 All right, welcome, everyone. We are gonna go ahead and get started right here at 10 o'clock. We'll have a number of people probably joining us here in the next few minutes. And others, of course, will have this recording sent to them as well as to each of you. So I hope that you'll be able to pass this on. It'll be as a YouTube link so you can forward it to those that you think might be really interested in what we're gonna talk about today, which is the neighboring movement, the good neighbor experiment, which we're really excited to talk about once again. In 2019, a cohort of participants went through the process for the help of Ryan Clink, who was a United Methodist who was among us, and is now serving elsewhere now. And so some of you may be experienced with this. And what I noticed then and notice now is that a lot of conversations are happening about neighboring, about how we are good neighbors, how we develop relationships and friendships with those right around us, taking seriously God's Jesus words of loving our neighbors. And there's plenty of books out there, there's plenty of tools, but it's really all about relationships and the kind of accountability that's something like a good neighbor experiment and something like having a coach like Jessica Wright, who's gonna be coordinating and leading this cohort here, having that accountability and guidance really makes the difference in making it successful because we do this in community. So before we begin, Andy, Lewis, if you would lead us in prayer, Yvette, I'd be happy to welcome everybody. Let's pray. Well, good and gracious God, we are reminded in John's Gospel that the word became flesh and lived among us, moved into the neighborhood, as it were. And that you walked among us, that you befriended us, that you saw us in build relationship with us. That helped us to model our ministry after that incarnational love. That helped us to do more than merely extend an invitation to church, but God extend the love of the church through relationships to our actual neighbors. And God made this conversation today, inspire us and equip us and be a springboard to that kind of incarnational ministry. The opportunity for which is all around us and right before us, especially in this season. We thank you for those who've come to guide us and to lead us. May you bless them and give us all open minds and hearts to which you have to share to us today. It's been Christ's name. We pray. Amen. Well, thank you all very much for being here. I am honored by your presence. So my name, as Andrew mentioned, is Jessica Wright, and I am an associate pastor in the North Texas Conference. I serve at First Allen, an elder underappointment, and recently became a trained facilitator for the Good Neighbor experiment with the neighboring movement. And I'm delighted today because a couple of the folks from the neighboring movement are here to introduce themselves and to lead us through sharing a bit of what they do. So I'll turn it over to Adam and Maddie. Hello, I'm Adam Barlow Thompson. I'm one of the co-founders here at the neighboring movement in Wichita, Kansas. And I'm excited to share what we've been up to and see if there's ways that we might partner with all of you. And hey, y'all, my name is Maddie and I'm the faith-based organizer here at the neighboring movement. My project is the Good Neighbor experiment. And I'm also a deacon in the Great Plains annual conference. And so as Adam shared, we're just excited to be here and see what's next. Thank y'all. Well, and I think whenever a group gets together, there's some power in sharing who we are and where we're coming from. I know we don't get to do this very often in these sorts of formats, but I think we're a small enough group that if you wanted to please unmute yourself, take turns, you know, we're all grown-ups and share your name and what church you attend or serve. And then in the chat, because I'm confident that grown-ups can do more than one thing at a time. I'm a mom and a pastor. I know we can do this. If you wanted to share in the chat an observation, a story, a couple of sentences about a time you've had an opportunity to be a good neighbor or when someone has been a good neighbor to you, I would love to see some of those stories. So I feel like she's my friend and I can call on her. So, Carrie, would you introduce yourself first? Yes. My name is Carrie Smith and I am the pastor at Greenland Hills UMC, which is really close to SMU. So that's all I'm supposed to share. And I'll call on CJ Rice. Oh, I'm CJ Rice. I'm the youth minister at FUMC McKinney. Am I supposed to go? I'm going to follow Carrie's suit. So, Kenneth, how about Kenneth go? Yes, I'm Kenneth Wolverton. I am a laity at Grace Avenue United Methodist Church. I also serve as the lay leader for the North Central District. And I will call on Ted. Good morning. My name is Ted Hyde. I'm a lay leader for a small little Methodist Church in Plower Mountain called Treach Memorial United Methodist Church. And so, Kim Bryant, would you introduce yourself? Yes. My name is Kim Bryant and I am the administrative assistant at Pleasant Valley United Methodist Church in Saxie. Let's see. And who can I get? I forgot about that. Let's see. Kenneth Wolverton, have you spoken? No, he's muted. Let me see. I'm having trouble here. OK, I can do it again, but it's the same thing. Yeah, I was going to say, Vicki Busby, have you spoken yet? Not yet. Good morning. I worship at Grace United Methodist Church in Sherman and I'm Laity there. How about Deanna? Good morning. I'm Deanna Lowe. I am the pastor at Westview United Methodist Church and Floyd United Methodist Church, both in Greenville. Oh, let's see. Page. Good morning. I am Page Christian from Christ United Methodist Church, serving as the associate pastor of off-campus ministries and working closely with Jessica as we have piloted this initiative in our church. I will call on Cindy. Yeah, my name is Cindy Kennedy. I'm the pastor at Pilot Point United Methodist Church been here a couple of years, mostly during the pandemic. So this is a good opportunity for us to figure out what's next. So I appreciate being here and I will call on Patricia. Hi, this is Patricia Hardin. I am a member at First United Methodist Church at Pilot Point and I got invited to this meeting through Cindy. Thank you, Cindy. I'll