“Bursting With Potential”: Concluding Our First FAN Cohort!
We are now taking applications for individuals and church teams for our Winter/Spring 2025 cohort beginning in January. Apply here!
In an online session on September 12th, our first faith-based cohort of Animators showcased the culmination of 14 weeks of dedicated, intentional neighboring around their homes. They presented their asset maps for TNM staff and their fellow Animators. Asset maps are creative representations of the once-invisible gifts of their neighborhood that Animators slowly made visible during the cohort- through relationship-building, daily presence and attention to their blocks, and face-to-face conversations with neighbors. Animators also shared the results of their 8 Front Door gatherings that they co-hosted with neighbors in driveways, community spaces, and green areas. Collectively, the 5 animators held 4 gatherings, with 2 more planned for after the cohort’s end, spent 27.25 hours having learning conversations with 25 different neighbors, and discovered at least 120 gifts that were previously hidden. The numbers, however, fail to paint a picture of the richness they encountered. Nothing conveys abundance like stories, and we will share some of our favorites throughout this update!
Presentation night fell just one week after our Celebration and Storytelling night brought us all to joyful and inspired tears as cohort members shouted each other out, hyped each other up, cheered each other on, and planned for the future. The first cohort of our Faith-Based Animator Network (FAN) was a true experiment, one that lived up to our already lofty hopes- and exceeded them!
As I relayed in a previous blog post, FAN has built much of what we do off of our secular program, CAN. However, “FANimators” are additionally inspired by Jesus’ commandment to “love our neighbors as ourselves,” and we believe such love starts next door. We use the lens of faith to encourage each other in the counter-cultural practices of good neighboring. One of the most important differences between FAN and CAN is that our faith-based Animators use the language of “covenantal commitment” to describe the thick-and-thin, radically present relationships we are trying to build with our neighborhoods- their places, people, and ecology.
This cohort challenged us to try to build this covenantal commitment when 3 of our 5 animators had plans to move from their homes during or shortly after the cohort. In our view, covenant does not mean that one can never move on from a place or a people, but rather that we embrace a deep sense of responsibility to our neighbors, whether we are welcoming new neighbors in, caring for present neighbors, sending off neighbors who move on, or whether we have to move on ourselves. We challenged our Animators who were in transition stages to embrace this responsibility and to invest in relationships in their current places anyway, creating or strengthening a culture that would be entrusted to the residents staying behind to carry forward, while at the same time building up a skillset to take into their new neighborhoods!
All three of those Animators embraced the challenge. I’ll share just one Animator’s story to convey just how fruitful that commitment can be.
[My gathering] went SO well! 11 people total were there! More than I expected. Everyone was so happy. At first they were nervous and seemed weird that I was going to make them do this thing [our Head, Hands, Heart activity]. But once we got going everyone loved it and got excited to talk. Then everyone stayed! And played games. Everyone stayed an extra hour and didn’t want to leave [...] I had to gently wrap things up. They all told me they were so happy I did it […] Everyone signed up for the neighborhood text chain too!
In the same story, we saw the kind of reaction from a neighbor that often drives our passion for neighboring work. The oldest man on the block said, “‘I’ve lived here since 1950 and this is how it used to be. I’ve missed this.’” This particular Animator had some very difficult personal situations come up the same week as the gathering and considered canceling it. Instead: “I’m glad I didn’t bail. Everything’s been so hard [that] I felt overwhelmed by this but it ended up being exactly what I needed.”
The Animator went on to describe how connections made through this neighboring work brought people together who had poor first impressions of one another, getting them talking and humanizing each other, even challenging prejudices. Those are the kinds of results that can help build a long-lasting culture of neighboring beyond the presence of one individual. Yet, it was one individual deciding to commit to a place and people despite having plans to move that set the stage for future connections to grow. Another neighbor has offered to host the next gathering, relying on his passions and gifts to choose a theme and offer hospitality!
Our Animators were also able to challenge a pervasive mentality of hyper-independence in our culture, embracing the idea that neighbors’ lives are intertwined, or to quote Robin Wall Kimmerer, that “all flourishing is mutual.” This is an idea that many of us know deep down, but it often requires us to pause and pay attention in order to give this idea the practical intentionality it deserves. A key part of FAN is learning the rhythms of our places. One of the first mini-experiments we ask Animators to do is to walk their blocks daily, usually around the same time and the same route, so that they can establish their faces and their presence as familiar, while at the same time observing the rhythms of others. An Animator and her husband learned that their neighbors, a young couple, had recently had a baby and offered to help with lawn care. They were not simply looking to help “needy neighbors;” they knew from experience the challenges of that particular life stage. In her words,
[Our neighbor] texted me later that she was so grateful that we took the time to help them out. It feels really important to help out others in the throes of the newborn stage as my husband and I know how incredibly world-changing it is [...] I know that other neighborhood members are connected to them, but it can be hard to identify a need and take care of it. So often we can say to people ‘let us know if you need anything’, knowing that folks rarely do reach out as it is hard to ask for help. The ability to see a need, offer to take care of it for someone, and have them trust you to take care of it for them... it seems banal but is becoming remarkable in our society.
And yet, this Animator also hit the nail on the head: it is often easier to give help than to ask for and receive it in our culture. Relationships are formed when we both give and receive care with/from neighbors. So we challenged neighbors to learn to ask neighbors for help too. For example, one Animator asked a neighbor who had revealed a gift for plumbing to help with a plumbing issue, while another received care from neighbors who repaired their shared fence.
