What does “community” actually mean? Is community something we achieve or is it something we practice? Claire Brown and Austin Sauerbrei are partners, parents, and community practitioners, living and working in small town rural America. Claire is the rector of a small Episcopal church and Austin is a community organizer with the 50+ year-old statewide nonprofit, SOCM. Their daily lives are a whirlwind of tending to relationships and building muscle for faithful community engagement in their small town. With humor, candor, and wisdom honed by years of deep listening, they offer insights about the tensions and opportunities that arise when we acknowledge how intertwined we are with one another.

This episode is worth watching on The Leader’s Way YouTube channel! In this interview, Austin and Claire model what it looks like to engage in thought-partnership and parenthood, passing their youngest child, Ardy, between them as they respond to host Whitney Kimball Coe’s questions about how we do the thing we call “community.”

Learn more about The Rev’d Claire Brown: https://www.revclairebrown.com/

Learn more about Austin Sauerbrei’s new graphic novel, Trouble! At Coal Creek: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2529-trouble-at-coal-creek