT SOS is doing such amazing connecting work in our community, and it's a joy to hear Jennifer talk about the reasons why and ways in which they do this. 

To learn more about ICT SOS, visit their website here! We would also encourage you to consider either volunteering for them or donating towards a special initiative they have coming up, both of which you can hear more about in the episode. To investigate what volunteering might look like, click here, and to donate, click here. You can also learn more about the initiative they have coming up here. Finally, they also have an app! You can download it from either the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, and the links to both of these can be found here!

Enjoy the episode!

Amongst so much more, Brandon possesses a deep passion for the intersection of spirituality and social justice, contemplation and activism. Along with this, his love for the church and yet desire to hold it accountable has led him to pursue efforts in decolonizing new and existing faith communities. In the midst of this episode, Brandon explores each of these various topics and the work that is at the forefront of his mind right now, and it's all so very beautiful and important! We are so pumped to share this episode with you all. 

To learn more about the Good Neighbor Movement, click here. To learn more about the Liberating Church Project, click here. And, spoiler alert, Brandon has a new book out that is discussed in the episode - check it out and purchase it here!

Once again, as Brandon is a pastor and doing work with faith communities, we preface this episode with a disclaimer that it contains discussion of spiritual topics, specifically around Christian spirituality. Though this is the case, we believe this episode will be helpful and powerful regardless of your relationship to spirituality and Christian spirituality. Enjoy!

Leaning into both experimentation with neighboring and work upon local social justice issues, Valecia and her church have been helping organize various neighborhood events in collaboration with the neighbors around their church. These events have been creative and wildly successful, and it's such a joy to witness the church live into their new vision statement that revolves around neighboring. We can't wait to see where they go next! In this episode, Valecia gives us a peak into that work while sharing how she arrived at this place and her theories around the importance of these efforts. 

As one final note, this episode - like some of our others - revolves around a discussion of spirituality, most particularly Christian spirituality. As Valecia pastors a United Methodist Church, this tradition's language is reflected in the conversation. This being said, we hope this episode is thought-provoking for you, regardless of your faith tradition or relation to spirituality. We hope you enjoy!

Among so much more, Aileen is an incredibly kind-hearted, justice-oriented, and honest person. A mom with all kinds of job experience and a deep passion for storytelling, she has brought her creative vision to our work, and we are so honored and grateful! It has been such a joy to have Aileen join our staff, and since she started at the beginning of the year, she's been completely transforming our website, social media, email communications, etc. It's been amazing to witness, and we are so excited for her to be on the podcast and for you all to get to know her a bit more!

As Aileen mentions in the episode, follow her on Instagram! Her handle is: @the.nacera.project. Enjoy the episode!

Lisa, a friend and frequent collaborator, has worked at a different nonprofit in our neighborhood for years. But, as of the last few weeks, she has stepped into her role as executive director at the nonprofit she recently founded - Juniper Arts Academy. The Academy seeks to provide excellent fine arts education to teens in the juvenile justice & foster care communities. And, they do this through the primary medium of relationships. So, this week, host Adam sat down with Lisa to hear about her organization's powerful story and work and also their theory of relationship in the context of this work. We hope you enjoy!

And, if you would like to learn more about, volunteer for, or donate to Juniper Arts Academy, you can visit their website here!

In the midst of his pastoral work, David discovered the power of neighboring and became convinced that building relationships with the people who live around us is a meaningful way to live out the Bible's Greatest Commandment. Since then, he has devoted his work to practicing, writing, and speaking about the subject in all kinds of places and contexts. Within this, David gives great attention to the ways in which we must address subjects like race and politics and how we must intentionally foster relationships with people "across dividing lines". This episode speaks ever so powerfully to these subjects in great detail.

To learn more about the various ways in which David engages in this work, visit his website by clicking here. And, to learn more about his work with The Neighborliness Center, visit their website here.

As one final disclaimer, this episode is one in which spirituality - and specifically Christian spirituality and church life - is discussed quite heavily. While this is the case, we hope the content is impactful and helpful regardless of your relation to Christian spirituality. Enjoy!

David is a frequent collaborator and a neighboring guru. He teaches a class with Missouri Extension called Neighboring 101, and it's an awesome, free course that dives deep into the practical elements of fostering relationships with your neighbors. We're honored to have him back on the podcast in order to continue sharing about his awesome work and also to share his great wisdom with us. 

Relatively new to Rise Up For Youth, but not as new to Wichita, Dr. Fisher shares about the incredible work of her nonprofit and also what drew her to this work and the Wichita community.  As she does so, host Adam cannot help but find many parallels with our work at The Neighboring Movement.

We are so excited to share this episode with you all, and if you would like to learn more about, donate to, or volunteer for Rise Up For Youth, you can visit their website here. Enjoy!

As one perhaps obvious reminder, as this is the fourth and final episode of the series, now is the time to tune into the first three episodes if you have not already! In the first three episodes, we give you an introduction to the team, an introduction to the initiative itself, examples of some of the resistance the team experienced throughout the summer, and examples of how the team pivoted in the midst of experiencing that resistance. 

In short, in the midst of the 8 Front Door Initiative, we encouraged every household within the northern-most portion of our neighborhood (about 400 homes) to get to know the neighbors behind the 8 front doors closest to their own. This was accomplished through the work of an awesome team made up of both staff members and high school students who live in our neighborhood and/or attend our neighborhood high school. These high school students paired up with staff members to form listening teams, and these listening teams checked in with each of the 400 households weekly! The students were such incredible listeners and so beyond fun to work with. You’ll get to know them, and hopefully get such a fantastic taste of the summer, through this series!

We’re excited; this series is a bit different than anything we’ve ever released! Throughout the summer, our host Matt was very intentional about sitting down with the listening teams that went out and interviewing them about their experiences. This series is a compilation of those many recordings and an attempt at telling the story of this transformative initiative. Again, we hope you enjoy the entirety of this summer's story, and we hope you enjoy this series finale! Happy neighboring!

As this is the third episode of this particular series, if you have not already, now is the time to tune into Parts 1 and 2! These first two episodes give you a fantastic introduction to the team, and the initiative itself, so you will definitely want to tune into those episodes before listening to this third one.

In short, in the midst of the 8 Front Door Initiative, we encouraged every household within the northern-most portion of our neighborhood (about 400 homes) to get to know the neighbors behind the 8 front doors closest to their own. This was accomplished through the work of an awesome team made up of both staff members and high school students who live in our neighborhood and/or attend our neighborhood high school. These high school students paired up with staff members to form listening teams, and these listening teams checked in with each of the 400 households weekly! The students were such incredible listeners and so beyond fun to work with. You’ll get to know them, and hopefully get such a fantastic taste of the summer, through this series!

We’re excited; this series is a bit different than anything we’ve ever released! Throughout the summer, our host Matt was very intentional about sitting down with the listening teams that went out and interviewing them about their experiences. This series is a compilation of those many recordings and an attempt at telling the story of this transformative initiative. We hope you enjoy and stay tuned for the series' final release next week!

Again, as this is the second episode of this particular series, if you have not already, now is the time to tune into Part 1! The first episode of the series was released last Tuesday and is titled "The 8 Front Door Initiative (Part 1): Meet The Team". In that episode, you get to hear more about the initiative itself and meet the team that made it happen!

In short, in the midst of the 8 Front Door Initiative, we encouraged every household within the northern-most portion of our neighborhood (about 400 homes) to get to know the neighbors behind the 8 front doors closest to their own. This was accomplished through the work of an awesome team made up of both staff members and high school students who live in our neighborhood and/or attend our neighborhood high school. These high school students paired up with staff members to form listening teams, and these listening teams checked in with each of the 400 households weekly! The students were such incredible listeners and so beyond fun to work with. You’ll get to know them, and hopefully get such a fantastic taste of the summer, through this series!

We’re excited; this series is a bit different than anything we’ve ever released! Throughout the summer, our host Matt was very intentional about sitting down with the listening teams that went out and interviewing them about their experiences. This series is a compilation of those many recordings and an attempt at telling the story of this transformative initiative. We hope you enjoy and stay tuned as we continue to release the rest of the series!

In short, in the midst of the 8 Front Door Initiative, we encouraged every household within the northern-most portion of our neighborhood (about 400 homes) to get to know the neighbors behind the 8 front doors closest to their own. This was accomplished through the work of an awesome team made up of both staff members and high school students who live in our neighborhood and/or attend our neighborhood high school. These high school students paired up with staff members to form listening teams, and these listening teams checked in with each of the 400 households weekly! The students were such incredible listeners and so beyond fun to work with. You'll get to know them, and hopefully get such a fantastic taste of the summer, through this series!