Sometimes, it is not so clear-cut who is giving the care and who is receiving it. We often train Animators to invite neighbors to do a learning conversation with them in a similar way to how a kid might ask a neighbor for help with homework. Contrary to what many might believe, people are generally eager to help their neighbors, and, to the surprise of our Animators, neighbors respond positively at a very high rate to requests to sit down and talk in this way- in part, I think- because they see it as akin to helping their neighbors (our Animators) with a favor. At the same time, the neighbors are often surprised to find that participating in a learning conversation feels like they are being cared for, too. Very few people ever get a chance to tell their story, and when another person takes the time to pause all else, to ask good questions, and to listen deeply for an extended period of time, our neighbors often find immense joy in opening up. Another Animator came to the exact same realization, remarking “what a privilege” it is to give someone her undivided attention. The flourishing is mutual, and often neighbors ask questions reciprocally back to our Animators. A third Animator reported:
Had a learning conversation today and what struck me the most was how emotional my neighbor got talking about the things and people he cared about. I've known him for 2 years and by focusing on him and asking simple questions (that delved a little deeper) I saw that his heart is on his sleeve way more than I imagined. I feel like I know him better not just because of what he shared but how the conversation revealed a part of him I didn't know before! Sacred moment for sure.
On a different occasion, this same Animator shared that he was able to help an elderly neighbor during the cohort by driving him and his wife to a surgery. He used his gifts of prayer to console the couple, and then embodied the kind of presence and attention that we are aiming for by spending about 90 minutes talking with the wife in the lobby. He took the opportunity to have a learning conversation with her, during which the neighbor was brought to tears as they connected on a much deeper level. Though our Animator was providing care to his neighbors, he also received care by learning about the gifts, interests, and wisdom that his neighbor revealed through answering his questions. He began to see her as a “community connector,” someone who sees the gifts in others and can introduce them, who has both needed neighbors before and come to neighbors in need, and who has incredible dreams for the neighborhood matching anything that came from our “textbook,” The Connected Community by John McKnight and Cormac Russell. Others in the office were also able to witness the joy and vulnerability from “this great pastoral conversation about faith and neighboring.” The neighbor testified: “We called so many people and it came down to us thinking of you as a neighbor, and thank God you could give us a ride.”
A fourth Animator built on this theme when he noticed another neighbor listening in on a learning conversation that happened over breakfast in a common area. The neighbor seemed to be genuinely curious about what was happening, so the Animator took the time to invite the other man into the conversation, turning one learning conversation into two, and learning about the gifts of both neighbors, including a passion for teaching others to play card games like bridge! This only backs up our belief that making invisible gifts visible can be contagious.
But the process is only the beginning. Learning conversations reveal hidden gifts- the talents of our individual neighbors, associations that multiply the power of individual gifts, cared-for places that are special to residents, and little ways neighbors exchange with each other. Our presentation night revealed a cornucopia of abundance. Below is just a small sample of the gifts Animators discovered:
Blacksmithing
Helping others get health insurance
Podcasting on folklore
Animal care
Ornithology (study of birds)
Woodworking
Coding
Welcoming people
Coaching
Backcountry survival/wilderness first response
Résumé-building
Active listening
Antique organ and furniture restoration
Watching each other’s dogs and houses
Baby clothes exchange
Dinner church
Secret garden team
Buy Nothing groups
Neighbors organizing to build a new bridge after a low-water crossing death
The future of FAN is incredibly promising, but it is still a living work-in-progress. This first class of 5 Animators joins Animators from CAN, members of GNE neighboring teams, and We Care team members in the TNM Alumni Network! They have shown passion for staying actively involved in their own neighboring and in future cohorts, and as a first contribution, they provided constructive feedback that we can build on, including suggestions on additional spiritual practices and theological reflection we can add in, ways Animators can incorporate this work into their church so that they can have an additional layer of accountability to a pastor or church member, more in-person meetings, ending the cohort with a sort of commissioning ceremony that makes it clear how they can continue the work, and some technical changes like simplifying the syllabus and allowing animators to see which hours they have already submitted. As a staff, we take these critiques and suggestions as just one more type of gift, and we are so grateful for the supportive alumni and facilitator team that can keep us accountable in continually improving this program!
To close, I thought I would leave you with some miscellaneous quotes from Animators:
“I am more convinced than ever that my neighborhood is bursting with potential and gifts/assets.”
“People's deeper selves were revealed and it was beautiful.”
“I have some neighbors that are more likely to text and reach out to me.
“I see immense potential in my neighborhood through all of the gifts and assets that are present.”
“[FAN] challenged me to deliberately work towards connecting with others, and also [to] find talents in myself that I didn’t know of before. It provided me with a much better idea of the unseen gifts that our neighbors had.”
“[FAN] made me realize that people around me really do want connection. It is just that everyone is afraid to take that first step. Once someone else was doing it, they were thrilled to join in.
“[This cohort] has honestly completely changed my perception of myself and my gifts. I had to step outside of my comfort zone, and it made me realize that I am really good at hosting, I am good at talking to people, I am good at creating community...what a gift.”
“It has made me open back up to my faith and has honestly allowed me to see God moving again when for the longest time in my life, I felt a very big disconnect there. “
“People know each other! They want to get to know each other more and spend more time together. I have even made a new friend who likes to rollerblade too and we have been doing that together. People see us forming a friendship out of it and I hope that it also inspires the other neighbors to continue to be close.”
We are now taking applications for individuals and church teams for our Winter/Spring 2025 cohort beginning in January. Apply here!
