Living an Attitude of Abundance is Indeed a Paradigm Shift

Exploring a different vision for creating community

“Whatever the problem, community is the answer.”

This quote from Margaret Wheatley could have been the mantra for “Engaging Community.  Narrating Change.” last fall with John McKnight, Peter Block and Walter Brueggemann and continues to be the mantra for the people who seek to create community everywhere in their daily lives.

Building upon what 350+ Memphians learned about creating community last November, Center for Transforming Communities (CTC) invited participants to continue the conversation and explore a different vision for creating community - one that changes perspective and emphasis from problems to possibilities.  The vision supports an abundant, satisfying, and strong community that emerges from naming and building upon the existing gifts and assets of individuals living in a neighborhood. 

Drawing upon the methodologies of discussion and community building (i.e. knee-to-knee three person groups of “strangers”) introduced by Block, McKnight and Brueggemann, CTC continued to introduce participants to various conversation methods to engage in a lively dialogue about community at a recent gathering at The Commons.  Participants shared moving and interesting stories about how an assets/gifts approach has been applied to build and strengthen community in their neighborhoods along with concrete ideas for learning and sharing “practices of community.”

Here are a few insights from the evening.  (To read the full notes from the meeting, click here.)

• Our culture often mistakes the event (the gala, the luncheon with a keynote speaker, the conference, etc.) as community.  In our modern era, the event has taken the place of community.  We need a re-imagining of events as an experience of and catalyst for ‘true’ community.
• Storytelling moves individuals from being reduced to sound bites (or a recital of a resume) to seeing other, deeper dimensions of our humanity.  Crafting agendas and space for small group conversations and for people to share their story at a more personal level brings healing and connection – necessities of life.  In sharing and hearing our individual stories, we begin to get a glimpse of the universal story in which we are all interrelated.
• Living an attitude of abundance is indeed a paradigm shift.  And, it is living out of this paradigm shift that deep community is experienced.  It requires a shift of values and language from doing for or giving to another person to values and language that recognizes everybody as having gifts to contribute.

There is more to come!  We are just at the beginning of what is possible when we support each other in being intentional about community.  There will be more invitations and opportunities to explore a different vision for creating community.  Visit the CTC website for more information or to sign up for our enewsletter at www.ctcmidsouth.org.

Until the next gathering, you can join the discussion by sharing your story in several ways:

• Below in the comments section, or
• Contacting us at info@ctcmidsouth.org or
• Linking your story to our Facebook page and/or Twitter feed.

Connecting friends through gifts, passions and knowledge

Binghampton United Methodist Church mapping assets through Advent Study

The gifts, skills, passion and knowledge of the Binghampton United Methodist Church (BUMC) congregation and its neighbors are converging in ways that church members hope will catalyze new possibilities in the neighborhood through expanded relationships.

People working in ministry can sometimes be seen as doing “for” someone as opposed to “with” someone, says BUMC lay leader Barbara Vann, so the congregation is always on the lookout for new ways to come alongside people in their community in a shared quest to learn from each other.

An Advent Study now being shared with community members seeks to expand conversation around what the diverse people of the neighborhood have to offer, especially those who might consider themselves clients utilizing services as opposed to friends with something to contribute.

Over the four weeks of Advent, people who come to the Food Pantry that the church operates will be given the opportunity to define their passions, skills, gifts and knowledge.

Sharing bread at the 2011 Christmas Party.

This gift inventory, as well as those discovered within the congregation, are being collected and will be shared during a Christmas luncheon on Dec. 19. The hope is that a greater understanding of what each person has to offer and how they can impact the community as a whole will emerge, Barbara says.

If a person takes the time to identify their gifts and talents and put language around them, they might instinctively look to others and wonder what gifts they hold inside, she adds — at least that’s what she found after this process of discovery was introduced by John McKnight during a community conversation event hosted by the Center for Transforming Communities last month. 

In the eyes of BUMC church member, Lisa Smith, this is a means of igniting new possibilities centered on friendship.

Lisa has lived in Binghampton all her life, and since 1999, she’s been working at the Food Pantry offering support to friends and neighbors.

The word the central food bank in Memphis prefers when referring to the people in need, however, is client.

Yet, Lisa has given herself license to change this perspective.