We're excited; this series is a bit different than anything we've ever released! Throughout the summer, our host Matt was very intentional about sitting down with the listening teams that went out and interviewing them about their experiences. This series is a compilation of those many recordings and an attempt at telling the story of this transformative initiative. We hope you enjoy and stay tuned as we continue to release the rest of the series!

In the episode, hosts Adam and Matt interview fellow staff members Catherine, Elizabeth, and Maddie, as they each tell stories of their work from the past year and what they're looking towards in the year to come. It's a joy-filled episode that gives a great snapshot of the scope of our work here at The Neighboring Movement, and we are so excited to share it with you!

We also want to take a moment to remind you that our fundraising week is next week! The work we do is supported by generous donations from listeners like you, so if you would be willing to consider donating towards this work, we would be so very honored by your gift. As always, there are countless ways you can take part in our work here at The Neighboring Movement (primarily, by getting to know your actual, literal neighbors!), but if donating financially is an option for you, we would greatly appreciate your gift! You can make donations here: https://neighboringmovement.org/donate-today/

Happy neighboring!

Again, this is our second episode with Kristina, so if you have not yet listened to the first one, now is the time! We recommend listening to that episode first, as it provides the heartwarming background and story from which this episode follows. Kristina's first episode is titled, "Kristina Swanson (Part 1): Because This Is Our Home", and after this one, is the most recent episode in our feed.

As teased in Part 1 of this two-episode series, for this episode, Kristina has brought with her onto the front porch her neighbor June Ann. As you'll discover in this episode, June Ann is such a kind person and such an incredible neighbor, and it was a true joy to have the two neighbors sit down with one another and share their wisdom with us. We are so excited to share this episode with you all, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we have!

Happy neighboring!

Kristina is the sister of Kristopher on our staff, and when she told him the amazing story you're about to hear, he exclaimed, "Do you want to share that story on the podcast?!" She was so graciously willing to do so, and because of this, you all are in for a treat! Kristina's neighboring experiences encapsulate so many of the things we teach about at The Neighboring Movement, and to see them so seamlessly woven into a series of abundantly joyful neighboring experiences is a true gift. We hope you are just as inspired as we are! Also, stay tuned; Kristina will be back on the virtual front porch next week with a surprise guest!

Among so much more, Claire is an incredibly kind person with a true passion, and gift, for welcoming the stranger. Claire actually used to be one of our previous interns at The Neighboring Movement, but she now does beautiful work with a refugee resettlement organization where she companions refugees as they become integrated in our town of Wichita. We are so honored that she was willing to sit down with us and share some of her deep wisdom! Claire speaks multiple different languages and has tons of experience communicating with people who speak different languages than she does, so in today's episode, she shares advice on how to neighbor when language barriers are present. These barriers are real, and we are so thankful for Claire's very practical tips on how to address them!

We would love to hear your ideas on how you can be more welcoming to your neighbors! You can share your ideas with us and find more information about the Neighboring Movement on our website, www.NeighboringMovement.org.

To find out more about the Neighboring Movement, go to www.NeighboringMovement.org.

To learn more about the Neighboring Movement, go to www.NeighboringMovement.org.

If you haven't listened to the first two ingredients, Relationship & Abundance, those were aired September 14 & September 28.

Find out more about what we are doing at The Neighboring Movement by visiting www.NeighboringMovement.org.

To learn more about the Neighboring Movement or to find our Block Map Magnet, go to www.NeighboringMovement.org.

Quotable Moment: "So when we talk about abundance, we're talking about the abundance of gifts that are present in our communities, on our blocks, in our neighbors, and within ourselves. And seeking to nurture a community of collaboration where people are contributing their gifts for the greater good of their community."- Matthew Johnson

Find out more about what we are doing at The Neighboring Movement by visiting www.NeighboringMovement.org.

To learn more about the 8 front doors challenge, visit our website at https://neighboringmovement.org/8-front-doors-challenge/.

Quotable Moment: "I heard a definition for the word society as "society is the sum of all relationships"... We are not powerless to society and the societal norms that we don't like about society right now. We have the influence to change it one relationship at a time- one neighbor at a time."- Adam Barlow-Thompson

Find out more about the Neighboring Movement at www.NeighboringMovement.org

Elizabeth just recently published on our blog as well! You can find that here: https://neighboringmovement.org/abcd-application-blog/

Quotable Moment: "...if you prioritize that joy and find that and just be conscious of those moments in the midst of your most challenging times, there are moments of joy, there are silver linings, there are things to celebrate... if you get lost in the challenges, you will not be successful."- Jaime Junker

Editor's Note: I hope you all enjoy this episode as much as I did! The last year and a half of pandemic has been exhausting and in so many ways it has been a thief of joy. So, grab the jumper cables! This is the episode for you if your joy battery needs a recharge!

"Move away from, "did I entertain my neighbors?" which is the trap that block parties fall into... You don't need to entertain your neighbors. You need to help them know each other and know something about each other." -Adam Barlow-Thompson

If even two neighbors that didn't know each other before, walk away from the event knowing one thing about the other, then it was a success! If you decide to give this neighboring tip a try as the weather cools down a bit, let us know! You can find contact information and more about the Neighboring Movement at www.NeighboringMovement.org.

Quotable Moments: "...living a whole life includes other people."

"My advice for most things in life is to stay curious. When you interact with anyone or anything, if you can go in with a question instead of a judgment or an assumption, then you're probably set up to have an awesome conversation with an unlikely person or friend."

If you have not yet listened to Adam and Matt's first conversation with Lisse, we would encourage doing so before listening to this episode. In that first conversation, Lisse tells the story of her organization and their approach to community development, which provides a perfect foundation for the stories you are about to hear. The episode with the first conversation is titled, "Lisse Regehr (Part 1): The Story of a Thriving Organization".

Now, welcome to Part 2! In this conversation, Lisse tells some amazing stories that have blossomed forth from the Allen County community before giving advice on how you can continue to work to make your community a better place. We hope you enjoy! And, if you have not yet had a chance, check out Thrive's website to learn more about their amazing work!

Lisse is an excellent storyteller, and she brings to the front porch a ton of community development experience. Her organization, Thrive Allen County, is a health, wellness, and economic development coalition located in Allen County, Kansas, and her team does incredible work! In this first episode, Lisse tells the story of her organization and what their work looks like throughout Allen County. 

Check out Thrive's website to learn more about their amazing work, and stay tuned for next week's episode, Part 2: Story's of a Thriving Community.

Quotable Moment: "Take your gift, whatever your gift is, and build a bridge with that to your neighbors."

To find out more about what we do in the Neighboring Movement, check out our website at www.NeighboringMovement.com

To learn more about the Neighboring Movement, go to www.NeighboringMovement.org

To check out the video project discussed in this podcast, check out the links below.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI37NAxj6aFtOvJidg0ogcQ

https://bunaziua3.wixsite.com/website

To learn more about the Neighboring Movement, go to www.NeighboringMovement.org.

We are so honored and excited to release this Pride episode for you all! This week, we had the honor of interviewing Luke Miltz, Jan Madlock, and Alejandro Rangel-Lopez, who shared with us their wisdom around neighboring as queer folks.

These interviews were just so wonderful, and it was so hard to trim them down, so we have released unedited versions of each person's full-length interview if you would like to dive a bit deeper. Visit our blog here to listen to these episodes!

While neighboring is universal, neighboring experiences are not. Queer people have very different experiences neighboring than straight people do, and it goes unsaid, but queer people also have an abundance of neighboring wisdom to share with the world. We are so honored that each of our three guests were willing to share - vulnerably and courageously - their wisdom with us!

Happy Pride! <3

In this episode, Blanca talks about the diverse culture of Dodge City and references videos that were created to showcase the stories of the people of Dodge, where they come from and what their dreams are. Those links are here so you can see what makes the local business owners and people of Dodge City so special!

https://fb.watch/5K3ChFW6hR/

https://fb.watch/5K4WIIihM_/

https://fb.watch/5K4XM0kQDZ/

https://fb.watch/5K4Z3WvK0P/

We are so honored and excited to release this Pride episode for you all! This week, we had the honor of interviewing Luke Miltz, Jan Madlock, and Alejandro Rangel-Lopez, who shared with us their wisdom around neighboring as queer folks.

