A Gathering to Remember: The Power of Connection
Introduction to the Gathering
Our third Faith-Based Animator Network (FAN) cohort came together in person in September. Animators joined from Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas, Hutchinson, KS, and our hometown—Wichita, KS.
This gathering will be forever memorable for many reasons, not least because it coincided with the grand opening of the highly anticipated neighborhood coffee shop, Riverside Bohemian. Sarah Jane, an alum of the Community Animator Network, and her husband, James, own and run the shop. We could not have asked for better timing to introduce our out-of-state Animators to all things neighboring in Wichita!
Fall 2025 FAN Cohort
In the first six to seven weeks of FAN, we meet over Zoom to build trust and camaraderie before bringing everybody together face-to-face halfway through. We hear over and over again, and feel it ourselves, how great it is to finally be together in person. These gatherings are where everything seems to come together. We cement ourselves as a community of care and practice, united in the shared work of neighboring, in a moment where anxiety, polarization, and loneliness can feel all-consuming.
This is why FAN is powerful. We bring people of faith together who want to journey with their neighbors. Animators build trust and meaningful relationships with deep listening and intentional questions. We don't do this to discover what our neighbors need or how we can serve them. We do this to discover what is already present in their lives -- the abundance, the possibilities, and the joy. These findings help us connect neighbors and empower neighborhoods to care for themselves.
The story of Riverside Bohemian is an example of this work in action.
Riverside Bohemian: A Community Hub
There has long been a coffee shop cozily nestled in the historic Riverside neighborhood. The owners of the last iteration, R Coffee House, approached their regular customer and neighbor of the shop, James, to see if he and Sarah Jane would be interested in buying the coffeehouse. James and Sarah Jane saw the coffee shop as a staple of the neighborhood and Wichita. They were honored to carry on the tradition.
As they worked to rebrand and update the shop, they drew on the diverse gifts of their friends, neighbors, and coffee community — the coffee community, a web of their neighbors, longtime friends, kindred spirits, and a local BBQ joint that was closing and ready to give away its furniture. They dived deep into the neighborhood's stories and identity to ensure the place reflected its vibe.
Here, coinciding with our Animators really starting to dive into asset-based community development (ABCD), was a live example of ABCD in action: an institution and physical asset run by neighbors, all about neighbors, drawing on individual gifts, a hub for associations, and a place of local exchange where dollars and talents circulate hyperlocally.
After flying and driving into town the night before, our cohort met in person for the first time at Riverside Bohemian. Some even walked 1.5 miles from their hotel to discover more of Wichita! We enjoyed lively conversation over baked goods and coffee outdoors on a beautiful September morning. This is my neck of the woods, and it was a treat to show them some of the hidden gems I have found in my own neighboring journey.
We couldn't have picked a more fitting place to meet.
Activities & Reflections
We spent the afternoon at the TNM office. We did our traditional mid-gathering activities -- the We Can game and Social Capital Jenga. We also had some fun conversations about our dream-time travel eras and locations, and a ton of food from Meddy’s.
We Can game
Despite doing much of the same activities every year, each of our cohort gatherings is a product of its time and the gifts of its participants. This gathering came the week after multiple high-profile shootings that reminded us all the more of the importance of neighboring and its power to humanize people we might have little in common with, except a street address.
A Moment of Unity: Prayer for Nonviolence
Ian and Roberta
Roberta, an Animator from North Carolina, helped us center ourselves in light of this as we opened the afternoon. She led us through some short breath prayers and readings on peacemaking from a diversity of world religions, in addition to the Christian scriptures. Roberta then led us in a call to action that exemplifies much of the posture FAN is promoting in our neighborhoods:
I commit myself to mutual care for neighbor and stranger alike.
I commit myself to the path of nonviolence, the way of Christ, the King of Peace.
May my words be gentle, my actions just, my heart open.
May our neighborhoods become places of safety, compassion, welcoming, and justice.
May the God of Peace, Creator of all, free us from the illusion of separation, open our eyes to unity and interdependence, and show us the way of nonviolence.
We are at our best when our group dynamics mirror what we are doing in neighborhoods: making space for people to share their gifts for the good of the group.
The Power of Holy Listening Conversations
We closed with some mutually supportive check-ins about one of our best, though hardest to get used to, neighboring tools: holy listening conversations!
Holy Listening Conversations are intentional conversations designed to draw out people’s gifts. Animators invite their neighbors to sit down with them for 30 minutes to an hour, giving them their undivided attention. It is common for our Animators to feel nervous about the formality of an interview-style conversation with neighbors they don’t know well. But time and time again, everyone ends up appreciating these conversations as the questions prompt neighbors to reveal their talents, dreams, passions, and interests. We started calling these conversations “holy” listening conversations because Animators and neighbors alike reported that there is something sacred about them.
As a result of these check-ins, Nick, an Animator from Hutchinson, KS, decided to host a backyard cookout for his neighbors. And he planned to do it in 9 days to align with National Good Neighbor Day (September 28 every year)! With encouragement from the group, he brought it all together and had a great turnout — 23 neighbors showed up!
Nick
Renewed Spirits
We end each FAN gathering with a liturgy. The words Roberta opened with foreshadowed our closing liturgy for this year. The words Roberta opened the gathering with foreshadowed those of our closing liturgy. We called on “The God of Compassion” to open our eyes to the abundance of our neighborhoods and to the possibilities of connection, and to help us live with care, patience, and trust toward our neighbors.
These prayers for a neighborly posture, as well as the calls to action starting on our own blocks, sent us out of our meeting space with renewed commitment to neighboring. They reminded us that we are part of a much wider web of people who care and act for the good of their local places. Seeing each other’s faces and commiserating and celebrating together as a cohort only made this connection even more tangible.
May this energy carry us forward into the final weeks of our cohort, and beyond!