go. I'm Ashley Ann. I'm the lead pastor at Visteridge United Methodist Church in Coppell, Louisville on the border, and I will call on Sharon. Hi, I'm Sharon O'Connor and I'm an elder at Custer Road United Methodist Church and my role is congregational care. I call on Rick Hawkins. Yes, hi. My name is Rick Hawkins, pastor at Cornerstone, UMC in North Gullit, happy to be here. And I will call on C. Pete Corwin. Hi, good morning. My name is Pete Corwin. I'm a member of Button United Methodist Church and I'm hoping someone volunteers. So I'll go and I'm Rodney Whitfield. I'm the pastor at Older's Gate United Methodist Church in North Carrollton. I think that leaves Ginger. Good morning. I'm Ginger Nichols, I'm a certified life servant at Pleasant Valley United Methodist Church in Sexy. Awesome. Well, welcome, all of you. Thank you for taking this time to be here with us. And then some things have started popping over in the chat. And so feel free to continue sharing your stories of being or having a good neighbor, because I think celebrating those moments reinforces why this is something that is so important in our lives. But I wanted to share just a little bit that during the pandemic lockdown, I realized how much I had not cultivated as many meaningful relationships in my neighborhood as I wanted. I wondered if there was a neighbor nearby that I felt comfortable enough with that I could say, like, can I have some toilet paper? Y'all remember when we couldn't find that? That is a special kind of vulnerability. And I realized I didn't have a lot of those people near me. So I was a kid who grew up watching Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and Sesame Street. And I had this deep longing for that idea of neighbors. But I felt like I didn't have much luck in actually forming those close bonds. In my neighborhood, where I was living at that time, folks pulled into their alleys, straight into the garage and close the door before they'd even gotten out of the car. If folks were out in the neighborhood, a lot of times they had air pods in their ears and they were moving with a purpose looking like I needed to mine my own business. They were not looking for relationship in that moment. I felt awkward trying to figure out how to get to know my neighbors and not be that weird lady on the street. So I heard about the neighboring movement and signed up for their weekly emails. Sometimes their hints were so obvious that I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of them myself like, I don't know, spend some time outside your house in the front where the people are. And then I heard about the good neighbor experiment. And I realized I wasn't alone in trying to figure out how to become a better neighbor, not just for my own sake, but to help heal deep divisions in our communities. So I reached out to the neighboring movement to see how my church could participate. As I had more and more conversations with Maddie, I think she could feel my passion for this work and invited me to be a part of the next facilitator cohort. So this past fall, our cohort experienced the good neighbor experiment at an accelerated pace so that we could all serve as trail guides and cheerleaders and storytellers in our own communities. I'm so honored to be a part of this work because I feel it's a practical and empowering way to live out our call to love God and to love neighbor. So to say a little bit more about the neighboring movement and the good neighbor experiment, I'm going to turn it over to Adam. Well, thank you, Jessica. That was such a great introduction. So I want to give you a little bit of context. So the neighboring movement is was started in 2015. And we I'm an elder in the UMC was serving in a local church. My wife is a deacon in the UMC. She was serving in a different local church and we were we started to recognize that a lot of our church work was was feeling really there was a lot of scarcity around the work that we were doing. And in particular, the thing that comes to my mind when I when I mean scarcity is the annual turkey supper. Who that annual turkey supper was killing me because we'd been doing it for a long time and it was started for a really good reason and served and brought people into the church in an important way. But 20 years later, nobody wanted to do it anymore. We all felt guilty that we didn't want to do it anymore. And even though we were really grumpy about it, we were forcing ourselves to do it anyways. And then we'd have the annual turkey supper and the only people who'd come were the same old people who always come. And then we'd all be frustrated because we put all this effort into this thing that didn't really feel like it was abundant and only made us feel like we just worked really hard to do the same old thing. So we got together with a group of people who are all feeling that scarcity. And we said, what what is a more authentic way to just live out our faith and what we realized felt most authentic to us was simply being good neighbors where we lived. So myself and my wife and our across the street neighbors, Matt and Catherine Johnson started meeting weekly to figure out what it would look like just to be really good neighbors. And over time, we'd have people reach out to us because of our Methodist connections and say, hey, we see you doing all this stuff in the neighborhood. Could you come and teach our church how to do that as well? So we put together some ideas, some easy steps that you could take and slowly that grew into a full not blown nonprofit. And now the neighboring movement has the faith based component, which you are now experiencing that called the good neighbor experiment. And we were lucky enough to receive a grant from the Lillian down in 2020, where we could bring on facilitators like Jessica, who are all over the country, recruiting churches to participate in these cohorts, where they learn about how to shift from scarcity to abundance, and and to be good neighbors wherever you're located. We also do some other work and just wanted to highlight that briefly that we work still in our neighborhood here in Wichita, and we also have learning cohorts that are not faith based where people are trained. And all of our work is trained is is about asset based community development and working with people who to to see the gifts and the