These interviews were just so wonderful, and it was so hard to trim them down, so we have released unedited versions of each person's full-length interview if you would like to dive a bit deeper. Visit our blog here to listen to these episodes!

While neighboring is universal, neighboring experiences are not. Queer people have very different experiences neighboring than straight people do, and it goes unsaid, but queer people also have an abundance of neighboring wisdom to share with the world. We are so honored that each of our three guests were willing to share - vulnerably and courageously - their wisdom with us!

Happy Pride! <3

"... being boots on the ground and having an opportunity to get your hands dirty and the challenges that our neighbors are facing and our communities are facing, and recognizing the power of community. I think so often we rely on different entities to come in and solve our problems and there's nothing wrong with that, these entities are resources, our government, our non-profit organizations, they're resources to help us solve those problems but there is power and understanding that we as individuals and neighbors have the power to change the trajectory of our own communities if we are just willing to get our hands dirty for ourselves."- Joseph Shepard

To learn more about Lead for America, go to www.lead4america.org.

To learn more about the Neighboring Movement, go to www.NeighboringMovement.org.

"Relationships rooted in mutuality... we both have something to learn from one another and there's strengths in that..." when discussing coming into ABCD.

"It's not our role to force people into our vision of flourishing, it's just partnering with them to create it..." when discussing finding joy in the work.

"...one of the necessary components to engaging in this work... shifting from that needs based to asset based approach, is you need to be able to lament really well because you're realizing that you can't control everything. Lament isn't very compatible with happiness but it is with joy."

And as is with all rabbit holes, there's more!

To find more about Megan Ginn's work, you can go to www.CommunityResourceNetwork.com or find CRN on Facebook and Instagram.

To find out more about the Neighboring Movement, find us at www.NeighboringMovement.org or Facebook and Twitter.

"In this episode Justin talks about his experience with "the gaze," known in the disability community as being stared at by and interacting able bodied people who don't know how to inhabit the space with a person with a disability. He shares one the best experiences and some of his lousiest experiences with "the gaze." There is a social dance that happens whenever you meet someone different from yourself; so if you step on toes, don't keep stepping on their toes. Be curious, but not an a*****e."- summary from Palsys With Palsies podcast.

Find their other podcasts at:

Apple Podcasts: HERE

Google Podcasts: HERE

Simplecast: HERE

To find out more about The Neighboring Movement, go to our website, www.NeighboringMovement.org.

Find out more about the Neighboring Movement at www.NeighboringMovement.org.

Dee shares inspirational stories and ideas that will make you want to get up and go out to interact your neighbors- just get out and "let the the dog go." We are encouraged to turn what may be seen as a challenge into an opportunity for growth and development.

To learn more about the neighboring movement, visit us at www.NeighboringMovement.org.

Editors note: I left this episode pretty raw! I want to invite you to take a minute and image yourself pulling up a chair onto Adam's porch to listen in on this conversation. I invite you to share in the laughter and joy of this episode!

You can find more about the Neighboring Movement at www.NeighboringMovement.org.

The six attributes discussed: Cooperation, Hospitality, Generosity, Kindness, Accepting Fallibility, Forgiveness, (and the seventh, Spirituality.) 

• What would you do to make these manifest? 
• The people who love you, which of these attributes would they say YOU have?
• And look at your neighbors? What attributes do you see them living into? We want to hear your stories. 
• How do we tell these stories in our neighborhoods?

The roles that people perform in a community: Healers, Conscience, Artists, Conveners, Bridgers, Connectors, Voices, Visionaries, Executors, Tuck Pointers.  We would welcome your thoughts on this list. 

• Which of these do you feel like is a role that gives you joy? 
• Is there a role that you would add? 
• And think about your neighbors. Do you see them embodying a role listed here? If so, what does that look like? 
• Are there missing roles you would add to this list?

You can learn more about the Neighboring Movement at www.NeighboringMovement.org

You can learn more about John McKnight HERE and a link for The Learnings of John McKnight can be found HERE.

To learn more, visit our website at www.NeighboringMovement.org.

As always, find out more about the Neighboring Movement at www.NeighboringMovement.org.

Find out more about the Neighboring Movement at www.NeighboringMovement.org

As Spring blooms, more folks are out and about in our neighborhoods. Invite a neighbor to walk with you; take in some sunshine! The great thing about this tip is that is for introverts and extroverts alike. You can fill the time with chit chat about the beautiful weather, how the neighbors' gardens are looking, etc. OR you don't have to talk at all. If you have a neighbor you are comfortable with, you could soak up the sun and just LISTEN. To the other person's story or if they are quiet too, just listen to the wind and birdsong. Grab a neighbor and walk!

To find more Neighboring Tips, go to www.NeighboringMovement.org

In this episode, Amy references two books:

"Doughnut Economics" by Kate Raworth. You can find out more information about that book and "the doughnut" at https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/.

"Women in the Gift Economy" by Genevieve Vaughan. You can find more information about this book at http://www.gift-economy.com/womenand.html

As always, find out more about the Neighboring Movement at www.NeighboringMovement.org

I really want to just have basically a transcript of everything Cormac says in this episode; there are so many profound, make you think, things packed into this short episode. But instead I will lead with this one quote and you will have to listen for the rest. "So if you want to breathe free, the starting point is to remember that the people who are most likely to enable that to happen, are you and your neighbors."- Cormac Russell

To learn more about the Neighboring Movement, go to www.neighboringmovement.org

To learn more about Cormac Russell, visit https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/who-we-are/cormac-russell/ 

This week, Cormac starts out by talking a little about economics of institutions and the neighborhood economy.

"Lots of liberals would say, "well thank goodness we've got the public sector and we've got charities because they don't operate that way..." Well actually, they do. So the structure of the institution is essentially I'm going to take your need in whatever form it comes and I'm going to structure it in such a way that it can be commodified... Two thirds of all the monies that are intended to go to the people living in poverty, to put an end to poverty, don't go to people living in poverty in the US. They go to people who are servicing people who live in poverty who are not poor."

"Many of the big churches are exactly the same, where they're harvesting people's misery and turning it into money."

 Insert head explosion emoji here! Listen in to hear what Matt and Adam talk about in response to that band-aide rip!

To learn more about the Neighboring Movement, go to www.neighboringmovement.org

To learn more about Cormac Russell, visit https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/who-we-are/cormac-russell/ 

To recap a bit, Cormac has been telling us about the 3 Lanes. The first lane is what communities can do for each other. The second lane is what citizen's can do WITH institutions, key word is "with." And the third lane is what institutions alone can do. And where we are now is we always tend to start in lane 3, without asking questions of lane 1 first.

This week, Cormac gives a couple of recent examples of lane one and how Covid has actually moved us back into lane one a bit.

To learn more about the Neighboring Movement, go to www.neighboringmovement.org

To learn more about Cormac Russell, visit https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/who-we-are/cormac-russell/ 

This week, you'll hear Cormac discuss the world as it is, a heightening of a sense of individualism and then asking the question, where do we go from here? What does the work look like when we re-center democracy within the neighborhood?

"Now the question might be, what's the scale in which we can do that work? We know city is too big, we certainly know state is too big, region is too big, so what's the scale? We know family is too small, the individual, that is really not helpful... I think there is a third unit of change and that is the neighborhood."- Cormac Russell

To learn more about the Neighboring Movement, go to www.neighboringmovement.org

To learn more about Cormac Russell, visit https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/who-we-are/cormac-russell/ 

To paraphrase Matt and Adam, this interview is so rich it's like a deep fried peanut butter pie, so we will break it down into 5 segments so that you can fully digest all of the great quotes and incite this interview has to offer. Here are few quotes from this week:

"...at times the function of the state is to create a dome of protection around associational life and if there is a predatory force that's doing the community down, I think it's quite helpful for them to be big, to fan out, but when there's a whole set of things like for example in a little while I'll go and have a meal with my family, I don't want the state governing how the salt gets passed."- Cormac Russell speaking on institutions and how proportionality and context matters.

"...recognize that democracy at whatever level or scale we think of it is something that has to be an embodied act, otherwise it's just a concept."- Cormac Russell

"...so the neighborhood is the primary unit of change in a democracy, so you think about it, what is the atomic element of molecular democracy?  It's the neighborhood."- Cormac Russell

To learn more about Cormac Russell, visit https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/who-we-are/cormac-russell/ 

"How do we reach those people to support the narrative that "You belong," that "You have a place here," and that isn't going to happen just simply because of where they live or who their neighbors are but is going to come in the micro-moments that people experience their community through."- Alysia Christy

"...if we are supposed to love our neighbor, we need to know who our neighbor is." And I thought, "Brilliant! How hard is that???""- Maureen Donker on how they got started.