“No, they’re our friends because they live around me and they’ve been around me for a while,” Lisa says.

Stigmas would more readily lift if that language could shift in more communities, she adds, and people might feel less ashamed to visit the Food Pantry when times are tight, especially if they have an opportunity to honor and offer their gifts. 

The “Food Lady”, as Lisa is sometimes called by people in the neighborhood, has a unique perspective on the people she meets and has always had an eye for connecting the gifts and talents of the people she meets. She’s connected caregivers to people in need of childcare, for example, and seamstresses with people who want to learn to sew.

She sees the Advent Study as a way to help map some of these gifts and looks forward to the discussion this concept might inspire at the upcoming Christmas luncheon.

This is one more step in the neighborhood’s journey to becoming more like it was when Lisa was a child, at least in terms of connectivity among neighbors.

“It’s getting back to being a friendly neighborhood like it used to be,” she says.

“When I was little, everybody knew everybody, and it seems to be coming back around to that.”

- Kristian Partington -

Click here to download the Advent Study.

Please share your comments below or at info@ctcmidsouth.org.

‘It’s so important to get the questions right,’ says Carrie Brooks

Deep engagement sparked as people define their commitment to Memphis

Building community networks and connecting the passions of people working in various community development capacities is a key focus of Carrie Brooks and the organization she directs, Making a Difference in Memphis.

So, gathering with 300 community members to discuss a new Memphis narrative was familiar territory for the veteran scholar, but this truth and the fact that she was already deeply familiar with the works of the three facilitators — Peter Block, John McKnight and Walter Brueggemann — did nothing to lessen the impact of the day, however.

From the very beginning, when the first questions were posed by Peter asking people to define themselves in groups of three strangers not by their experience, but by their commitment, she was steadily intrigued.

Groups of three.
Carrie Brooks (right).

The follow-up asked people to consider what gifts they received from the other two people they met, and Carrie could see people instantly gleaning a deeper understanding of their role in the greater narrative, simply because of the nature of the questions they were answering.

“The questions (Peter) posed were so different for so many people than what they’re used to at a conference kind of setting,” Carrie explains.

“These are incredibly different questions and that’s my main takeaway. Their questions really changed the conversation, and it’s so important to get the questions right.”

The buzz and energy she felt throughout the day was a direct result of deep engagement sparked instantly through the prompting of all three facilitators, she adds.

Brooks is an expert in adult education and development who, through her work with Making a Difference in Memphis, has helped a plethora of people working in a wide variety of community development realms – from elder abuse to infant mortality to domestic violence – discover new understandings of who they are as learners, and what they can do to be more successful in their work.

People come to her program thinking, “ ‘I’m going to meet some people who are different from me, people I don’t know, and maybe I’ll have something in common with them,’ ” Carrie says, “but at the end it seems that they feel that they’re part of a learning community and they don’t feel that they’re working in isolation anymore.”

The people who attended the CTC event came bearing the gifts and commitment to transformation in ways large and small, yet many may have felt they, too, work in isolation at times. The new connections made there hold much promise.

The follow-up to the mid-November event as these various levels of commitment translate into on-the-ground action is something Carrie looks forward to, beginning with a meeting of some of the key organizers on Dec. 3.

“It’s definitely an exciting time,” Carrie says. “It’s a great time to be here.”

- Kristian Partington -

If you have a story to share, please contact kristian@axiomnews.ca.

Powerful conversations for Memphis’ Carl Awsumb

"I’m excited by what’s going on in this city"

One of the first questions posed to the gathering of 300 community members in Memphis on Nov. 14 urged attendees to consider the gifts they have to offer of themselves, and that introspective concept sits in Carl Awsumb’s mind as he looks back at what inspired him most during the event.

“I thought that was a very, very powerful way to bring you to the present moment,” Carl says.

“I’m as guilty as a lot of people are of thinking in terms of what I’ve done to help me define myself, and I think this conference helped me realize that there were lots of strings attached to that.”

A week later, he attended a meeting hosted by Latino Memphis, and though he knew nobody in the room he found he was able to instantly connect with people by using the same question of gifts to begin conversations.

Carl, a retired architect, spearheaded the creation of a community garden network in Binghampton, and through this work he has become entwined with community development and the Center for Transforming Communities (CTC).

