Our First Out of Town Work Trip!
Through the Good Neighbor Experiment (GNE), our faith-based training, we connect with faith leaders from across the country by training them in our material so that they can bring GNE to their contexts. One of these faith leaders is named Dr. Heather Kilbourne who is the program manager of Faith in Rural Communities through the North Carolina Rural Center. Last week, Matt and I were invited by Heather to present an ABCD 101 Workshop.
With the state of our world over the last two years, it was hard to imagine that we were about to get on a plane and travel to North Carolina for our first in-person and out of town workshop. One of our GNE Facilitators, Heather, invited Matt and I to come and share a 90 minute presentation about asset-based community development (ABCD) through the North Carolina Rural Center. We were going to be speaking with around 50 local church members from across the state of North Carolina who had gathered for this kick-off event for a 9-month cohort that equips rural churches to identify the gifts and implement a plan of action in their community.
We were thrilled to be invited. After two delayed flights and one missed connection, we landed in Raleigh, NC eager to share some of our stories at The Neighboring Movement, and even more excited to learn from and with these faith leaders in North Carolina.
During this trip, I was reminded that there are incredible leaders of faith doing the work of relationship-building and justice in their communities. Here are some examples:
We heard a devotion from Heather about Bezalel and Oholiab (even as a seminary-trained professional, I had never heard of these two??) found in Exodus 36 of how the people had more than enough to construct a sanctuary.
We met with other staff (Miles, Bronwyn, and Emily) at the North Carolina Rural Center and heard about their work over the last 35 years in rural communities in North Carolina through advocacy, economic development, and leadership training.
We connected with leaders from the North Carolina United Methodist Conference (Jaye, Steve, and Leah) to share about the Good Neighbor Experiment and hear about their outreach and community engagement as a Conference.
We heard a wonderful presentation from NETworX (Annette and Crystal) about the importance of prioritizing equity in the work of Asset-Based Community Development.
We spent Sunday morning visiting with Rev. Dr. Elaine Heath at Spring Forest which is a church, farm, and garden all in one that is grounded in healing, relationship, and community. We even got to pet some of their goats!
In just a few days, we were able to connect with such wonderful leaders and witness such inspiring work! I was so grateful to see how God is moving and breathing life in North Carolina. I’m looking forward to where our work takes us next in order to continue seeing the gifts and abundance in other communities across the country!