strengths in their community as a starting point for the way that we interact with one another. And so that all of that work has been happening over the last 2017. We had our first official cohort of the good neighbor experiment. And since then I was trying to tally it up this morning, I think we're close to like 150 churches that have been a part of our faith based cohorts since 2017. We also are excited that we've just struck up a partnership with the United Methodist Discipleship Ministries. And we have a tool called the Recycle. It's actually the this is the model of it right here on my wall. And it's a tool of practicing discernment in community. And that is going to be a little resource that's going to be released through Discipleship Ministries this annual conference season. And so all of these things are coming out, but they all have a similar theme. And that is we're looking for ways to shift from that scarcity to abundance, to focus on relationship and to have a lot of fun doing it. And I think right now that's the part of this work that means the most to me, because it's so easy to get bogged down in general. And I think especially in ministry, because it's hard right now, there's just a lot of stuff that make it hard right now. And so how do we have joy? How do we have hope? And these cohorts, that's one of the things that I really love about them is that it gives us that opportunity to do it. So I think that's my fit. I'm going to turn it to Maddie, who's going to give you more specifics about the actual good neighbor experiment and how you can participate. Yeah, so I am a very logistic visual brain. And so I have some slides for y'all to kind of talk about what you can expect outcomes wise, as well as what the nine months training looks like. So this first slide, you'll see, describe some of the outcomes that we hope for, not only throughout the good neighbor experiment, but when the nine months is over, you heard Adam start to talk about the first kind of the left side column, which describes the culture shift. And so all throughout the nine months, we see every, you know, small group, every reflection, every experiment that you do over these nine months, as a way to shift in culture as individuals and as a church, from being focused on programming to instead focusing on relationship, as Adam described to shift from scarcity to abundance, and then to shift from inauthenticity to joy. That's what our work is grounded in. And throughout the nine months, we see in big and small ways, this culture shift start to take place in individuals as well as in the church itself. And then on the right side, you'll see kind of the really like, what practically do you get out of the good neighbor experiment? And we kind of classified as like neighboring tools, like what are the tools and resources that come throughout the nine months that help equip you to be a better neighbor to your actual literal neighbors? Some of those tools are a eight front doors block map being able to actually map out your neighborhood, as well as your church neighborhood, and kind of see where the relationships are and see how we might shift them over time in authentic ways. As Adam mentioned, all of our work is grounded in asset based community development. And so we offer an entire section devoted to this through what we call the gift garden. And that's growing our gift guarding, seeing how God is already moving and present in our neighborhoods, and particularly around our church building. And so some others have called this an asset map. And some of you might be familiar with that term. We equip folks in learning conversations, which is a simple yet powerful tool to build relationship and grow closer to neighbors and even within the local church. And then the last tool that you'll see on there is what Adam was describing, the recycle, which is our community discernment model. And so those are just some of the tools that you'll get over the nine months, but there's an emphasis on the culture shift as well as practical things you will get by the end. So what is actually going to happen in the nine months? I have a few slides to kind of describe what the process is and kind of the very immediate what to do next would be register and start gathering your neighboring team. We recommend gathering a group of about four to 10 folks in your local church. It kind of depends on church size, but four to 10 folks who are eager to be better neighbors. And and sometimes that looks like obvious leaders in your church community. Sometimes it doesn't look like obvious folks, but who might be a good fit to grow in in kind of these culture shifts that that you see in the slide before. Once you've gathered your your team, your team will come to the first workshop, which will be in person co-facilitated co-facilitated by us at the neighboring movement and by Jessica, who is your GNE facilitator. And we'll have an in person workshop, which really serves as a train the trainer so that those leaders that you brought to that workshop will really be equipped to not only know the material themselves, but to be the catalyst in your local church and see how you might grow neighboring in your church family. That first workshop focuses on neighboring where you live. So this is a little bit more individual focus looking at your own neighborhood and your own block that you live to try and grow in relationship. Those that first workshop equips your team to dive deeper into what we call labs. So with the theme of good neighbor experiment, we have four labs in total and each lab is basically a six week small group study. And so that first workshop will equip your team to dive deeper into lab one and lab two. Lab one is kind of the basic like what are the ingredients of neighboring, which we see as relationship, abundance and joy. And then lab two focuses on looking at your neighborhood and building relationship with the eight front doors that are nearest to you. So that that is kind of the first half of the good neighbor experiment and you'll go back to your local church after workshop one, dive deeper into these labs or small group studies. And then you also have Jessica as as kind of a coach throughout this process, somebody you can call to check in and just kind of say what's going well, what could be improved? How could this really take