Carl Awsumb (left) at Farmers Market

The CTC organized the Nov. 14 event and invited guests from across the Memphis area to hear from three community development thought leaders, and learn from each other.

People “maybe overlook the main gifts that they’ve got,” Carl says, but those gifts took center stage and the energy he felt, especially from within the young people in the room, was exciting.

“The thing that really knocked me off my comfort seat was the number of teenagers who were able to stand up and articulate so clearly,” he says.

“It was amazing to listen to these young people.”

It can be easy for people to become isolated, Carl adds, and the meeting was “the best forum that I can think of to allow people to really interact across age and ethnicity and income.”

It was a pleasant new conversation, far outside the traditional views of conventional Memphis media and the many citizens there who are all too eager to highlight the city’s shortcomings.

The crossroads the city is at today, and has been at for some time, is the choice of a new dialogue of possibility.

I left that conference thinking, ‘You know, I don’t have the financial support, but I’ve got the emotional support of all these people,” he says. “We came together and there was a collective force there that gave me the strength to carry on.

“I’m excited by what’s going on in this city.”

- Kristian Partington -

If you have questions, comments or a story to share, please contact kristian@axiomnews.ca.
Photo courtesy of www.focuseforthegood.org

Memphis Faith Community Inspires

At a crossroads between deep commitment and finding their voice, Peter Block observes

“I was inspired by a faith community, by mostly Christian churches, who’ve decided to extend their property line to include the neighborhood and their local community.”

That is how thought leader Peter Block says he left a gathering of about 300 Memphis residents who had come together to discover the resources and wisdom already existing in their neighborhoods and how those can be connected for greater productivity.

The gathering was facilitated by the Center for Transforming Communities (CTC), which has been working primarily with faith congregations to have similar conversations on a smaller scale across the city.

Peter Block

“The idea that the churches are forgetting about their certainties and instead asking the question, ‘How can we engage everyone in a neighborhood, regardless of their religion, regardless of their beliefs or their economic situation; how can we create a social fabric in this place?’ I think brings a Christian message into the world as strongly as all the preaching and broadcasting and missionary work in the world,” says Peter.

“Instead of saying we’re going to send missionaries out to expose people and bring them into the fold they’re saying, ‘We, as a church, are going to live out our beliefs or Christ’s message, since they’re mostly Christian, by embracing and just being connected and getting to know the people in our neighborhood’ — and that’s very inspiring.

“That creates space for every belief system and it creates space for the work of the faith community, I think, at its best.”

Peter was invited by the CTC to join the event, along with John McKnight and Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann. Each brought a unique gift to the conversation: John’s lifetime of experience making sense of how community can care for itself, Walter’s years of work reinterpreting the Bible and Peter’s commitment to the idea that if there is a gathering then it is possible to create the future in that room.

In addition to being inspired, Peter says he learned a few things, including the power of connectors, such as Amy Moritz, executive director of CTC, who has now been part of eight neighborhoods across the city that have begun actively creating a new future for themselves together.

He also observed a phenomenon he has seen in second-tier cities across the U.S., which is a desire to “win the race for what’s wrong with us,” an observation he says he is still uncertain of what to do with, but it dawns on him that it reconfirms that a city is its narrative.

“It’s not so much its geography or its built environment or its historical development.

“Basically what’s decisive is the story a city tells itself, and every second-tier city in this country is competing to have the most problems, which tells me it’s not accurate. It’s just story.”

The CTC and its extended community are looking to help change that story, with these conversations being a key part in that.

Amongst the work — inviting people to identify four capacities they have, including their gifts, their skills, their passions and what they can teach.

The premise in this — never take labels seriously for people; discover what they have to contribute to their community, and people who seem useless or problematic will step up to make a difference.

“Our research indicates that what makes strong neighborhoods is when what people have to contribute is made visible — which is what we were doing that day — and then connected to become productive,” says John.

“It’s the identification of gifts and their connection for a better life.”

While connections were certainly sparked on that day and gifts made visible, and the commitment of the people shone through very clearly — nobody, for instance, was paid to be there — Peter says he sensed the crossroads the community now faces is finding its voice.

“What got me is that they had some very strong leadership from the community there and I just felt that their commitment to that place and caring for that place was bedrock.