"So we have deepened the conversation to where everyone could find a piece where they could fit in."- Maureen Donker on how the concept of getting involved with neighboring can be applied not only to church outreach but to schools and businesses, safety meetings, etc. How much safer is the community/school/business/church/etc when people know each other?

Claire started working at the Neighboring Movement at the very end of 2020 and is the newest addition to our team. With a professional background of political fundraising and also legislative work, Claire brings a unique set of skills in the realm of organizing on a much larger scale. For the Neighboring Movement, Claire now works as a statewide organizer in order to recruit cohort members, network with similar organizations, and make connections on our behalf - all across Kansas! When possessing free time, Claire enjoys home remodeling and queso sampling.

John began community organizing when he was in his early twenties, and since then, he has done everything from training Barack Obama in community organizing to developing an entirely new model of community development. This model that he developed is of course asset-based community development, or ABCD, and we, the Neighboring Movement, consider ourselves asset-based community developers. That being said, John has always been a hero of ours, and over the years, we have followed his work closely and been deeply inspired and influenced by his practices. He is incredibly kind, absolutely brilliant, and a gifted teacher who always tells the perfect story in order to illustrate a point. We are so very honored that John was willing to sit down on the front porch with us, and we are so excited to share these next three episodes with you all!

In the first episode, John introduces what ABCD is, talks about what asset-based community developers seek to do, and explains how ABCD differs from needs-based approaches. He then details the first two of the five categories of assets that all communities possess. 

In the second episode, John starts by detailing the last three of the five categories of assets that all communities possess and that he started describing in Part 1. Then, he details what the work of asset-based community developers looks like moving forward and how we as citizens gain power. Of course, all of this is interspersed with incredible stories, and we are so excited for you to hear them! As one final note, this episode is dedicated to all of our Canadian neighbors out there; we have been referring to this episode as the "Canada rocks!" episode, and you will soon see why. 

In the third episode, John starts by talking about the importance of fostering cultures of connectedness and community consciousnesses. Intrigued already? Yeah, he has that effect on people....The episode only gets crazier from there, too! Next, John outlines how people, in association, can own their power and ask three simple questions in order to start producing their future together. To end it all, he tells one of our favorite stories of his, and then, it is get-up-and-go time! There is a call to action here, and you are invited to join in this work!

As one final note, thank you for joining us for this series that has been a dream of ours to produce. John's work is incredible, so please check it all out! Here are some resources:

• His website - Here you can learn more about John and access his learnings, publications, videos, and blogs.
• His institute
• His blog

Alright, that was the spoiler-free introduction to today's podcast. If you would like to be a bit more surprised with what happens in this episode, we would suggest you stop you reading now....

Okay, spoiler time! What ends up happening in this episode is that Adam and Matt quite spontaneously interview one of our dear friends, Lora Andrews. Among so much more, Lora is an extremely joyful, justice-oriented person and a committed neighbor. She works as the senior pastor of a church in the Kansas City suburbs, and the powerful story that she shares today revolves around some of the action her congregation is taking in order to address racism. The story is just beautiful, like insanely beautiful, and it also speaks to how neighboring can play a part in the work of anti-racism. It's the most hopeful story we could have imagined for The Super Fun Happy Hour!

As has been the case with some of our other episodes, this episode contains discussion of spiritual and religious topics. Because Lora's church is a Christian church, Christian spirituality is referenced in this conversation. As always, we want to reiterate that we do not present these episodes to promote any one spirituality or religion, Christianity included, but instead because we think they are helpful and encouraging for all neighbors, regardless of their relationships to spirituality or religion.

As a final note, there is one swear word a couple of minutes into the episode, and it may or may not be said by one of our hosts....Like our last episode, if that is not something you are interested in hearing, please feel free to turn off the episode and do something else!

As always, thank you for listening, and happy neighboring!

"We are so honored to be joined by Anna  on the virtual front porch! She is an incredibly compassionate person with a heart for justice, a way with words, and a fantastic sense of humor. Anna covers health care policy for California Healthline, a health news site independently published by Kaiser Health News. She previously worked at HuffPost for nine years, where she reported on health and lifestyle news and was the creator and host of a podcast about infertility called "IVFML." Yes, Anna is a podcaster herself (a much better one, too, we might add)! The podcast was a Webby finalist in 2019 and a Webby honoree in 2018. It also won a 2019 Excellence in Podcasts award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. Check it out! In addition to HuffPost, her work has appeared in publications including The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, NPR, USA Today and on NBC and Univision. She is so very talented!

Anna and Adam are longtime friends, so the episode begins by the two talking about how they know one another and sharing stories. Then, Anna takes it from there and tells the powerful story that she wrote about in her opinion article. If you would like to read the article before hearing her tell the story in this episode, you can do so here. The first part of the story details an experience Anna had in her neighborhood that is extremely disturbing and speaks to the racism present in America and around the globe. It is an experience that Anna had, and others are having, that we cannot ignore. Then, the second half of the story details Anna's bold and compassionate response to the experience. Listeners, Anna participates in neighboring of the most difficult kind. We have so much to learn from her. We mean it when we say it, you are not going to want to miss this episode!

As we note at the beginning of the episode, this particular episode contains more swear words than our episodes normally do. We are very open to this language on our podcast because we know some people use swear words in order to express themselves, process experiences, and tell stories, and we want those people to feel welcome doing so during their episodes. It also feels important to note that Anna would not be able to tell her story accurately without the use of swear words. If you would rather not hear these words, that is, of course, totally fine! Please feel free to skip this episode.

All of this being said, we are so very excited to present this episode to you all! You will definitely want to read more of Anna's work when you are done, and you can do so by visiting her author page here. You can also get in touch with her via Twitter @annaalmendrala. Thank you, as always, for listening!"

Find more information about the future of the Neighboring Movement HERE.

You can make a donation to the Neighboring Movement HERE.

Quotable Moment: "We during an election get hyper focused on this left/right spectrum and the things that you are naming, that spectrum doesn't apply. That's what we need." Adam Barlow Thompson in response to Matt Johnson.

Quotable Moment: "Abundance begins to appear when people start to say there is enough. We can live into having enough when we seek satisfaction rather than accumulation."- John McKnight

To find more information about the Lilly Grant, click here.

To find out more about the United Methodist Health Ministry Fund, click here. 

Find more information about the Neighboring Movement at www.neighboringmovement.org 

For more information about the movie and HumaneTech.com, click HERE.

For more information about what we do at The Neighboring Movement, click HERE.

Quotable Moment: "What we have to remember is that the neighborhood is the smallest and most important unit of democracy."- Cormac Russell in "Rekindling Democracy"

You can find the entire video of this episode on our Facebook page.

People/Books Referenced in this episode:

John McKnight www.johnmcknight.org 

"The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathon Haidt, find the book here.

"Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World" by Vivek Murthy, find the book here.

"Rekindling Democracy: A Professional's Guide to Working in Citizen Space" by Cormac Russell, find the book here.

"Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can  Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the  Decline of Civic Life" by Eric Klinenberg, find the book here.

As always, find more information about us at www.neighboringmovement.org.

Quotable Moment: "...It takes the pressure off. You don't have to be best friends with all of your neighbors and you can still have good, healthy neighbor relationships."

www.neighboringmovement.org

Episodes Include: Rhonda Stevens "Kick-starting Neighboring"; Finding Abundance; The Power of Relationships; Joy: A Key Ingredient of Neighboring; Justin Moore: Neighboring for Health; Joy Lenz: Transformative Neighboring; Building Social Capital, Block by Block; Social Fabric: Becoming a Tight-Knit Neighborhood; And More...

We will be back with new episodes in a few weeks! Until then, enjoy revisiting the key ingredients of what makes a great Neighbor Soup! 

Quotable Moment: "Let's begin to look at different ways in which we can build up the community."- Riccardo Harris

To learn more about Riccardo, visit our website at https://neighboringmovement.org/riccardo. If you missed Part 1 of this conversation with Riccardo, click HERE to listen.

Quotable Moment this week: "Being uncomfortable is part of this... and recognize that we may not solve this in this session and that's ok. This is the beginning of a dialogue."- Riccardo Harris

To learn more about Riccardo and check out a couple of his videos, visit our website at https://neighboringmovement.org/riccardo.

