Forum Activity for @michael-mather

Membership

ABCD and Community Organizing/Engagement

The Mental Health Empowerment Agency in New York was talking about this back in the summer of 2009. One of the things they did in Syracuse was that they found several folks in their group who loved the outdoors and the environment. They joined a group who was cleaning up the river that goes through Syracuse. That opened up an awareness of that sense of mutual membership.

I was thinking of the work De'Amon has done around our place in gathering together gardeners in our neighborhood for a meal - that otherwise would have never known one another. In these gatherings folks discovered other areas of connection - their is a woman, who is a gardener, who feels like her role in life is "to bind up the broken." This led her to spending time with some folks who have recently come face to face with their addictions - and she has spent time talking with them...because of these initial gatherings with the gardeners...

Yesterday we had a conversation with a local funeral home director and arts supporter...De'Amon told him about the artists that have been gathering for the last several years and the role he played in inviting them to the southside of town to be part of an art exhibition and contest at Garfield Park (at the time, they were the only African-American artists that competed in that event - it has sense expanded) - but it built that awareness of the mutual membership. The funeral home director is bringing together folks he knows for dinner in two weeks and to encourage them to attend an exhibition by these artists that he hadn't and wouldn't otherwise have known.

Those are a couple of things that jump right to mind.

ABCD and Faith Communities

ABCD and Faith Communities

As a graduate of Drew University Theological School I'm glad to hear about the connection to this good work.

ABCD and Faith Communities

ABCD and Faith Communities

There are lots of different models for this that I have seen. Church of the Savior in Washington, DC has been doing some interesting things around this for 50 years. But what I would say would be most helpful in our experience is to experiment - and to start with people you feel confident will be "easiest" (for lack of a better term).But we've had a lot of luck in terms of simply building community with inviting people to come together who share common interests. It's beautiful. Nothing bad has happened with that, from what we've seen.

ABCD and Faith Communities

ABCD and Faith Communities

We have a community organizer we call "The Roving Listener" - De'Amon Harges - who helps identify the gifts, talents, dreams and passions of our neighbors. For example he identified lots of gardeners around our neighborhood. He then started getting them together with one another - for no reason except that he trusted that something good would come from it ("have conversations and have faith" is one of our mottoes). We hired two youth from the neighborhood to interview the gardeners and find out what they were growing and whether they were interested in selling what they are growing. They then talked with congregations (mainly choirs and sunday school classes in congregations) as well as neighborhood businesses and not-for -profits to see if they would be interested in buying from their neighbors and if so - how would they want to get the produce? Out of that has come a commitment from a local hospital to have the gardeners of our low-income neighborhood provide a farmer's market at the hospital in the summer of 2011 (the hospital has invested $40,000 in the effort).Another story - just starting to unfold - is that de'amon also identified a lot of bakers in our parish (both in our neighborhood and outside of it). One of the church members who lives outside of the neighborhood is having everyone over to her house this Sunday afternoon (the 24th) to meet one another and share what they are doing.We will also have a group getting together around economic development (de'amon identified a lot of folks with this passion) in November.That's a couple stories from our place (there are more).

ABCD and Faith Communities

ABCD and Faith Communities

My name is Mike Mather and I'm pastor at Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana in the U.S. I was writing to ask what folks are doing in their faith communities to apply and use the principles of ABCD in their settings. And I'm asking if anyone has questions about it that we could share with one another about.

For example - we are playing with this in what we do with the young people and adults in the neighborhood around our church building. We have hired young people and adults from the community during the summer for the last two years to go around and talk with their neighbors. They do three things: 1) Name the gifts, talents, blessings and dreams they hear in the lives of people (they actually literally write them up on the walls and share them with each other); 2) lay hands on people and bless them (if they don't mind); and 3) connect them with other people who care about the same thing. This was a big step from running classes in everything from Bible Study to poetry to math to recreation that we used to do. We are trying to build community on the gifts and connections of the people around us. That's what we are trying. And it brings forth lots of questions.

For example - we are struggling with how to keep up with all the things that we see and hear about. It's overwhelming. But mostly in a good way. But any thoughts?

updated by @michael-mather: 10/29/16 07:43:10AM

Social Media and Social Change

Tips, Tools, Strategies, and Technology

I don't know what it will be...but I can imagine a couple of things of what it could be. As a tool I think social media could do a couple of things...1) it could provide doorways into deeper and stronger relationships - it could remind people or show people where others are around them who care about the same thing - or who are getting together around the same activities - what they do with it will depend upon them - but taking gladwell's point that it is 'weak-tie' relationships...it could perhaps do that; 2) it could function for those who are already "connected" more deeply to keep each other's lives more in contact with each other - more likely to call and follow up - because someone has moved their relationship status from "in a relationship" to "it's complicated" - or someone could post that they were at the er with their young son and you could run by the hospital and see how folks are doing...something like that. Perhaps this didn't even get close to answering your question about major social change shifts - but I would think that one possibility is that people could "feel" like they are more connected, but not really be more connected - and so the major social change shift would be a negative one, where the appearance of a relationship (one an inch deep) stands in for a deep, meaningful relationship...which could lead to more fracturing.Unfortunately I don't really see it leading an initiative to offer to have your neighbor who struggles with isolation over for dinner every night (which Wendell Berry does with a neighbor of his...)...mike

Great Case Studies or Statistics to support ABCD?

Data, Evaluation, and Research

Tamara Leech at Indiana University/Purdue University in Indianapolis is both doing some work in this area and aware of a lot of the work that has been done in this area. She is writing now on what she calls "pro-social involvement" - and has data that she is both using and developing. You can reach her at tleech@iupui.edu