shape contextually in your local church? And then you'll come back for workshop two, which kind of lands in the halfway point of the nine months. And this is where you shift from instead of focusing on neighboring where you live, you focus on neighboring as a church really starting to see the church not as a service provider, not as you know, a place to evangelize and get butts in the pews, but to instead see your church as a community connector. And so this is where the asset based language really takes shape and you'll come with your neighboring team to that second workshop in person and go back then ready and equipped to dive into laps three and four, which is about growing your gift garden, seeing the assets in your neighborhood and in your the neighborhood surrounding your church and then diving into that discernment model to see what God might be calling you in your church to next. Then we conclude after that nine months with a final workshop again in person, you'll bring your neighboring team and we have a time of celebration. We have an opportunity to discern next steps. And we also will have all of our resources that are available to alumni, G&E alumni churches. We also have a G&E alumni community with regular coaching calls and supplemental resources that that will be available to you and your church even beyond the nine months because we want to stay connected and continue being good neighbors and community. And you can see as well some of those other resources that you have. So I know that was a lot. I have kind of a summary slide of what we just talked about. So this is either going to be more or less stressful for you. For me as a visual person, it is less stressful to see it all mapped out. But this is kind of what the nine months looks like. And this particular cohort that Jessica is leading will kick off with that first workshop on April 30th. And the pricing for each church really depends on how many churches are gathered for that cohort. And you can see that breakdown below. And so that will that five hundred dollar deposit will be due by workshop one. And then we'll let you know based on how many churches what that remaining cost would be by workshop two. So I'm going to stop talking. I've talked a lot and we would love to just give some opportunity for any questions or points of clarification about what this nine months of the Good Neighbor Experiment looks like. I have two questions, I think. The first of which is would you recommend as somebody who's just been appointed to a new church diving into this? That's my first question. The second question is I've just been appointed to a commuter church. So as we are working through some of the first lab as getting to know your neighbors and then we moved to the second lab of getting to know the community around the church. Those are going to be very different places for a lot of my people. So do you see this as something that works in that sort of model? Yeah, that's a great question. So we've got I mean, I think the answer is always. Yes, we always are like, yeah, we'll figure it out. So we do I do think it's a really helpful tool for a new appointment because it's it's a lot like, you know, in new appointments, you're trying to you're trying to learn the field and that this gives you a built-in process for doing that. The other thing that we've we've added in kind of a supplemental resource is how do you do intra church neighboring? So how do you do the same activities within the congregation? Because we have a ton of churches who actually don't know each other very well, especially in this moment. It's like, I don't even know who's going to show up every Sunday, let alone like who my regular people are, right? It's really hard to be sure of that my people know each other in meaningful ways. And so a lot of the practices, basically you can go through them the first time, just doing it with each other to get to know each other more. And then some churches will even do that full process just within their congregation before they actually go and do it within the neighborhood of the congregation. So yeah, I think that's that's one way, Maddie may have more specific experiences with that too. I mean, I think you did a good job describing. There is a piece with the Good Neighbor Experiment where there is flexibility. I mean, we have a structure in like a recommended kind of sequence of it's really good to like flex this neighboring muscle before you really dive in your church and do it. But I really think that's what the coaching calls really serve as being able to check in with Jessica of like, hey, like this isn't working as well in our local church context. What ideas might you have? And so I think that's where the coaching really comes into is like, how does this take shape contextually in your local church? And we have worked with a wide range of churches, rural churches, urban, suburban, a lot of different kind of places. And so it allows for some flexibility and creativity. Right. Yeah, I was going to just add, because we've had so many churches now, it is amazing the differences of your church's, like the physical location of your church, right? Do you have multiple services? Because that changes the dynamic. Do you, are you just like 20 people who gather and you don't need, like we have several churches in our annual conference that are participating who don't actually have appointed clergy because they're so small and in these rural communities that they just, they are all lay led. The whole church is lay led. So we've experienced a lot of variety with that. And we consider every church that participates is co-creating this experience with us. And so y'all are gonna figure out ways to adapt it and make it really perfect for what you're doing. And we really encourage that within, you know, some certain structures that we have. So. So I'll throw out a quick question. As a church, if we were thinking about going into this, is there any additional funds that we may wanna think about just having in our budget, in addition to the cost of the class, just to make sure that the program doesn't stall out after the class? Kenneth, I love that question. I don't think I've ever been asked that before. Yes, I think it's a really smart thing to do. I mean, the beauty about this work is that it's really about relationships. So it