The Julian Way is an organization focused education and empowerment with, for, and by, persons of diverse embodiments. They seek to help places of faith, and other cultural institutions, achieve greater universal accessibility, by fostering environments where persons of all embodiments can work for leadership and equity throughout the whole of human life together. 

Quotable Moment: "What The Julian Way is trying to do on a daily basis is invite curiosity around the disability experience- and what I mean by curiosity is the ability to admit we don't know everything, to move forward and honestly ask questions and engage- and do so with a spirit of charity and without fear."

To learn more or donate, go to  https://neighboringmovement.org/the-julian-way

Allie has worked across the state since 2018 as the Executive Assistant to the CEO at Thrive Allen County, the largest and most prominent rural health advocacy organization in Kansas. Outside of Thrive, Allie is the Secretary of the Kansas Young Democrats, a Young Kansans for Barbara Bollier co-chair, a columnist at the Iola Register, and a tennis instructor. 

Guest Speaker: Rev. Jeff Prothro from De Soto, KS

"I am  a lifelong Kansan who has served as pastor in United Methodist Churches since 2008. I was appointed to De Soto UMC in 2014 and have been blessed to serve in this community. I am married to Leighann and we have two fantastic children. I am a graduate of Southwestern College in Winfield (Go Builders!) and earned my Masters of Divinity from Wesley Theological Seminary in D.C. I enjoy reading, movies, music, trivia, running, Royals baseball and KU Basketball. I am dedicated to sharing in Christ's love to all people in words and action."

Guest Speaker: Tori Gleason from northwest KS

"Hello, friends! My name is Tori and I’ve been working in NW Kansas since 2006 as a Sports Chiropractor. I was born and raised in Dodge City and educated in the Little Apple as well as Davenport, IA. I have a passion for youth mentorship, coaching, health equality in LGBTQ+ populations, and rural healthcare leadership as I serve on our rural hospital board. I’m a Mum to a 12-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son. I’m excited to learn from others as we elevate voices across the state to tell a story about how diverse and wonderful the people really are."

The Kansas Animator Network video is COMING SOON!

Among so much more, Claire is an incredibly kind person with a true passion, and gift, for welcoming the stranger. Claire actually used to be one of our previous Neighboring Movement interns, but she now does beautiful work with a refugee resettlement organization where she companions refugees as they become integrated in our town of Wichita. We are so honored that she was willing to sit down with us and share some of her deep wisdom! Claire speaks multiple different languages and has tons of experience communicating with people who speak different languages than she does, so in today's episode, she shares advice on how to neighbor when language barriers are present. These barriers are real, and we are so thankful for Claire's very practical tips on how to address them!

This week's episode was originally released on April 28, 2020. Like our other neighboring tip episodes, this one presents a simple experiment for connecting with your neighbors - even in the midst of a pandemic. We hope you not only enjoy listening to this episode but also experiment with the tip presented, and we hope these ideas might be helpful for doing so! As one final caveat, which is mentioned at the start of the episode, because things are changing so rapidly in the world due to the pandemic, this episode is already a bit outdated, and some of our language reflects this. Despite this, we think there are still helpful ideas present, and honestly, this was the most relevant neighboring tip we could re-release. We hope you still find it helpful, and don't forget to tune in next Tuesday for an original episode! Happy listening and happy neighboring!

As we stated last week, this is a busy time of year for us at the Neighboring Movement, so we decided to take a few weeks off from new recordings and instead re-release some of our all-time favorite episodes from the podcast. We'll be back on August 18th with original episodes, but in the meantime, you won't want to miss the episodes we're choosing to re-release! Last week, we presented a July 2019 episode in which Adam and Matt took a deep dive on the concept of social capital. This week, we're presenting an episode that was originally released on August 13, 2019, in which Adam and Matt continue their conversation about social capital but instead start using the new term of social fabric. Because information from last week's re-released episode is referenced in this episode, we would suggest listening to last week's episode first, if you have not already. Next week, we will re-release a favorite neighboring tip episode, before then returning to original content on the 18th. Until then, we hope you continue to enjoy these re-released episodes! Happy listening and happy neighboring!

This is a busy time of year for us at the Neighboring Movement, so we've decided to take the next three weeks off from new recordings and instead re-release some of our all-time favorite episodes from the podcast. We'll be back on August 18th with original episodes, but in the meantime, you won't want to miss the episodes we're choosing to re-release! This week, we're presenting an episode that was originally released almost exactly a year ago, on July 23, 2019. In it, Adam and Matt take a deep dive on social capital, which is a concept that can seem confusing at first, but we think we have a fantastic way of talking about it, which Adam and Matt present in this episode. It's a concept that's very important to our work, and hence, we think it's important to share with you all! It's also quite related to the subject of next week's re-released episode, so we would highly suggest listening to both this week's and next week's, as they play off of one another. The following week, we will re-release a favorite neighboring tip episode, before then returning to original content on the 18th. Until then, we hope you enjoy these re-released episodes! Happy listening and happy neighboring!

Among so much more, Justin is an extremely compassionate person, a passionate leader, a deep thinker, and a gifted speaker and writer. We are so incredibly honored that he was willing to do an episode with us! Justin and his wife, Lisa, founded The Julian Way, a ministry of community, advocacy, and empowerment for those with diverse embodiments. It's an incredible ministry with the goal of developing an empowered community of discipleship in which disability is not viewed as a hindrance or something to be overcome. We brought Justin on today because we think the work of The Julian Way has a powerful connection to asset-based community development, and we're just so excited to share this episode with you all!

As has been the case with some of our other episodes, this episode mentions spiritual and religious topics. Because The Julian Way is centered around concepts of intentional Christian community, Christian spirituality is referenced in this conversation. As always, we want to reiterate that we do not present these episodes to promote any one spirituality or religion, Christianity included, but instead because we think they are helpful and encouraging for all neighbors, regardless of their relationships to spirituality or religion.

In the episode, Justin begins by introducing The Julian Way before then sharing some of his own story. We then move into exploring the connection with asset-based community development and talking more about what Lisa and Justin's work looks like today. It's so fantastic!

You will definitely want to learn more about The Julian Way, and you can do so by visiting this website: http://thejulianway.org. As Justin mentions in the episode, this website is still in progress, so you will also want to check back in soon in order to learn even more!

As is mentioned in the episode, Justin also wrote a book that you should all read! It's called The Julian Way: A Theology of Fullness for All of God’s People, and you can buy it on Amazon by clicking here!

We have a couple previous episodes on the gappers, and they are titled "The Gappers, Our Coronavirus Response (Parts 1 and 2)". You are welcome to go back and listen to those episodes first, but we hope this episode gives a good basic introduction to the gappers, as well!

Basically, at the Neighboring Movement, we don't want to go back to pre-coronavirus normal. Because we can do so much better than that! We believe a new normal is coming and that everyone on the planet has the opportunity to work together in order to create this new normal. So, we started the gappers! The gappers is an experimental community of people who are simply longing for a new normal and willing to work towards that new normal. This community gathers and shares stories and tips around this gapping work in order to encourage one another and learn from one another. Are you a gapper, and would you like to take part in this community? If so, that's awesome, and you can click here in order to learn more about the gappers and sign up! We also have a gappers Facebook page that you can join by clicking here.

Go forth and continue to stand in the gap between what is coming and what has been!

This week's episode, like our other neighboring tip episodes, presents a simple experiment for connecting with your neighbors - even in the midst of a pandemic. We hope you not only enjoy listening to this episode but also experiment with the tip presented, and we hope these ideas might be helpful for doing so!

Alright, that was the spoiler-free introduction to today's podcast. If you would like to be a bit more surprised with what happens in this episode, we would suggest you stop you reading now....

Okay, spoiler time! What ends up happening in this episode is that Adam and Matt quite spontaneously interview one of our dear friends, Lora Andrews. Among so much more, Lora is an extremely joyful, justice-oriented person and a committed neighbor. She works as the senior pastor of a church in the Kansas City suburbs, and the powerful story that she shares today revolves around some of the action her congregation is taking in order to address racism. The story is just beautiful, like insanely beautiful, and it also speaks to how neighboring can play a part in the work of anti-racism. It's the most hopeful story we could have imagined for The Super Fun Happy Hour!

As has been the case with some of our other episodes, this episode contains discussion of spiritual and religious topics. Because Lora's church is a Christian church, Christian spirituality is referenced in this conversation. As always, we want to reiterate that we do not present these episodes to promote any one spirituality or religion, Christianity included, but instead because we think they are helpful and encouraging for all neighbors, regardless of their relationships to spirituality or religion.