“I just don’t know if they’ve found their voices or their energy yet to know that they can create an alternative future.”

- Michelle Strutzenberger -

Feel free to comment below or e-mail michelle@axiomnews.ca.

‘Deep satisfaction’ in planting the seeds of change, says Amy Moritz

CTC director soaks in possibility, reflects on memorable conversations

Amy Moritz describes the past six months as a period of deep preparation as she and a core of volunteers connected to the Center for Transforming Communities in Memphis prepared to plant seeds of change.

Through their many connections to people in the city working to strengthen local vitality, one neighborhood at a time, they have been cultivating the soil, so to speak. When 300 people gathered for a conversation about the possibilities last week, she could see these efforts paying off. 

Thought leaders Peter Block, John McKnight and Walter Brueggemann helped guide guests through a conversation about the creation of a new Memphis narrative that looks beyond problem-solving to one that honors the gifts and possibilities.

“On Nov. 14, perhaps some new seeds were planted in some very rich soil that will take root,” Moritz said the morning after the event.

“Today, I’m still wondering what that will look like. I know it will be something amazing but that’s kind of where I am — just knowing that the soil has been properly cultivated; there’s a deep satisfaction that that occurred and some great seeds were planted.”

She talks of energy in abundance and a deep sense of commitment in the room as people from all walks of life shared the hope that comes by relating to one another in new ways and cooperating to make a difference in their neighborhoods.

She recalls Peter Block at the end of the day offering his reflections and speaking of the same level of commitment. As an influential voice in community building, he is invited to speak at many events, he told the group, and he chooses which ones to attend carefully based on the level of commitment and energy he can feel in the community inviting him.

As he shared those words, Amy realized just how deep the dedication to the city is among so many community builders, and in the quiet morning after the event, she was still soaking in these reflections.

She is careful to not rush the next steps, she says, though she is eager to see what will sprout in the next few weeks from the seeds that were planted.

“I really want to just marinate in what this is and trust that it is going to be very apparent where this takes us,” Amy says.

It’s about being present in the moment and open to what will naturally emerge, and considering the feeling in the room during the event and the depth of conversation, Amy says exciting times are afoot in Memphis. 

- Kristian Partington -

If you have questions comments or a story to share about your experience with community transformation in Memphis, please contact kristian@axiomnews.ca.

Timely conversations for a church at a crossroads

Jacob’s Well founder looks forward to new connections

at Nov. 14 event

Jacob’s Well is a church that today finds itself at a crossroads in its mission to serve the people of Memphis, and as its founder, Rev. Jamey Lee looks forward, he finds hope in the connections he might make during a gathering of community leaders hosted by the Center for Transforming Communities.

Jamey founded the church in Memphis back in 2010, and its heart is given to the service of God by offering reconciliation, rehabilitation and reciprocation — bridging the racial divides of the city, and offering hope for people struggling through the pangs of addiction and poverty.

“The city of Memphis is a city divided,” Jamey says, but Jacob’s Well is discovering people of all backgrounds coming together across racial and economic lines to worship and pour their faith into the betterment of their community.

“Every person has a gift to bring and every neighbor has value,” he says.

Since its founding, the Jacob’s Well congregation worshipped and met regularly at Highland Heights United Methodist Church at Summer and Highland, but this fall, they answered a calling and moved to work more closely with citizens in downtown Memphis.

The home of Jacob’s Well is now the Holy Community United Methodist Church and the streets around it; an area that is new to Jamey and to many of the core volunteers who work through the church in the service of God and their neighbors.

His hope is that in attending a gathering of 300 or so community members Nov. 14 he will discover new alliances and relationships that will carry his church through this transition.

“With us moving it really opens this new chapter of the Jacob’s Well story and as the leader, I’m at a crossroads,” Jamey says.

“I hope that this event will provide something — a spark, and new relationship, a new idea — that can help us in our journey forward.”

The day-long event is spearheaded by the Center for Transforming Communities and will focus specifically on asset-based community development under the guidance of author and community advocate Peter Block, thought leader John McKnight, and Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann.

A conversation about what is possible in neighborhoods across Memphis is exciting, and considering the sheer number of nonprofits and ministries working towards change in Memphis, Jamey has great hope for the day.

