For our final episode of 2024, we are so very excited to welcome Pete Davis to the podcast! Pete is a civic advocate and a gifted author and speaker who has dedicated his recent work to the exploration of this concept of commitment. The way Pete sees commitment intersecting with neighboring and community work is so powerful, so we're looking very forward to sharing his wisdom with you all!

Ian first discovered Pete's work through his 2018 Harvard commencement speech that is just so incredibly thought provoking, so we feel very honored that he was willing to sit down and chat with us for this episode! As a staff, we've been sitting with the way Pete speaks to commitment for a little while now, and his points only become more convicting with time. There are so many gems to unpack in here!

To learn more about Pete's many projects, check out his website at petedavis.org. His recent undertakings include a book that we speak to throughout the episode, Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing, that we 100% recommend and you can also read more about at his website here. Additionally, he has co-directed a film with his sister Rebecca Davis that has premiered at all sorts of film festivals and is called Join or Die. Based around similar concepts, the film centers around the work of Robert Putnam whose groundbreaking book Bowling Alone we at The Neighboring Movement frequently reference. Learn more about the film at joinordie.film!

Welcome back to The Neighboring Movement Podcast! We're very excited to introduce this episode with Darla Noble, someone who's so good at neighboring, she literally got an award for it! Tune in to learn more and listen to Darla's wisdom.

Darla won Missouri's Good Neighbor Week Top Acts of Neighboring Award in 2023, and she's also a prolific writer, writing many books and blogs. She has so much wisdom to share with us! So, you can imagine our excitement when she reached out regarding our podcast, and we were so thrilled to record this episode with her.

Darla is a person of faith, so in this episode, there are a few references to the ways in which her Christian faith influences her neighboring. And, at the time this episode was recorded, Darla's newest book was not yet released, but we're so happy to announce that it's out and available now! You can find and purchase Brighten the Corner Where You Are...Mastering the Art of Being a Good Neighbor here.

Finally, there are so many ways to connect with Darla! She has a blog called "Darla's Dash of Salty Grace", which is the website she mentions in the episode. You can find this here! She's also very active on social media under her name, or you can email her at dnoblewrites@yahoo.com.

Enjoy this fun and insightful episode!

We know it's been a little while, but we're so excited to present another episode from The Neighboring Movement Podcast! This week, our own Ian Campbell sat down with Kent Smith, a professor at Abilene Christian University, in order to discuss Kent's background of building community in all kinds of contexts and how this relates to his Christian faith.

Throughout his years of community-building work, Kent has gotten up to all kinds of shenanigans, including cofounding entities like the Eden Center for Regenerative Culture and the Luke 10 Community. The work has also led him to the practice of sociocracy, a form of social governance in which everyone plays a role and collaborates together in order to reach decisions to which everyone consents and that are "good enough for now and safe enough to try". In the episode, both Kent and Ian discuss this form of governance further and how they see it relating to their own work contexts.

Because Kent's faith greatly contributes to his passion for community, this episode in particular contains in-depth discussion of topics related to Christian faith. This being said, regardless of faith background or religious tradition, we hope you find this episode a helpful and wisdom-giving one; we certainly have!

To learn more about the Eden Community and the Eden Fellows, click here.

To learn more about the Eden Center, click here.

And, for some resources on sociocracy, click here and here!