As a final note, there is one swear word a couple of minutes into the episode, and it may or may not be said by one of our hosts....Like our last episode, if that is not something you are interested in hearing, please feel free to turn off the episode and do something else!

As always, thank you for listening, and happy neighboring!

We are so honored to be joined by Anna  on the virtual front porch! She is an incredibly compassionate person with a heart for justice, a way with words, and a fantastic sense of humor. Anna covers health care policy for California Healthline, a health news site independently published by Kaiser Health News. She previously worked at HuffPost for nine years, where she reported on health and lifestyle news and was the creator and host of a podcast about infertility called "IVFML." Yes, Anna is a podcaster herself (a much better one, too, we might add)! The podcast was a Webby finalist in 2019 and a Webby honoree in 2018. It also won a 2019 Excellence in Podcasts award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. Check it out! In addition to HuffPost, her work has appeared in publications including The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, NPR, USA Today and on NBC and Univision. She is so very talented!

Anna and Adam are longtime friends, so the episode begins by the two talking about how they know one another and sharing stories. Then, Anna takes it from there and tells the powerful story that she wrote about in her opinion article. If you would like to read the article before hearing her tell the story in this episode, you can do so here. The first part of the story details an experience Anna had in her neighborhood that is extremely disturbing and speaks to the racism present in America and around the globe. It is an experience that Anna had, and others are having, that we cannot ignore. Then, the second half of the story details Anna's bold and compassionate response to the experience. Listeners, Anna participates in neighboring of the most difficult kind. We have so much to learn from her. We mean it when we say it, you are not going to want to miss this episode!

As we note at the beginning of the episode, this particular episode contains more swear words than our episodes normally do. We are very open to this language on our podcast because we know some people use swear words in order to express themselves, process experiences, and tell stories, and we want those people to feel welcome doing so during their episodes. It also feels important to note that Anna would not be able to tell her story accurately without the use of swear words. If you would rather not hear these words, that is, of course, totally fine! Please feel free to skip this episode.

All of this being said, we are so very excited to present this episode to you all! You will definitely want to read more of Anna's work when you are done, and you can do so by visiting her author page here. You can also get in touch with her via Twitter @annaalmendrala. Thank you, as always, for listening!

If you've heard John tell a story, then you'll know you're in for a treat! John McKnight is one of the co-founders of asset-based community development and a hero of ours. At the end of March, we interviewed John for the podcast and turned the fantastic interview he gave us into three episodes; you will definitively want to tune in to John McKnight (Part One, Two, and Three) if you have not already! We have also had the extreme honor to take part in coaching calls with John over the last several months. He is an incredible teacher and storyteller, as all of his podcast episodes attest, and these coaching calls have been so incredible! The story you are about to hear is one that John told Adam and Matt on one of their calls, but we think it's so fitting for life in the midst of this pandemic that we've decided to give it it's own episode. Enjoy!

P.S. You will definitely want to check out some of John's astounding work! Here are some resources to get you started...

• His website - Here you can learn more about John and access his learnings, publications, videos, and blogs.
• His institute
• His blog

Sydney rocks, and we are so excited to introduce her to you all! Among so much more, she embodies both a gentle and fiery spirit, possesses a deep commitment to work for the good of others, and loves to listen to people talk about what they care about. She has a deep love for words and also a fantastic array of hobbies that ranges from hacky sack to shuffle dancing. We are so honored that she is a part of the team!

In this episode, hosts Adam and Matt introduce Sydney before asking about what her childhood memories of neighboring were like and also what brought her to this work. Then, the three discuss how Sydney was able to start getting to know the rest of the Neighboring Movement staff in the midst of working from home. Enjoy getting to know Sydney a bit more, and we hope you can meet her in person soon! Happy podcasting!

This week's episode, like our other neighboring tip episodes, presents a simple experiment for connecting with your neighbors - even in the midst of a pandemic. We hope you not only enjoy listening to this episode but also experiment with the tip presented, and we hope these ideas might be helpful for doing so!

P.S. We talk about a few of the businesses in our neighborhood during the episode. Click on their names below to check them out!

• Hupp Hardware
• Brianna's Bakery
• Legacy Ministries, Inc.

While Adam and Matt are not licensed therapists or counselors, Adam does work around social and emotional intelligence, and Matt does spiritual direction, so they have some thoughts to share around practicing good self care in the midst of this time. We hope these thoughts sow some seeds for you and that you enjoy this episode!

Two weeks ago, we introduced this new project on our podcast with an episode titled "The Gappers, Our Coronavirus Response". If you have not yet had a chance to listen to that episode, we would highly recommend doing so before listening to this one! In this episode, Adam and Matt expand more upon the project and use a metaphor in order to describe what we mean by "the gap".

Basically, at the Neighboring Movement, we don't want to go back to pre-coronavirus normal. Because we can do so much better than that! We believe a new normal is coming and that everyone on the planet has the opportunity to work together in order to create this new normal. So, we started the gappers! The gappers is an experimental community of people who are simply longing for a new normal and willing to work towards that new normal. This community gathers and shares stories and tips around this gapping work in order to encourage one another and learn from one another. Are you a gapper, and would you like to take part in this community? If so, that's awesome, and you can click here in order to learn more about the gappers and sign up! We also have a gappers Facebook page that you can join by clicking here.

Go forth and stand in the gap between what is coming and what has been!

It is an honor to welcome Krissy Matthaei to the virtual front porch! Krissy is a supermom and a gifted educator. With two kids of her own and twenty years of teaching experience in the Wichita area, Krissy possesses an incredible amount of knowledge around fostering relationships with young people. Krissy is also joined by Adam's wife, Ashley Barlow-Thompson, and it is always a joy to have Ashley on the front porch! Together, the two friends and moms tag team in sharing stories and tips around what setting boundaries with neighbor kids looks like.

Recently, a new family with kids moved in a couple houses down from the Barlow-Thompsons. While this was super exciting, and Prescott, Ashley and Adam's son, was super pumped to have neighbor kids to play with, it was also a bit nerve-wracking for Ashley and Adam as they started thinking about the boundaries they would have to set. So, they called up their friend Krissy for advice! This conversation details the story and the advice that Krissy gave them and would give other families.

Throughout this coronavirus pandemic, we have noticed the temptation to say things like, “I just wish we could go back”, or “I just wish things would be back to normal.” These are tempting thoughts, right? Well, we have discovered something about ourselves: We don’t want to go back. We don’t want to just go back to pre-coronavirus normal; we can do so much better than that!

Before the pandemic started, we, as an organization, had been feeling an invitation to expand the way that we think about our work. Really, we had been feeling an invitation to expand the way that we think about ourselves. Then, coronavirus arrived, and those invitations escalated tenfold. But, here’s the thing: we believe that all of humanity has been given the opportunity to re-think some important things, to re-think “normal”. Because if normal means continuing to bow to ideas that pit human against human, and destroy our planetary home in the process, then we don’t want things to be normal any longer. We believe a new normal is coming and that the opportunity is upon us. Let’s be thankful for what’s come before and continue moving towards what’s ahead; let’s stand in the gap between what has been and what is coming! And that’s where the gappers come in…

We don't want to spoil what this experimental community is all about, so you'll have to tune in to learn more! We hope you enjoy this episode, and we hope you will take part in this gapping work! After listening, if you would like to learn more about all of this, or sign up to be a part of the gapper calls, please visit www.neighboringmovement.org/gappers. Talk soon!

This week's episode, like our other neighboring tip episodes, presents a simple experiment for connecting with your neighbors - but this one directly addresses the pandemic we are all experiencing. We hope you not only enjoy listening to this episode but also experiment with the tip presented, and we hope these ideas might be helpful for doing so!

In this episode, Adam and Matt first talk about the practice of grieving and describe some of the ways they are experiencing grief in the midst of this pandemic. They then move into sharing some of the practices that have been helping them, and others, grieve, and finish by discussing how we can journey with our neighbors in the midst of their grief. 

As they share in the episode itself, the topic of grief is very relevant to both Adam's work and Matt's work outside of the Neighboring Movement. Adam does work around social and emotional intelligence, and Matt does spiritual direction, so while neither of them are licensed therapists or counselors, they do have some thoughts to share around the practice of grieving. We hope these thoughts sow some seeds for you and that you enjoy this episode! 

Hopefully, you have had a chance to listen to the first two episodes in this series. If you have not, we would highly suggest going back and listening to them first, as this final episode builds off of the first two. Plus, they are just fantastic episodes!

