Does rugged individualism limit our ability to build community?

Possibilities through the lens of a Kenyan ministry

This week I had the pleasure of a visit from Stanley Gitari Imunya and Mary Karimi Gitari of Kenya.  Our mutual acquaintance, Susan Hillebert, organized our meeting believing that our respective work, though 8,000 miles apart, had much in common and that there are things we can learn from each other.

Indeed, I was very intrigued about the work of Zoe Ministries which uses community as the basic building block that nurtures the ability of aids orphans to become self-sufficient.   When orphans are accepted into the three-year program, they are formed into supportive communities of about 80 children that work the tenants of the program as they also show care, support and compassion for each other.  The stories of the children’s generosity and the way they make decisions that care for the whole of the community and the least among them impressed me.  Click here to read an example story. 

Center for Transforming Communities (CTC) also uses the basic building block of community in our mission to strengthen and renew neighborhoods across the Midsouth.   As we finished our conversation, I shared with Stanley that I was eager to learn more.  What are the tools, the processes, the methods that Zoe Ministries uses to bring the children together in community and foster such deep generosity and selflessness? 

 

My question seemed to puzzle Stanley and I realized that I was not going to get his handbook on building community.  I realized, upon reflection, that what I wanted to know did not need special methods and processes in Stanley’s culture.  What I wanted Stanley to share with me were tools for countering the North American culture of individualism, competition and scarcity.  I was hoping for tools that would move a group of people from seeing themselves as individuals with self-interests to protect to seeing themselves as a community, a collective, interdependent, where the well-being of the whole is represented by the well-being of the least among them.

As Peter Block, author of Abundant Community, writes, “Caring for our community and convening citizens to care for their community is difficult work. We are working against the whole tide of the dominant culture which worships individualism, self-interest, and competition.”  

Although Stanley cannot teach CTC and the Shalom Zones how to build community in a society rooted in rugged individualism,  there is still much we can learn from the way he, Mary and the Zoe Ministries ‘seek shalom’ for the orphans in their country.  And, Stanley and Mary were interested to know more about how community and cooperation is fostered through CTC in the Shalom Zones and at The Commons.

Peter Block goes on to write that even though you will not see it much in the news, initiatives like Communities of Shalom and other citizen-based initiatives are creating a surging “movement toward interdependence, generosity, and cooperation that is changing the world.”

I hope you will join us in this movement!  Read the stories of community posted throughout this blog.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ctcmidsouth.org.  Sign up for our enewsletter where you can find out about more ways to be involved.

- Amy Moritz -

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

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.

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 to Spark New Story

Three weekly news stories to focus on gifts and possibilities

Starting today, stories exploring the gifts and possibilities of Memphis neighborhoods will be posted on this site three times a week.

Amy Moritz, director of the Center for Transforming Communities (CTC), says stories of transformation abound in our local neighborhoods. Working alongside church and community members in Memphis, Amy sees what happens when people shift their focus from deficits and problems to gifts and possibilities. It is those stories CTC will be sharing.

Stories will show how people and organizations came together to create The Commons on Merton. These stories will follow how the organizations in The Commons, all with different mission, are working together toward the common good.

A second theme of stories will follow changes in eight neighborhoods connecting through Communities of Shalom activities.

“I’m hoping that some larger momentum or energy comes from us sharing these stories,” Amy says. If stories aren’t shared we won’t know what other possibilities might be sparked in the greater Memphis community,” she says.

CTC is working with Axiom News, a team of generative journalists who are also committed to the gifts and possibilities narrative. The two organizations were connected by Peter Block, who will be visiting Memphis in November. CTC invited Block and his colleagues John McKnight and Walter Brueggemann to host a conversation about building community capacity in neighborhoods. The gathering on November 14, 2012 is already getting more attention than organizers had expected.

Axiom News works alongside organizations and communities throughout North America to explore and amplify their strengths and dreams through high-frequency news stories. The company shares stories between communities so people can learn from and inspire one another.

“Having a partner who can hear our story through the lens of the principles we seek to nurture in community is such a complement to what we are doing,” Amy says.

“We connected instantly with CTC’s values,” says Peter Pula, Axiom News. “Our hope is to provide an easy way for CTC connectors to get their stories told. So many people are doing amazing things. Usually they are so busy doing those amazing things that they don’t get around to writing or publishing stories. That can be hard work unless you are doing it all the time. Our gifts are in that domain.”

Peter anticipates new people will also come forward to co-create media and stories.

“Whether its individuals, journalists, photographers, videographers, social media activists, or organizations with their own story-telling capacities, by working together we can co-create many stories and weave them into a new narrative,” he says.

Peter expects the community will soon find ways to sustain a possibilities narrative independent of Axiom’s involvement.

“When that happens we will continue to point people to the stories of Memphis neighborhoods for inspiration.”

If you know someone who has a gift and whose story could be told please get in touch with Amy Moritz at the Center for Transforming Communities, 901-324-3005, or write to Kristian@axiomnews.ca.