- Kristian Partington -

To learn more about the Nov. 14 event, click here.

Feel free to comment on this story below, or e-mail kristian@axiomnews.ca.

Why could Nov. 14 be a good day for Memphis?

Pastor Marlon Foster shares his excitement

The countdown is on to what could be a turning-point for Memphis, Nov. 14, when more than 300 people will gather to think and talk and make plans around pulling their city to a new greatness.

If that sounds highly aspirational, that is just what it is, although there are “feet on the ground” behind this dreaming.

The people and ideas out of which this dream arises include the Center for Transforming Communities, which has been working in Memphis for more than 20 years, and is spearheading the Nov. 14 event.

The asset-based community development (ABCD) which will be integral to the gathering has been at the center of CTC’s work and is yielding the results it’s intended to. That is, people in neighborhoods are realizing their gifts, seeing new possibilities and taking ownership for the changes they want to see happen. These results have been documented in Memphis, as well as in many other places that have introduced ABCD.

In addition to bringing together people from across greater Memphis, the Nov. 14 event will see author and community advocate Peter Block, ABCD thought leader John McKnight, and Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann join the conversation.

Marlon Foster is pastor of Christ Quest Community Church in Memphis, one of the many faith-based organizations participating in the event.

He says he is seeing great possibilities in the day for a number of reasons, amongst those the fact that there will be such a broad cross-section of the Memphis community participating.

He has also been privy to some of the specific plans for the day, and says those are getting him excited, too, knowing how carefully every part of it is being considered, even down to moments for reflection.

“I think the intentionality of the day is going to offer so many possibilities, it’s going to offer newness, it’s going to make room for creativity,” Marlon says.

Having Peter, John and Walter guiding the conversation will also be powerful, he foresees. He shares his vision of them essentially offering what he calls a “tap on the shoulder,” an invitation to consider this or that insight or piece of wisdom, and “then backing away to allow us to engage one another as a Memphis community.”

Marlon says the best that could happen through the event next week is that people make new commitments and see specific ways they can join in or start new efforts that shine a light on their own neighborhood’s gifts and help people in them see new possibilities. The ultimate result would be those same people then together taking ownership for whatever happens in their neighborhoods going forward.

- Michelle Strutzenberger -

To learn more about the Nov. 14 event, click here.

Feel free to comment on this story below, or e-mail michelle@axiomnews.ca.

Drawing spirits of change together in Memphis

CTC chair looks to transformative conversations on Nov. 14

That perspectives change and people will consider the meaning of community in a different light using the language of asset-based engagement rather than deficit: this is but a sampling of Wayne Puckett’s hope as the Engaging Community Narrating Change event draws near.

With little more than a week to go before the long-planned conversation gets underway at Memphis’ Rhodes College with thought-leaders Walter Brueggemann, John McKnight and Peter Block, Wayne is feeling excitement, expectation, and a little pressure as the final logistical details are worked out.

As chair of the Center for Transforming Communities (CTC) board of directors, and member of the planning committee organizing the Nov. 14 event, Wayne has been involved since Day 1.

Her hope is that participants will act on a clearer understanding of the parts they can play in creating their ideal community, knowing that those parts need not be overwhelming or insurmountable.
“It’s like the individual thousands of drops that go into a bucket to fill it up,” Wayne says.

“I would like for people to walk away feeling inspired and connected through the conversations, through the possibilities.”

They might also find inspiration in knowing they are not alone in working to catalyze change in the neighborhoods where they live and the city they love.

Between full-time work, evening teaching commitments, volunteering, and raising two grandchildren, Wayne understands the propensity among busy people to zero in on their work and life, possibly missing what others are doing as a complement.

Holding a space for people of all walks of life to come together might offer new insights into just how expansive the dedication to this shift in community understanding really is.

“I think people might find it surprising that there is so much of an entrepreneurial spirit when it comes to people trying to be in-service and to do something that makes a difference,” Wayne says.

Drawing these sprits together in the service of each other is what the Nov. 14 event is all about, and making sure the momentum sparked there carries forward will be the ongoing mission of the CTC.

- Kristian Partington - 

To learn more about the Nov. 14 event, click here.

Feel free to comment on this story below, or e-mail kristian@axiomnews.ca.