If you have not yet read a little about John, here is a bit of description...

John began community organizing when he was in his early twenties, and since then, he has done everything from training Barack Obama in community organizing to developing an entirely new model of community development. This model that he developed is of course asset-based community development, or ABCD, and we, the Neighboring Movement, consider ourselves asset-based community developers. That being said, John has always been a hero of ours, and over the years, we have followed his work closely and been deeply inspired and influenced by his practices. He is incredibly kind, absolutely brilliant, and a gifted teacher who always tells the perfect story in order to illustrate a point. We are so very honored that John was willing to sit down on the front porch with us, and we are so excited to now share all three of these episodes with you all!

In this third episode, John starts by talking about the importance of fostering cultures of connectedness and community consciousnesses. Intrigued already? Yeah, he has that effect on people....The episode only gets crazier from there, too! Next, John outlines how people, in association, can own their power and ask three simple questions in order to start producing their future together. To end it all, he tells one of our favorite stories of his, and then, it is get-up-and-go time! There is a call to action here, and you are invited to join in this work!

As one final note, thank you for joining us for this series that has been a dream of ours to produce.  John's work is incredible, so please check it all out! Here are some resources:

• His website - Here you can learn more about John and access his learnings, publications, videos, and blogs.
• His institute
• His blog

P.S. The Neighbor Next Door isn't going anywhere! In the weeks to come, we will continue to release new episodes every Tuesday, and these episodes will directly address neighboring in the time of coronavirus. Thank you, as always, for listening!

Hopefully you had a chance to listen to the first episode in this series, which is titled "John McKnight (Part 1): Have You Been Out in the Garden?". If you have not, we would highly suggest going back and listening to that episode first, as this episode will pick up right where that one left off. 

If you have not yet read a little about John, here is a bit of description...

John began community organizing when he was in his early twenties, and since then, he has done everything from training Barack Obama in community organizing to developing an entirely new model of community development. This model that he developed is of course asset-based community development, or ABCD, and we, the Neighboring Movement, consider ourselves asset-based community developers. That being said, John has always been a hero of ours, and over the years, we have followed his work closely and been deeply inspired and influenced by his practices. He is incredibly kind, absolutely brilliant, and a gifted teacher who always tells the perfect story in order to illustrate a point. We are so very honored that John was willing to sit down on the front porch with us, and we are so excited to share these three episodes with you all!

In this second episode, John starts by detailing the last three of the five categories of assets that all communities possess and that he started describing in Part 1. Then, he details what the work of asset-based community developers looks like moving forward and how we as citizens gain power. Of course, all of this is interspersed with incredible stories, and we are so excited for you to hear them! As one final note, this episode is dedicated to all of our Canadian neighbours out there; we have been referring to this episode as the "Canada rocks!" episode, and you will soon see why. We hope you enjoy, and don't forget to tune in next Tuesday for Part 3 and the finale of this series!

If you would like to learn more about John and his work, please check out the following resources:

• His website - Here you can learn more about John and access his learnings, publications, videos, and blogs.
• His institute
• His blog

John began community organizing when he was in his early twenties, and since then, he has done everything from training Barack Obama in community organizing to developing an entirely new model of community development. This model that he developed is of course asset-based community development, or ABCD, and we, the Neighboring Movement, consider ourselves asset-based community developers. That being said, John has always been a hero of ours, and over the years, we have followed his work closely and been deeply inspired and influenced by his practices. He is incredibly kind, absolutely brilliant, and a gifted teacher who always tells the perfect story in order to illustrate a point. We are so very honored that John was willing to sit down on the front porch with us, and we are so excited to share these next three episodes with you all!

In this first episode, John introduces what ABCD is, talks about what asset-based community developers seek to do, and explains how ABCD differs from needs-based approaches. He then details the first two of the five categories of assets that all communities possess. We hope you enjoy this episode, and don't forget to tune in next Tuesday for Part 2!

If you would like to learn more about John and his work, please check out the following resources:

• His website - Here you can learn more about John and access his learnings, publications, videos, and blogs.
• His institute
• His blog

This week's episode, like our other neighboring tip episodes, presents a simple experiment for connecting with your neighbors - but this one directly addresses the pandemic we are all experiencing. We hope you not only enjoy listening to this episode but also experiment with the tip presented, and we hope these ideas might be helpful for doing so!

Justin practices medicine in various community-oriented ways, and he also researches the impacts of social isolation and loneliness on physical health. In this powerful episode, Justin shares surprising statistics before giving enlightening advice on how we can all start neighboring for health!

For this first episode, Catherine ponders Eric Klinenberg's book Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life. Having read the book recently, Catherine presents and ponders some of Eric's main points and his case for the extreme importance of social infrastructure. We are so honored to be able to ponder on the porch with Catherine, and what she draws out of the book is so illuminating. We are so psyched to share this episode with you all!

If you would like to learn more about Eric's work, or read Palaces for the People, please visit Eric's website: https://www.ericklinenberg.com/

In last week's episode, Riccardo detailed what his childhood neighboring was like, as he painted a picture of the neighborhood where he grew up. If you have not yet listened to that episode, titled "Riccardo Harris (Part 1): A Murmuration of Starlings", we would highly suggest doing so. During this week's episode, Riccardo tells about the many incredible things that he does, why he was drawn to the Neighboring Movement, and about his church in the SoCe neighborhood. 

As has been the case with some of our other episodes, this episode contains discussion of spiritual and religious topics. Because Riccardo is a Christian and his church in SoCe is a Christian church, Christian spirituality is referenced frequently throughout this conversation. As always, we want to reiterate that we do not present these episodes to promote any one spirituality or religion, Christianity included, but instead because we think they are helpful and encouraging for all neighbors, regardless of their relationships to spirituality or religion. We hope you enjoy the episode!

If you would like to learn more about Riccardo and about a few of the many incredible things that he does, please visit the following sites:

His website: https://www.riccardoharris.com/

His church: https://www.resurrectioncc.net/

His program: https://www.wichita.edu/administration/diversity/communityengagement/wichitagearup/index.php

His book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0615692273/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Among so much more, Riccardo is an incredibly gifted speaker, author, and trainer, and he works a wide spectrum of jobs that range from being a pastor to being the executive director of Wichita GEAR UP. Riccardo brings an awesome energy to our team, and we are so honored to be able to work with him! In this episode, Riccardo details what his childhood neighboring was like, as he paints a picture of the neighborhood where he grew up. Finally, he speaks towards what he is looking forward to co-creating with the rest of the Neighboring Movement team. Be sure to tune in next week for the second part of this interview, and welcome to the front porch, Riccardo Harris!

If you would like to learn more about Riccardo and about a few of the many incredible things that he does, please visit the following sites:

His website: https://www.riccardoharris.com/

His church: https://www.resurrectioncc.net/

His program: https://www.wichita.edu/administration/diversity/communityengagement/wichitagearup/index.php

His book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0615692273/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

This episode, like our other neighboring tip episodes, presents a simple experiment for connecting with your neighbors. We hope you not only enjoy listening to this episode but also experiment with the tip presented, and we hope these ideas might be helpful for doing so!

Lydia is one of our neighbors, and among so much more, she is an incredibly hard worker with a great sense of humor and a deep love for pit bulls. Lydia started working at the Neighboring Movement in June of 2019, and along with writing grants and reconciling accounts, she has also been working towards making one of her biggest dreams become reality. You will have to listen to the episode to discover what this dream entails, but we will say that it does involve a deeply dapper cat...

In addition, Lydia has started a campaign in order to continue working towards this dream. If you would like to support her in this, please visit:

https://ifundwomen.com/projects/dapper-cats-dapper-startup?fbclid=IwAR2x3CUjWfGHnadtJPzSPixmhTDgM2KcbvazE2acD1h_1DKN7QJwFG3NsXo#.XlU_3b2XBBQ.facebook

She also has a Facebook page where she posts updates about her work. You may "like" the page by visiting:

https://www.facebook.com/Dapper-Cat-Coffee-2039818616041752/

Prescott is the son of host Adam Barlow-Thompson, and recently, Prescott hosted a block party. In this episode, we first take listeners behind the scenes of the party through never-before-heard recordings in order to discover what this creative process was like. Next, Prescott details how the party went before then discussing his own perception of neighboring on his block. You won't want to miss this episode! It's full of lots of laughs and lots of wisdom, and it's also an amazing reminder that neighboring is for everyone.

