Soul Care sounds really lovely until its gets real! So we thought we should sit down with some of our staff members about their own personal experience around burnout, high expectations around service as a lifestyle, and the importance of understanding your own personal limits and your opportunities.

Our team gets personal about their own stories and how missed opportunities or struggle have shaped how they show up to work and leadership today.

To learn more about our team, visit our Staff page - https://everyneighborhood.org/meet-our-team/

Can you lead and not have a close friend? Victoria is a leader of leaders - she finds herself in spaces guiding and holding space for the people who are leading the next generation. On this episode Andrew, Grace and Victoria chat through what kind of friendships you'll need to lead for the long haul, confronting your personal fears in community, the necessity of social chemistry in work, how to avoid echo chambers in our circles, and why community is the key to flourishing leaders. To learn more about Leadership Education at Duke Divinity - https://leadership.divinity.duke.edu/To order Victoria's book, Holy Friendships - https://a.co/d/htucagW

Every Neighborhood Partnership is a Fresno, CA based non-profit that exists to Activate. Equip. Mobilize and Transform so that our students excel, community members are healthy and whole, and our neighborhoods thrive.

An investment in your own leadership will not only grow you in your work, but also more than anything your personal life. Today we have the gift of hearing from Jon Hand, co founder of Lead from Transformation coaching, as well as Joyce Harrington, ENP's own Associate Director who is in the middle of LFT coaching course. The two share their personal stories of where their journeys led them vocationally to be a leader desiring to lead from their own work, and that being able to face and journey through your own story is the key to unlock being a healthy leader.

To learn more about Learn from Transformation

Jon lives in Southern Ontario with his wife Aimee, where they’ve made their home since moving from the U.S. in 2015. With over 27 years of experience in church and business leadership, Jon’s journey took a pivotal turn after a life-altering season of burnout in his thirties. That moment led him to discover the transformative power of coaching—shifting his leadership from command-and-control to a non-anxious, team-empowering style.Since then, he’s built a thriving coaching practice and developed Soul Coaching, a yearlong journey that helps Christian leaders deepen their identity and character in Jesus so they can lead with renewed capacity and bear lasting fruit. Jon is driven by a clear vocational pledge: to wake up every day to challenge, equip, and inspire leaders to lead from their own transformation.

Joyce was raised in Fresno and was the first in her family to graduate from college. Obtaining a BS in Business with an emphasis in Accounting she successfully worked in the corporate sector for over 15 years as a Controller. The social events which occurred in our nation in 2019 awakened Joyce to begin combining her Christian faith with the business skills she acquired to help non-profits. She took on the role of Finance Director at a statewide social justice non-profit where she excelled in Operations and Strategic Planning, helping bridge the gaps of programmatic work and back-end operations. With three amazing children in tow, Joyce is passionate about creating a world where faith, work and personal life are balanced. She believes when people are living their purpose, they strive less and are able to bring their whole selves to the workplace and have greater impact in their communities. Joyce finds refreshment, release and retreat in the expansive beauty of the Sequoia National Park and ministering to women.

How does being a high capacity leader and being a non anxious presence intersect? Today Grace and Andrew have the opportunity to chat with Dan Braga, hearing about his story and journey of ministry. Dan talks about how learning from the desert fathers and mothers of faith and practicing a contemplative spirituality saved not only his leadership and ministry, but his faith. Dan asks the question -- can you plant a church that doesn't kill leaders or the people who choose to be part of it...and thrive? And if so, what will that require of your inner life?

This episode will encourage you to rethink your pace and your presence you practice in community. We hope it encourages you.

Dan Braga loves the noble call of the local church pastor more than ever. He and his wife, Alexis, have been immersed in the church planting world for 20 years and currently lead Neighbors Church. Dan also teaches formation as an adjunct professor at his alma mater, Western Seminary, and is midway through a doctorate in Spiritual Theology under Jon Coe at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. A lifelong surfer and self-described kook, he still paddles out almost every morning.

To learn more about Neighbors Church, visit - https://www.sdneighbors.church/

Every Neighborhood Partnership is a Fresno, CA based non-profit that exists to Activate. Equip. Mobilize and Transform so that our students excel, community members are healthy and whole, and our neighborhoods thrive.

Ever gotten a big question like, "Hows it going as a leader?" ...and not known what to say?

Today on the podcast, Drew Hyun shares his story of walking with Jesus in his own pastoral leadership as being beautiful, disappointing, and hopeful. Drew talks about how God orchestrated opportunity after opportunity for him to experience deep healing, how he got involved with working in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, and some of the shifts that are happening in the organization relating to community and coaching resources. Andrew, Grace, and Drew chat how our family of origin shapes how we see the world, how to confront our deepest pains and wounds, practice slow down spirituality, all in order to allow our souls to breathe and flourish.

