Neighboring Tip - Practice Physical Distancing

Hello friends! This is our third and final week of spotlighting a few of our all-time favorite episodes of The Neighbor Next Door. Today, we re-release a neighboring tip episode from April, and starting next week, we'll be back with new episodes. Thanks for listening!

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of the episode, because things are changing so rapidly in the world due to the pandemic, this episode is already a bit outdated, and some of our language reflects this.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!

Social Fabric: Becoming a Tight-Knit Neighborhood

We're continuing to spotlight a few of our all-time favorite episodes of The Neighbor Next Door. Last week, we re-released an episode on social capital. This week, we're re-releasing an episode in which hosts Adam and Matt further the concept of social capital through the use of a new term: social fabric.

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!

Building Social Capital, Block by Block

For the next three weeks, we're spotlighting a few of our all-time favorite episodes of The Neighbor Next Door. This week, join us on the front porch as hosts Adam and Matt have a hilarious conversation about a concept that's important to our work: social capital.

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!

Justin Hancock: The Julian Way

Welcome back to The Neighbor Next Door, friends! For today's episode, hosts Adam and Matt sit down on the virtual front porch with one of our dear friends, and co-founder of The Julian Way, Justin Hancock.

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!

The Gappers, Our Coronavirus Response (Part 3)

Hey friends! Two weeks ago, we had the first of the gapper calls, and it was so fantastic! So today, hosts Adam and Matt sit down with Kristopher, who helps facilitate the calls, to talk more about how it went. Tune in to hear what the call was like and learn more about the gappers!

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!

Anna Almendrala: This Is Our House, As Well

Greetings, friends! We are so very excited to present today's episode, in which hosts Adam and Matt sit down with Anna Almendrala, a health care journalist who recently wrote a powerful opinion article that was published in The Los Angeles Times and centered around a story of 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!

Neighboring Tip - Practice Physical Distancing

In this week's episode, hosts Adam and Matt sit down on the front porch with Kristopher in order to talk through this week's neighboring tip: Engage in in-person interactions with your neighbors while practicing physical distancing.

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!

Grieving During COVID-19

As always, welcome back to the front porch! In the weeks to come, we will release episodes that are all focused on neighboring in the time of coronavirus, so stay tuned! To kick off this series, hosts Adam and Matt sit down on their respective front porches to talk about one specific element of life in the midst of COVID-19: grief.

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!

John McKnight (Part 3): Turn Those Rocks Over!

This is it. The finale is here! Welcome to Part 3 of our three-episode series in which hosts Adam and Matt sit down with the founder of asset-based community development, John McKnight.

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!

John McKnight (Part 2): Making the Vehicles Visible

Greetings friends! Welcome to Part 2 of this three-episode series in which hosts Adam and Matt sit down with the literal founder of asset-based community development, John McKnight.

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 McKnight (Part 1): Have You Been Out in the Garden?

Goodness gracious me oh my, do we have a few episodes in store for you! Today, we are releasing the first episode of a three-episode series in which hosts Adam and Matt sit down with, quite literally, the founder of asset-based community development, John McKnight.

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

Out now: Lisse Regehr (Part 1): The Story of a Thriving Organization

This week, hosts Adam and Matt are honored to sit down on the front porch for the first of two conversations with the President and CEO of Thrive Allen County, Lisse Regehr.

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!