doesn't really cost a lot of money, right? It's really about a change in behavior more than it is a change in your budget. And if there are what you discover in your gifts garden is you discover all of these connections and exciting things that maybe you hadn't seen before. And sometimes those things, you know, you can invest in in a financial way, not just a relationship way. So I'll give you an example. In our churches here, we have churches who participate actually become eligible for a $1,000 grant. And that's through a relationship we have with the local foundation in the Great Plains Annual Conference. And some of those churches then are discovering, you know, that they've in, when they go and do the work and start to learn their communities, they discover that there are people already doing great things. And then they use that money to invest in the community project that those people are doing. So that's an example of that. And so it might come out of like a missions budget or, you know, those kind of things that maybe you already have that exist. So, so, you know, one of the questions that I got in the chat here was how many people should I get to do the whole nine months with me? And so you're, what we're talking about there is your neighboring team. And the team is the people who come to the workshop. And it's kind of a train the trainer moment where we're training your team to take it back into your local congregation and do that work. We recommend that it's, I mean, this is just a baseline, like if you have a staff person and four lay people. And that's really about like retention more than anything. And it's better as a team project. Like a neighboring is not a solo endeavor. It is a team project. And so if you can do it with a team it's really good to do it that way. We've also had some churches who take an existing team and just like this becomes their work. So if you have like an outreach team or, you know, a Sunday school class or some group that just already kind of is built that maybe have an affinity for this type of work that could become the team. And it is really good if those people are aware that this is a nine month thing that they're gonna keep doing, right? And so at least the people on the team are committed to the full nine month structure. The people in the church can kind of come and go between the labs, cause they're just small groups and some of them may come and go between those and that's okay. But really the team holding together is helpful. And one piece to add about that, this sometimes churches sometimes do this but it's something to think about is there is an intentionality in the second half of the good neighbor experiment to be like neighboring as like a church and look around your church building. And so do you have like any of your church members who live in the neighborhood? And so I think that's like something to look at too. Are there neighbors like there that can kind of lead some of that work? And that might feel a little more authentic when you get to the like church neighborhood piece. And so that's another recommendation we offer. Yeah, another question that I got sent to me was what kind of people might, what kind of skills and the people that I'm recruiting might be helpful. And so one of them is really just location like the folks who live in the neighborhood where your church building is located. That's a really good one. The other one is that this is not a book study. This is an action oriented nine months. So like every week your homework is to go meet neighbors and go talk to people and have learning conversations. And just I think really a lot of people can do that but that folks are aware this isn't like a cerebral, I'm gonna read something, meditate on it and come back and have a conversation on it. This is, I'm gonna go and actually engage in an experiment where I'm talking to somebody usually. And then I'm gonna come back and the small groups are made up of processing how that went. So if you don't, if for instance, in your group time you're in the second lab which is where we actually go and meet neighbors and nobody does it, the small group feels pretty flat because there's not a lot of content if you didn't actually go and try some of the experiments that are in the material. So any other questions? I was telling Jessica in the chat but oh, Bonnie, did you have a question? I do. So are these activities that you create or are they activities that in the workshop that you can build into some things that are already present or scheduled within the church? Because sometimes building something else is a little bit more difficult. So I was just curious about that. That's a great question. So this is a helpful detail. When your neighboring team comes to the workshop not only do we offer kind of like an overview and for y'all to really get a feel for like what this is all about we also walk through some of the activities that are in our curriculum. And so you will get an opportunity to practice them in the workshop so that when you go back, it feels familiar. You've done it and you've seen it facilitated by the neighboring movement and Jessica. So there's that piece. And then another important detail is all of our curriculum that we offer. So the four labs at six weeks each there are participants guides and then there are leaders guides. So everyone on your neighboring team would have access to all of that. And so you could have one person designated to be the leader and they use the leaders guide and have all the activities. And it's really, there's a lot of ways that you can do it. So there is some choice where you go oh, I wanna do that activity or our group will not like that activity. And so there is, you can kind of pick and choose because we do give you a lot of opportunity. But it's all there. And then we have churches too who pass the leaders guide around. And so your neighboring team actually shares the responsibility of teaching one another when you go back to your local church. So those leaders guide and participants guide are available to your church to be able to be used and what ways feel most comfortable for y'all. Yeah, I'm gonna add a question that wasn't asked but I think it's important. And then it's about evangelism. There's often some questions about like what does evangelism look like in this tool? This