In this episode, the group reflects upon the following three questions:

1. Are there any specific highlights for you from neighboring in the past year?
2. What did you learn about neighboring in the past year?
3. What are you thinking about or looking towards for your neighboring in the year to come?

Thanks for celebrating the 1-Year Anniversary of The Neighbor Next Door with us!

Yes, that's right, Matt wrote a book! The book is about the spiritual practice of worship and is one of eight books recently published in a series from Abingdon Press titled "Holy Living: Spiritual Practices for Building a Life of Faith".

In this episode, host Adam invites host Matt to be a guest on the front porch in order to tell us the story of how the book came to be and then present some of the book's central ideas. Here we will also note that this episode is a bit different than our others; it's central focus is not the practice of neighboring, and it also contains much discussion of Christian spirituality. We want to reiterate that we do not present this episode to promote any one spirituality or religion, Christianity included. Instead, we present it because Christian spirituality is a large part of both Matt's spiritual journey and work outside of the Neighboring Movement, and the book is an expression of the both of those.

As always, we hope you enjoy this episode, and click here to learn more about Matt's book or purchase it!

This episode, like our other neighboring tip episodes, presents a simple experiment for connecting with your neighbors and seeing your neighborhood with abundance. We hope you not only enjoy listening to this episode but also experiment with the tip presented, and we hope these ideas might be helpful for doing so.

In this episode, Richard outlines some of his neighboring journey before talking about his approach to civic AND civil engagement. Richard is a passionate neighboring practitioner, and in this interview, he also explains a lot of the theory behind why he does what he does. This interview was very thought-provoking for us, and we hope it is for you, as well!

Last week, Karen, one of the newest staff members at the Neighboring Movement, sat down on the front porch to talk about her upcoming neighborhood get-together. And, between last week and this week, the get-together happened! Karen hosted the gathering on Sunday, so this week, she returns to the front porch to tell us all the story. If you have not yet listened to our first conversation with Karen, we would definitely suggest doing so before listening to this one. The episode for that first conversation released last Tuesday and was titled "Karen Rice Ratzlaff (Part 1): Throwing a Neighborhood Get-Together". We hope you enjoy them both!

Among so much more, Karen is an extremely kind and compassionate person, an excellent listener, and a gifted coach. We are so excited and honored to be working with her! In this episode, Karen talks about a neighborhood get-together that she threw last year and how that get-together sparked a second one that she is about to throw on Sunday. This is the first of two conversations with Karen, so be sure to tune in next week when Karen returns to the front porch to tell hosts Adam and Matt all about the neighborhood get-together!

Again, we want to allow Greg to introduce himself, but believe us when we say that he is doing amazing work and that you won't want to miss his interview! Because this is a guest episode, it is a bit longer than the ones we normally produce, but again, we think you are going to enjoy every bit of it. Like a few of our episodes, this one also contains discussion of spiritual and religious topics. As always, we want to reiterate that we do not present this episode to promote any one spirituality or religion but instead because we think it is helpful and encouraging for all neighbors, regardless of their relationships to spirituality or religion.

We hope you enjoy, and for more episodes and information, please check out the Reports From The Spiritual Frontier website!

This episode, like our other neighboring tip episodes, presents a simple experiment for connecting with your neighbors. We hope you not only enjoy listening to this tip but also experiment with asking a neighbor to watch over your home while you are away! We hope these ideas might be helpful for doing so.

Rhonda shares a few highlights of fostering relationships with her neighbors, as well as some of the struggles. Along the way, there is plenty of laughter! Rhonda has a special gift for throwing parties and bringing people together, but she hasn't always been that way. In this episode, she shares her powerful story of becoming isolated and then how she came out of that season. 

If you have not yet listened to Adam and Matt's first conversation with Lisse, we would encourage doing so before listening to this episode. In that first conversation, Lisse tells the story of her organization and their approach to community development, which provides a perfect foundation for the stories you are about to hear. The episode with the first conversation is titled, "Lisse Regehr (Part 1): The Story of a Thriving Organization".

Now, welcome to Part 2! In this conversation, Lisse tells some amazing stories that have blossomed forth from the Allen County community before giving advice on how you can continue to work to make your community a better place. We hope you enjoy! And, if you have not yet had a chance, please check out Thrive's website to learn more about their amazing work!

Lisse is an excellent storyteller, and she brings to the front porch a ton of community development experience. Her organization, Thrive Allen County, is a health, wellness, and economic development coalition located in Allen County, Kansas, and her team does incredible work! In this first episode, Lisse tells the story of her organization and what their work looks like throughout Allen County. We are so excited to share this with you all!

Please check out Thrive's website to learn more about their amazing work, and stay tuned for next week's episode, when Lisse will join us on the front porch for another wonderful conversation!

For today's episode, hosts Adam and Matt sit down on the front porch to explain the work of our nonprofit, the Neighboring Movement, and detail our vision for 2020. They begin by explaining who we are and what we are called to do, before detailing the two different settings in which we work and what we do, and plan to do, within each of these settings. In the last few months, our staff has doubled in size, and in many ways, our work has been transformed. We are very excited about all of these changes and are also quite excited to share them with you all! Welcome to the front porch!

Jonathan is an expert in Asset-Based Community Development, or ABCD, and has a ton of experience utilizing, and helping others utilize, an asset-based approach. In this episode, Jonathan explains how ABCD shapes his work supervising community centers, how real change occurs in communities through small connections that foster friendships, and how we must utilize what we have in the present in order to become architects of our own future.

We think this is a fascinating episode, and we are quite excited to share it with you all!

This episode, like our other neighboring tip episodes, presents a simple experiment for connecting with your neighbors. We hope you not only enjoy listening to this tip but also experiment with hosting your own block party, wherever you live! We hope these ideas might be helpful for doing so.

In the last episode, Mike outlined both his shift and his church's shift from scarcity to abundance. In this episode, Mike first presents practices that can help us stay focused on abundance before detailing how individuals, organizations, and institutions must structure themselves differently in order to be built around abundance. Next, Mike describes how he sees this movement of abundance-focused work taking shape around the country. To finish, Mike re-frames the idea of Christian discipleship and details what discipleship looks like for both him and his church.

Like Mike's first episode, this second one also contains discussion of religious topics. We want to reiterate that we do not present these episodes to promote any one religion or being religious but instead because we think they are helpful and encouraging for all neighbors, religious and non-religious alike.

We also want to take a moment to promote Mike's book, Having Nothing, Possessing Everything: Finding Abundant Communities in Unexpected Places. It is an amazing read, and we recommend it to everyone! You can find more information about the book here.

Mike is a pastor at Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, and both he and his church participate in astounding asset-based work that has deeply transformed their community. But Mike has not always utilized an asset-based approach in his work, and neither has his church. In this episode, Mike outlines both his shift and the church's shift from scarcity to abundance, from creating programs to meeting neighbors.

Like a couple of our other conversations, this conversation contains discussion of religious topics. We do not present these episodes to promote any one religion or being religious but instead because we think they are helpful and encouraging for all neighbors, religious and non-religious alike. We hope you enjoy!

Do you have a neighbor with a very different political stance than you and who is very vocal about it? If so, how does this affect your conversations or interactions with the neighbor? In this episode, Adam and Matt discuss how we can foster healthy conversations with neighbors who are very outspoken about their political beliefs or whom we might disagree with politically. This is a hot topic in neighboring, and we are quite excited to have you join us on the front porch for this discussion!

In the episode, Adam references the book Conflict without Casualties by Nate Regier. If you would like to learn more about the book and Dr. Regier's work, visit https://next-element.com/conflict-without-casualties/.

In practicing neighboring, we realize that certain challenges can arise - they most certainly have for us. In this episode, Adam and Matt first outline a posture with which to approach neighboring challenges before moving into a "Dear Abby" section, where they give specific examples of these challenges and outline how each of them could be addressed. Two topics that are covered are how to set boundaries with neighbors and how to approach awkward conversations with neighbors.

We hope this episode provides both a healthy posture and tangible techniques that can be employed when approaching various neighboring challenges.

We received a lot of fantastic feedback on the social capital episode, but recently, we have started using the term "social fabric", and we think the different metaphor may be a helpful way to understand the concept and think about it in different ways. In this episode, Adam and Matt define social fabric before detailing how this fabric is weaved and then how we can all weave it in order to co-create tight-knit neighborhoods. Happy weaving, and happy neighboring!

In order for neighboring to become a more common way of life for us, we need to think back on our experiments. What have we done to reach out to neighbors? How did it go? What would we do differently next time? These simple questions give us insight and direction as we think about neighboring in the future.