By Nicholas Tangen
In 2020, Pastor John Hulden and Former Bishop Ann Svennungsen submitted a grant proposal to the Lilly Endowment called “Faith Practices & Neighboring Practices: Renewing Congregational Imagination,” envisioning a learning community in the Minneapolis Area Synod helping churches to engage spiritual practices and deepen their connection with their neighborhood. The Lilly Endowment approved the proposal and, in the fall of 2021, the first Faith Practices & Neighboring Practices learning community was launched.
Over the past five years, Faith Practices & Neighboring Practices has created a context for churches in the Minneapolis Area Synod to explore their call to be faithful neighbors. We reflect on the knowledge that God is already present and active in our neighborhoods and engage spiritual practices that help us to pay attention to what God is up to. We experiment with community engagement practices that center gifts and strengths more than problems, trusting that our communities are contexts for abundance.
We learn about and practice neighborhood walks, one-to-ones, asset-mapping, the Ignatian Examen, lectio divina, and more. And each congregation in our learning community spends three summer months planning and implementing a Neighborhood Listening Project, connecting with neighbors and discovering what God is already up to in the community where their church is located. You can learn more by watching the short video at the top of our webpage.
This project has changed a lot over the years as we continue to adjust and adapt to the questions being raised by churches and realities of life in our neighborhoods. We discover new practices, new experiences, and new questions and follow where they may be guiding us.
This year, we also made some small changes to our logo and project title. We’ve dropped one of the “Practices” from the project name and will now be simply “Faith & Neighboring Practices” – a little less of a mouthful to say. And our new logo creates some distinctiveness from the Minneapolis Area Synod logo, while maintaining a similar shape and color palette, and visually represents the marriage of faith and neighboring as two sides of one whole.
Additionally, we have just submitted a scaling grant proposal to the Lilly Endowment, which would allow us to expand the offerings and impact of Faith & Neighboring Practices for years to come. This would include further learning opportunities for congregations who have previously participated in the learning community, focused on community organizing, asset-based community development, and spiritual care, as well as coaching for churches and individuals as they deepen their connection with their neighborhood. We will be sure to announce when we’ve heard back from the Lilly Endowment about this proposal.
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Faith & Neighboring Practices 2025-2027
To date, we have worked with 30 congregations in the Minneapolis Area Synod, nearly a quarter of our synod’s 137 churches. And, beginning in September 2025, we are launching our third round of the Faith & Neighboring Practices learning community. If your congregation is curious about how God is calling you to be the neighbor in your community, please consider participating in this learning community. Some things to know:
- This is a two-year commitment (September 2025 – May 2027) with monthly cohort meetings and Fall and Spring Retreats.
- Each participating congregation organizes a team of five, including a rostered leader (Deacon or Pastor) and lay leaders representing a good cross-section of your community’s demographics. You can learn more about Participant Roles and Responsibilities here.
- You can fill out this Faith & Neighboring Practices Application to introduce us to your context and your sense of why this learning community is the right step for your church. If you would like to be part of the 2025 – 2027 learning community, please complete the application by August 15.
We hope that Faith & Neighboring Practices can help you and your congregation discern your own unique call as the neighbor in the places you live and worship. We hope that the opportunity to learn with and alongside other congregations can build community and reveal the abundance already at work across the Synod. And we hope that Faith & Neighboring Practices can help us all to engage deeply in our communities in just and healthy ways, trusting that God has gone ahead of us to make all things new.
We are grateful for the ways so many of you have engaged and embraced this call to be the neighbor and pray that we can continue to discern this call together for years to come. If you have any questions about this opportunity, please reach out to Nicholas Tangen, the Assistant to the Bishop for Faith and Neighboring.