City As Playground

The Bible and The Newspaper - An Introduction

How do we navigate today's urban world - holding the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other? How do we navigate the tension of contemplation and action, street and the academy in our active engagement in the city?

Join us for this new City as Playground series as we'll be exploring these tensions by engaging thought leaders and practitioners from across the world and throughout the Leadership Foundations' global network.

Can You Imagine a Playground? - A Just City

Can you imagine a city that is just? A city where everyone - regardless of background, birth family, race, or creed - receives what they need to fully thrive as human beings...

Justin Beene, President of the Leadership Foundation of Grand Rapids, Center for Community Transformation (GRCCT), joins us to explore the shape of God's justice in his city.  Dr. Beene describes how GRCCT is seeking to extend opportunity in a city ranked amongst the worst economically for African-Americans. 

• • Statistic cited from Forbes Magazine, 2015. 
  • Grand Rapids Center for Community Transformation

Can You Imagine A Playground?

In this year-end series of 2021, we're returning to our roots, letting our imagination guide us as we explore more deeply the animating metaphor of Leadership Foundations: our world's cities as playgrounds.

Join us as we hear from LF leaders from various cities as they imagine their own city as a playground, a place where vulnerable and marginalized people are able to fully flourish and thrive.

 

Guests:

• Nahshon Nicks, First Coast Leadership Foundation
• Anthony Branch, Memphis Leadership Foundation
• Courtney Dugstad, Next Chapter Ministries, Leadership Foundation of Rochester, MN
• Carlos Huerta, Center for Community Transformation, Leadership Foundation of Fresno, CA

City as Playground Recommendation:

The Moral Imagination: the Art and Soul of Peacebuilding by John Paul Lederach

Imagining Abundance: Conversation To Be Continued

Can you imagine God's economy of abundance even in places where resources appear so scarce? Can you see it?

Join us as we wrap up this City as Playground podcast series, Imagining Abundance, recapping our conversations of seeing abundance throughout the Leadership Foundations network in Bloemfontein, South Africa; Fresno, California; and Philippi, West Virginia.

Imagining Abundance - Reimagining Fresno‘s Economy

In Fresno, the Center for Community Transformation Leadership Foundation is reimagining the local economy of God's abundance.

An economy where the city is full of practicing and prospective entrepreneurs starting and sustaining small businesses of every shape...

A local economy nourished by a vision of God's economy - one where there is enough for everyone, particularly those most vulnerable and marginalized.

Traditioned Innovation: Learning to Pray

Is prayer still relevant today, in our post-modern 21st century urban world?  Does our 2,000+ year-old faith tradition have anything to teach us about praying today?

Join us as acclaimed author and public figure Fr. James Martin, SJ discusses Ignatius of Loyola, our bustling cities, and his recently published book, Learning to Pray: A Guide For Everyone.

Traditioned Innovation: A Way of Proceeding

Is leadership about making important decisions? 

Or is it more about a way of going about making decisions? To borrow a phrase from the Jesuits, what is a "way of proceeding" that allows us to move forward together in these uncertain times?

We are join by Lisa Slayton, Leadership Foundations board member, organizational consultant and founder of Tamim Partners to explore the shape of discernment in pursuit of a more just and equitable urban future. 

Traditioned Innovation - An Introduction

With the beginning of the new year, 2021 brings plenty of uncertainty along with it. How do we approach this new and uncertain future? How do we seek long-term change in our world's cities, when we don't even know what will happen tomorrow?

Could it be that the deepest resources of our traditions hold the key to some of most promising current-day innovations?

 
In this series, Traditioned Innovation, Leadership Foundations explores how we bring to light and make use of the wisdom of our traditions in our new and innovative ways to meet the most urgent challenges of our modern urban world. 

City as Playground? You've got to be Kidding Me!

Leadership in a time of Covid - Part I - Join Leadership Foundations President, Dave Hillis, and podcast host Rick Enloe as they introduce a conversation on what real Leadership looks like amidst a time of crisis. 

For this multipart series we'll be exploring the notion of "Nonreactive Leadership," and the promise it holds for our cities, particularly in this time of global crisis. 

As a guide, we'll be delving into this topic with this provocative statement that theologian James Alison offers: "Neither reactive Churches, nor reactive organizations [nor reactive leaders] can be part of the sign of the beginning of gathered humanity reconciled with God. The fact is that the meaning of the Gospel, the life of God, the sense of the Spirit, is never to be found in reactive spaces. It is always and only found in the hard-won space where rivalry has broken down and forgiveness emerges.”   

A 40 Year Legacy: A Theology As Big As The City- Episode 40

In this episode, Dave and Rick continue to discuss LF's 40th anniversary and look back at key pieces of the LF theological framework. The conversation includes clips from Dr. Ray Bakke, a pivotal voice since LF's early years, reflecting on why loving the city was not just important, but foundationally Christian. Listen here and send in any questions you would like answered to info@leadershipfoundations.org.