is not a church growth model just to be clear. So if you're here because you're looking for a church growth thing I get it, I get the desire. And this is not, we're not, your church might grow but that's not why we're doing this work, right? And so if you send your people out and you go have them knock on their neighbor's doors to tell them about Jesus they're just gonna make all their neighbors really mad and not really wanna talk to them because people don't like that and we know that. And so it's really about like relationship building. And what's cool about that is that, I mean, general statistics will show us about 50% of people don't go to church have no relationship to a church and they are not really interested in church, right? And so my next door neighbor doesn't have any interest in church. He would feel pretty uncomfortable even if he was in a church, he's made that clear to me but I've known him now for six years that we've lived in this house. And last month he came over I was sitting on my front porch playing my banjo and he came over and started talking to me and he was saying that his daughter who we'd met because we'd have a relationship with him had just had twin baby girls and they were preemies. And so they were not doing so well. And one of them in particular was gonna have to have a heart surgery which I don't know how you do that on a two pound human baby like that it's mind blowing. And he was shook, you know, he was upset. And what happened in that moment is it wasn't a moment for evangelism but there was spiritual curiosity that was happening with my neighbor on my front porch, right? And because I know him and he trusts me, I just said, hey, David, I don't know if you're comfortable with this but I would really just love to be able to pray for your daughter and your new grandbabies. And he just, I would love that. Please, will you do that with me? And I got to pray with my neighbor and we had church on my front porch, just he and I because of our relationship and the trust that we had built. And so it's a long game and I don't know necessarily how it impacts your Ezra reports but I can tell you it awakens something in my soul when I'm able to be like Christ lives on my block and I can experience that on my front porch. And when a whole church full of people get excited about that and start to recognize that their faith can live outside of their building, I don't know if I would call it church growth but I can tell you there is definitely vitality. There is definitely excitement. There is people who are on fire and excited about what they're doing. And that's what we're hoping is created in our good neighbor experiment churches. I just wanted to quickly add so for those who didn't see in the chat the workshops will be local in the Dallas area and Jessica will be kind of leading that coordination but they are in person and local and we'll figure out the COVID pieces when that comes. So there is some flexibility there but I just wanted to briefly share so I actually inherited a church that had gone through the good neighbor experiment. I was appointed to serve a church for two years that had, it was I think in the first cohort of good neighbor experiment churches cause some times people ask like, well what's the like, what happens after the nine months? And so I got a church that had done the nine months and they really like were on fire for a neighboring. That was like my requirement when I arrived was like to read a book on neighboring because that was like what they were passionate about. And so what happened in that local churches they actually decided to continue their work by having a neighboring team as one of their committees. So they were a bit more, they did a more formal structure that doesn't happen with every church but because it mattered so much missionally and programmatically for them just to like have space to like they had a budget line item for that work and they met monthly and planned events that like we did a block party. They on Christmas time would drop ornaments off at the neighbor's doors. They would do fun like art projects in the neighborhood that were collaborative and like pass the scarf around the trees for like tree, I don't know. It was a very interesting idea but they just had so much fun getting to grow in relationship beyond the good neighbor experiment. And so they really were captivated by particularly that lab two which is to get to know the eight front doors nearest to you and our neighboring team chair of that committee lived in the neighborhood and she actually was not a part of our church family at all but when through the neighboring experience she got to meet the church that lived two doors down from her and then she became the chair of neighboring team and part of our church family. So as Adam mentioned, it's not a church growth model but typically people gravitate towards where there is energy and relationship. And so that's what my church that I led, they loved it and they called themselves a neighboring church and the pastor they needed needed to be in the neighborhood and like want to connect with the neighborhood. And so that is one piece of it. And yeah, I don't, there's a question in the chat that Jessica might wanna take. Yes, I can speak this because I know sometimes especially if you're watching the recording the chat's not an option for you. So Bonnie asked if there are churches in the area who are already committed to attending. So I've gone through training for us being a facilitator but First United Method Church Allen has not gone through this. And so I am wearing kind of two hats, right? The facilitator hat, but also the church staff member hat. And I'm recruiting my team and casting this vision with my senior pastor because I'm an associate. And this Saturday is our ad council retreat. So I'm gonna talk with them about this but First Allen will be participating in this cohort. And Paige is it safe to speak for Christ Plano? Christ Plano also plans to participate and I'm grateful for that. I've gotten some confirmation from some other pastors of local churches but they are also in that process of getting their laity on board and making sure this is something that the church has passion and commitment around because I know all of us have probably seen initiatives where one person was really excited