We know it's been a little while, but we're so excited to present another episode from The Neighboring Movement Podcast! This week, our own Ian Campbell sat down with Kent Smith, a professor at Abilene Christian University, in order to discuss Kent's background of building community in all kinds of contexts and how this relates to his Christian faith.

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!

At The Neighboring Movement, we believe neighboring is a life-changing practice, and this certainly proved true for Karen Kasten, our guest for this newest episode of the podcast. Tune in to hear cofounder Catherine Johnson interview absolute neighboring rockstar, Karen, as they discuss Karen's journey of neighboring in our nonprofit's founding neighborhood of SoCe.

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.

Happy 2024! In this first episode of the new year, we are so excited to welcome our dear friend Carter Ellis onto the front porch. Carter is the executive director of The Hub Argentine, a hub for neighboring and asset-based community development in the awesome, Argentine neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas. 

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!