Memphis ‘sets the table’ for its gifts

John McKnight, Peter Block, Walter Brueggemann

to join community conversation

Typically, institutions committed to a community’s well-being begin by asking what’s wrong with a place.

But the three thought leaders to join an upcoming Memphis conversation — John McKnight, Peter Block and Walter Brueggemann — choose not to take the route of problem-solving.

Instead they ask questions such as: What have we got to work with? In what way is God already present in a community? What do people care enough about to act on?

Jay Van Groningen is executive director of Communities First Association, a national body co-sponsoring the Nov. 14 event hosted by the Memphis-based Center for Transforming Communities (CTC).

The institution as savior paradigm no longer works and most likely never did. It is clear Jay, John, Peter and Walter agree on this belief.

When institutions become so busy making participants through their programs the very people they are looking to help seem to lose their ability to consider themselves co-creators in their own places.

“They don’t do life together. They wait for an agency or an institution to solve a problem for them, as opposed to coming together and discovering what can we do together,” says Jay.

But the approach John, Peter and Walter speak for is one that gives people a chance to step up, to be engaged in their own community’s story, “to be actors in this stage that they live on as opposed to being observers and recipients,” says Jay.

This is possible first and foremost because the people acting as catalysts for this approach believe that residents in every community, have gifts and interests and are willing to give their time and energy and skills to make life better in their own neighborhood. Often all that is needed is for somebody to “set the table” where their gifts can be shared.

The approach is highly relational. It is literally embedded in neighbor-to-neighbor conversations. And it is deeply rooted in geography. It is a story about place, a neighborhood or a community.

Community development efforts that begin with this focus on assets, commitment and place are already at work in Memphis, through the catalytic support of the CTC.

As CTC has acted as a “spark” for change, there are now eight neighborhoods in Memphis where people are voluntarily coming together, deciding what they want to make happen in their area and taking action.

Jay, who has visited many of these neighborhoods and had conversations with the residents, says he has seen first-hand the hope, ownership and sense of community coming to life as a result.

These results, he suggests, stem directly, from the fact Amy Moritz, director of CTC, and those who work with her, are in the business of setting that table to which people can bring their gifts.

The Nov. 14 conversation with John, Peter and Walter could be considered another “table” to come to, where there will be ample opportunity for conversations between Memphis residents and also between the residents and the three men.

Jay says he is very excited about the synergizing of the Memphis community with the three thought leaders.

As someone who could be considered an outsider looking in, Jay notes one of the most profound outcomes he would be excited to see happen is that more people from Memphis neighborhoods come forward and say, “This is what we want to do together. Can you coach us?”

The Center for Transforming Communities is a member of CFA, an alliance of about 300 individuals or organizations across the U.S. also committed to asset-based community development.

To learn more about the Nov. 14 event, click here.

Feel free to comment on this story below, or e-mail michelle@axiomnews.ca.

CTC Radio Interview about Block, McKnight and Brueggemann

     
On September 29, 2012 Amy Moritz, Director of Center for Transforming Communities (CTC), was a guest on the Lipscomb Pitts Breakfast Club (LBPC) Radio Show. With the host Jeremy Park, Amy discussed what shalom means to her, CTC and the various communities that are part of the Memphis shalom network. They also discussed the goals of the Communities of Shalom (COS) initiative and the principles at the heart of sustainable, neighborhood transformation.

In addition, Amy and Jeremy discussed and invited listeners to attend “Engaging Community. Narrating Change.”  The event is hosted by CTC and will be held on November 14, 2012 from 8:30am to 4:30pm at Rhodes College in their McCallum Ballroom.  The event features three keynote speakers: 1) Peter Block, author of Community: The Structure of Belonging, which offers methodology for shifting conversations from one of problems to one of possibilities; 2) John McKnight, who co-authored The Abundant Community, which offers practical wisdom and experience to building communities from the inside out using local resources, capacities, and relationships; and 3) Walter Brueggemann, author of Journey to the Common Good, which offers a deeper understanding and commitment to neighborhoods.   The event will be very experiential in nature, weaving contributions of the speakers with the contributions of those gathered for the event through small group conversation.  Register online at www.ctcmidsouth.org.
 
Click Here to Download the Audio Segment