and no one else it was not this the spirit was not moving in the whole congregation in that moment. So they are working doing that work to make sure that this is something that is the right season for them. But I'm excited because I feel like off the top of my head there are probably six churches I could already name that are pretty close to confirming that this is something they wanna be a part of this spring and that's very exciting. So we can also talk about geography as far as workshops and if all the churches are clustered up north then maybe we find somewhere central to us. We don't necessarily have to drive to Dallas. You already put a date down. For the first workshop? It's a date, yeah. April 30th. April 30th. So it's after Easter. Get through Lent and Easter and then we'll do this on the other side. Go ahead. Well, this is Ted. I was just curious if this is the first time the neighboring experiment has been brought to North Texas Conference for the United Methodist Church? No, we did. I think we've had two or three cohorts. Ryan Clink was our facilitator there before and he's moved on to Iowa actually now. So that was pre-pandemic. We had a couple cohorts that were in Dallas area. So I think what I'm hearing you say is there aren't any churches who are already engaged in this initiative. This is kind of the kickstart for North Texas Conference. Ted, can I speak to that? This is Paige. I'm at Christ United and we actually started this process outside of G&E, outside of the Good Neighbor experiment because I was having the same feelings and praying for discernment as Jessica was during the pandemic. And so we started what we call Christ United Neighbors at our church through research and lots of different demographic studies and congregational studies and all of that through Mission Insight. We started in May to pilot this. And from the day that we put this information in the senior pastor's weekly newsletter, I received 10 people who were interested in doing this in their neighborhood. So we started, that became our core committee and we started doing this to just see how it would work. And with the same premise as G&E, we wanted to develop relationships and go to our neighbors, not as Paige the pastor at Christ United or a member of Christ United, but as Paige who lives two doors down or two streets over. And so we've been doing this all along. We try to have an event every month. Like Maddie said, we've already created a committee. We already have a budget. We have a line item for that budget. And my role at Christ United has shifted to be specifically the pastor of off-campus ministry so that we can fully focus on this as well as online. What I love about G&E when I started talking with Jessica is one of the biggest challenges that our committee, the people who were piloting this had, was how do I go out? Like what are some ways I can go out and meet my neighbors? I'm an introvert and I'm not sure. Or I don't know, what do we do about COVID? Like lots of questions around that. And so what I'm doing with our group is having us take a step back and participate in the G&E curriculum because I think it will help us to brainstorm and try some things that maybe we haven't tried. Like we know some of the things that are working, but I think there are other things that will be valuable to us through this curriculum. So we're gonna do that. Now the other thing that we have already done at Christ United is through the month of January, we've been promoting Christ United neighbors to the congregation as a whole. So this is our hard launch. We've piloted, now we're doing a hard launch. And I have 16 people who have come to me in the last three weeks who want to do this in their neighborhood in addition to the 10 have already got it. And so a great problem to have, I'm gonna be digging into Mission Insight day and night for a while to try and get all their data to them. But I say all that because I think that we are an example of how this can work and be successful in your own church. And while there are churches like First Allen and I know Sharon's at Custer Road, I think the overlap of our congregants within our same neighborhoods is a beautiful thing because we are a connectional denomination. And I think we can work together to reach even more people than we would have been able to reach if it were just one church in one area. I just wanna respond real quickly to Ted's question and I'll get out of the way Cindy. I definitely wanna hear your question comment. Part of your question was like, who else in the North Texas conference has experimented with this? Who else might we be in dialogue with about what their experience was like? Adam mentioned there were a couple of cohorts pre-pandemic and those were ecumenical in nature, but a couple of churches that I remember having significant experience in those early cohorts were First United Methodist Church in Dallas and Reverend Holly Bandel who was on staff then and is still today is close to that work. And then the other is First United Methodist in Plano on the east side of Plano and retired pastor Diane Presley again was sort of close to that work. So those are a couple of other potential dialogue partners for anybody curious to learn how it landed in those churches. Paige, what church do you attend or staff on staff for? I'm at Christ United Methodist in Plano. Okay, Cindy, let's hear your question. So my question is maybe on the opposite end. So you say, maybe the spirit isn't moving right now and that you're starting a cohort in April and that's three months, that's not, in some ways that's not a long time too. I mean, I might put something out there and solicit 30 people, but I doubt it. So if the spirit's not moving in us yet that maybe moves in us three months from that, is there a possibility of starting another cohort or we're gonna have to wait another nine months before you finish this one? Or do you have any thought about that? I think there's a couple. So Jessica will answer to what Jessica's comfortable with. I won't speak for her. How many cohorts are we gonna volunteer Jessica for? Right, yeah. But I will say the neighboring movement actually hosts online every January and August we will launch an online cohort. And so we really recommend the in-person because it just is so much better in person. But if, as you said, your