Drew Hyun is the Founder and Lead Pastor of Hope Church NYC, a diverse church with three locations in New York City. Drew is also the Executive Director of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, an organization that aims to transform church culture through the multiplication of deeply changed pastors and leaders. He regularly speaks at churches, conferences and college campuses throughout the United States and abroad. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (M.Div), and Fuller Theological Seminary (DMin).You can learn more about Drew’s newly released book, Beautiful, Disappointing, Hopeful: How Gratitude, Grief, and Grace Reflect the Christian Story at Amazon, Churchsource, or Barnes and Noble.

Every Neighborhood Partnership is a Fresno, CA based non-profit that exists to Activate. Equip. Mobilize and Transform so that our students excel, community members are healthy and whole, and our neighborhoods thrive.

What would your life and work look like if you operated out of the centering presence of Jesus? Today, Mark and Lynn Baker share with us their wealth of wisdom around how our beliefs about who God is matters because it informs how we practice formation. Who is the God who you are seeking to be devoted to? Lynn walks us through what we can discover when we begin to put our beliefs into practice. She shares how prayer and contemplative spiritual formation will move us toward healing our concept of God. To learn more about the Bakers and their work, visit https://www.profmarkbaker.com/

As leaders, we deal with conflict everyday.

Whether its inter personal or personal, we each need to own our own piece of the contribution. Dave Obwald is a Pastor at The Well Community Church and a certified transformational coach who walks alongside individuals and organizations in their journey of recovery, growth, performance, and spiritual transformation. With a master’s degree in conflict and peacemaking and over two decades of experience coaching others, he serves as a “transformational tour guide”—always growing and helping others become all that God invites them to be. In this conversation, Dave walks us through how we pick the narratives we live in and how we bring those into conflict resolution and our own recovery journeys.

To learn more about Re:generation - https://www.regenerationrecovery.org/

To learn more about Dave's coaching -- https://overtcreativecoaching.com/david-obwald

Welcome to a new series from What’s Good in the Neighborhood—Soul Care and Leadership. In this opening episode, we set the stage for a timely and necessary conversation about what it means to lead from a healthy soul. We’ll explore the rhythms that sustain emotionally healthy leadership, how to navigate conflict without burning out, and why recovery, spiritual practices, and deep friendships aren’t luxuries—they’re lifelines. Whether you're leading in a church, a nonprofit, or just trying to be a steady presence in your community, this series invites you to go deeper, get honest, and rediscover the "good" in the neighborhoods we serve and in the souls we lead from.

Tune in and journey with us as we talk real soul care for real leaders.

Learn more about us at everyneighborhood.org/podcast

Today Andrew and Grace get to chat with local advocate and activist, Ariana Martinez-Lott who spent over ten years in advocacy work and real time relationships with undocumented folks here in Fresno county. Arianna brings real world insight and authentic experience to the conversation. Arianna talks about staying positive, seeing the current situation as an opportunity, and staying curious.

Serving as a consultant and engaged community member for local initiatives, Ariana Martinez Lott leverages her cross-sector relationships to strengthen resident-led transformation in Fresno. In her previous role as Community Relations Director for City of Fresno District 3, Ariana led policy analysis, managed district projects, and proudly helped residents navigate complex issues. An avid thrifter, she spends her spare time smothering her two children with kisses, or trying (relentlessly) to convince her husband to let her bring home more plantitas.

Every Neighborhood Partnership is a Fresno, CA based non-profit that exists to Activate. Equip. Mobilize and Transform so that our students excel, community members are healthy and whole, and our neighborhoods thrive.

Learn more about us by visiting https://everyneighborhood.org or @enpfresno on socials.

Andrew hangs out today with Mark Bowers of World Relief on the podcast. Mark describes how his own personal journey led him to a life on the margins with refugees and immigrants. Mark and Andrew discuss the Church's role and responsibility to the immigrant, how World Relief is addressing and responding to the recent policy changes, and how you can learn and get involved with refugees in your own neighborhood.

J. Mark Bowers serves as Sr. Training Advisor for World Relief where his team builds tools for refugee and immigrant ministry in The Workshop. When the screens are powered down, Mark runs a housing business for immigrant families in East Lake—an under-resourced neighborhood where his own family lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

To learn more about World Relief - https://worldrelief.org/

Every Neighborhood Partnership is a Fresno, CA based non-profit that exists to Activate. Equip. Mobilize and Transform so that our students excel, community members are healthy and whole, and our neighborhoods thrive.

Learn more about us by visiting https://everyneighborhood.org or @enpfresno on socials.