Place Matters

If we are convinced that loving your neighbor and your neighborhood is a nonnegotiable part, of what it means to be the church, how do we get there? How do we mobilize the church for place-based engagement?

If you believe that the church should be embedded in your neighborhood, how do you know how to do that or what to do once you are? 

There are leaders, practitioners, scholars, and advocates around the globe who are struggling with this same thing. And even better news is that some resources and organizations exist solely to help you navigate that challenge. 

Joining us today are two of our friends and colleagues from The Parish Collective, a global network whose simple mission is to connect people to the church in the neighborhood. Jose Humphreys III is the author of Seeing Jesus in East Harlem: What happens when the churches show up and stay put, and Tim Soerens is the author of “Everywhere You Look: Discovering the Church, Right Where You Are”.  His co-authored first book “The New Parish: How Neighborhood Churches Transform Mission, Discipleship, and Community 

Listen to my colleague, David Park, and I talk to two men who’ve given their lives, calling, and careers to reminding churches that place matters.

Does loving your neighbor mean you have to love your neighborhood? For the church to enter into the full work of following Jesus, we believe place matters.

In this episode, we are talking to our good friends, colleagues, and clients - Dave Burger and Peter Hough. Peter and Dave are two congregational leaders in Alton, IL - a small, post-industrial, river town. Peter and Dave are the city catalysts who have been working with FCS to lead a City Shapers cohort in Alton. These guys exhibit so many of the qualities for what it means to personally love your neighbor but to also invite your congregations to love your neighborhood.

Listen in as one of our Lead Consultants, David Park, talks to Peter and Dave about the necessity, challenges, and possibilities of being a place-based church.

Join us, as we explore the relationship between community engagement and the church. What's the relationship between church and neighborhood? Is there a gap?

With the massive population shifts and the renewed investment in urban development, we are faced with a very real and pressing challenge of having enough housing - especially enough housing that is affordable to individuals and families across the economic spectrum. For those of us in the industry, it can feel overwhelming and the picture can seem bleak at times. However, there are so many courageous and creative people working to innovate and expand how we work for justice and equity. Three of those people joined Shawn on this episode to discuss the future of housing: FCS President, Jim Wehner; CEO of Purpose Built Communities, Carol Naughton; and CEO of Atlanta Habitat for Humanity, Alan Ferguson Sr.

When it comes to housing, it doesn’t matter how strategic your plans are, how much experience you have, or how well-resourced you are, there will always be market forces, neighborhood realities, and local policies that are out of your control. What worked for the last 5 years may be detrimental to the neighborhood if repeated in the next 5 years. As FCS is looking at our own changing context, there are a few pivots and innovations that are shaping our next steps. Join Shawn as he talks about these innovations with Jim Wehner, Marvin Nesbitt, and Danielle Clay.

Housing is hard work. From the cost and complications of acquisitions, to the challenges of sustainable development, to the complexities of the market, housing is not for the faint of heart. But, just getting houses built and made affordable is not the whole story. Ensuring that individuals are housed in ways that lead to flourishing people and places, means we have to care deeply for the people to ensure they have all the support necessary for succeeding in place. Joining Shawn to talk about how we care well for those who buy and rent from us are two of the rock stars on the FCS Mixed-Income Housing team - Shell Stafford, our Family Services Manager, and Ashely Edwards, our Resident Services Manager.

It is common to hear people talk about the housing crisis facing our cities. What is less common is to hear people talking about one of the main reasons we are facing this crisis - exclusionary zoning, which creates a level of restriction resulting in low supply despite soaring demand. One crucial way to not only meet the volume of the demand but to address affordable access also is by promoting more multi-family housing (and the zoning changes that would allow for it). This is not without significant controversy, though. There are many fears supported by myths about the impacts of multi-family housing. Joining Shawn to talk about why multi-family rental is actually good for everyone is FCS Senior Director of Community Development, Marvin Nesbitt, and special guest, Jim Brooks, Purpose Built Communities’ VP of Housing and Community Development.

Founded in the late 19th century, South Atlanta was a thriving Black mixed-income neighborhood with Black businesses, churches, and other institutions that fostered a strong fabric of connection and belonging. As years of disinvestment harmed the neighborhood, many of the single family homes went vacant and eventually blighted. At FCS, we quickly realized that if we were going to partner with this place to produce a flourishing neighborhood, we were going to get into the work of buying, rehabbing, building, and selling single family homes. In today's episode, Shawn is joined by Cynthia and Marvin to discuss the many things we have learned by entering into the beauty and challenge of single family housing.

Gentrification is a word that has lost its context, simply coming to mean that the wealthy are getting nice, new things built for them and legacy residents, who are disproportionately lower-income people of color, are getting displaced. Their history and legacy are getting replaced one coffee shop and brewery at a time. This narrative makes headlines, but is it the story that is actually playing out? FCS has said that a healthy mixed-income strategy can do development without displacement. But is a mixed-income approach just a new term for the same traumas being visited upon historically Black and brown neighborhoods? Join Shawn Duncan in conversation with Jim Wehner, Joi Jackson, and former South Atlanta neighbor, Lisa Haygood.