church isn't quite ready in April and you're not sure when would be next, there would be one starting in August if you're in church and then you would connect with churches across the country and a virtual Zoom workshop. Okay, thank you. Well, and for speaking to my own bandwidth, I think I always love to think about all the case scenarios worst and best and Paige and I are actually collaborators in kind of an overarching initiative called North Texas Neighbors. And one of my things was what happens if we get 20 churches who wanna do this, right? Because kind of the cap that is ideal for this is 12 so that everyone has these conversations and has bandwidth and has some space in the room. And I thought, wouldn't it be, I mean, who knows? We could be running in the same at the same time period. We could start one three months later, six months later. I have been an associate pastor most of my career so far, which is almost 15 years. And I kind of love it because it gives me bandwidth and opportunities to do things like this, which will serve not only my church, but the larger church across the connection. And so that's exciting for me and my senior pastor supportive, which is always helpful. So speaking of this larger initiative that we're working on called North Texas Neighbors, I wanted to give Paige just like a couple of minutes to talk about another webinar that's gonna come up because I know sometimes in my church at least when I started talking about Jenny and it's not evangelism, it's relationship first. But I don't know anyone really who has come to Jesus except by relationship, whether it was their mom and dad bringing them as children or whether it was a friend, a trusted person inviting them to church. I only know people who've come to Christ through relationship. The signs on the street corners don't seem to work as an evangelism tool. They actually seem to bring up a lot of defensiveness and other unpleasant feelings in folks who encounter bullhorns or signs or the people at the Fourth of July events who would come around and say, do you know where you're going when you die? Those don't seem, I don't know why we keep doing them sometimes but we being Christians, there's Paige. Okay, so Paige has another webinar coming up because there is going to be another aspect for churches as we come out of the Jenny that might, that'll focus more on discipleship because I know my church had questions around that. Okay, after Jenny, after we're good neighbors, after our church is a good neighbor is there, where's this other component for it? And so Paige and Christia and I have already been developing some of that work and there'll be more. So, excuse me, while Jessica's primary contact at the conference has been the Center for Missionary Outreach, my primary involvement in the conference is the Center for Church Development. And so part of this neighbor's initiative that we started, we hope that God will work in and through the leaders of those neighborhoods to then form interest groups or discipleship, some sort of discipleship group, whether that be an interest group or a fresh expression or maybe it's Bible study or book club or worship watch party, it could go anywhere but we are leaving room for the Holy Spirit to move and work in each neighborhood. So each neighborhood could look different. What is an option through the Center of Church Development is if we do this, it's considered part of the new faces, new spaces effort. And if we have a discipleship component, we can apply for a micro grant through that group, through that department at the conference. And so there are some great things that are coming out of that piece. We are still in the beginning stages of gathering and developing relationships which does take time. And so there's not a push for discipleship but we are anticipating that that will happen in the long term. And so we're preparing for that. The webinar on February 10th at 10 a.m. You'll see information about that coming soon but we will talk more specifically about next steps into the G&E piece but also into what happens afterward. There are some things that we wanna do, Jessica and I talked about doing within phase one, the equipping phase we're calling it where you're going through G&E but you're also getting your mission insight data prepared so that when you do launch with certain leads within neighborhoods, they have the information that they need to get started. So there's some overlap to phase one, the equipping stage and phase two, the disciple stage but we're going to clarify a lot of that in this second webinar. Awesome, thank you. And Maddie just put the registration over in the chat for those of y'all who are ready. You know that this is something you want to pursue. There's a specific link for North Texas to participate. And then also I put my email address over in the chat Jessica W at fmcallon.org. I know some of y'all are having to go but I was sharing with someone who damned me over there. I know sometimes that your church needs more information and so if you have a leadership meeting or you have people that you think are the right folks and you wanna get them in a room or even in a Zoom chat and have me talk with them, I'm more than happy to make myself available for those things because I know we can only gain so much information and remember so much after one hour. Thank y'all so much for being on the call, it was good to meet you. Good to meet everyone, thank you. Thank you everybody. Well, and I think Andrew and Andy might have something. Oh, just real quick, so we have, if we don't want finances to be the reason that a church cannot participate. So there are ministry with grant opportunities that are coming up and I will put that link in the chat as well and send that out with the link to this video recording out to all participants and those that registered. So please send this on as the recording of this to folks that you think might be interested, others in your local churches, just to kind of get them up to speed and appreciate your being here. Andy, is there anything else that we need to mention? I think we've covered it. Just thanks so much to Adam and Natty for joining us, Jessica and Paige too for championing this effort and just look for the ways the spirit will move as we have said so many times on this call. Amen. Thank y'all.