City As Playground

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.

Homelessness, prostitution, government corruption.

Amidst some of these dire circumstances in South Africa, only exacerbated by COVID-19, the Towers of Hope Leadership Foundation is living into God's economy of Abundance.  Learn how they are imagining abundance in their city - where the most impoverished receive all that they need to lead flourishing lives of promise.

Can you imagine our world's cities as places of abundance? Places where God's excessive love for God's children is on full display? Where everyone, including the most vulnerable, receive all that they need to lead lives full of promise?

Join us this series as we explore what God's invitation of moving from scarcity to abundance might look like in our own lives, and the kind of promise that such a movement holds for our urban spaces.

 

Cohost Rick Enloe and Leadership Foundations President Dave Hillis review the territory of this seven episode series on Traditioned Innovation.

 

How can people of faith and good will work together to innovate in our cities by drawing from our rich faith traditions? What might it look like to come alongside God's creative spirit already at work in our world's cities?

The Nairobi Leadership Foundation is transforming one of the world's largest informal settlements, Kibra, through the power of relationships. 

In this podcast episode of the Traditioned Innovation series, Executive Director Gideon Ochieng describes how they're using basketball courts to bring people together in Nairobi - and empower young people as future leaders!

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.

What if instead of seeking safe spaces, we worked to create brave spaces, spaces where we could bring our deepest selves, our deepest vulnerabilities to the table in a way that might make real transformation possible? Rev. Jen Bailey, founder of the Faith Matters Network joins us to explore the possibility of building trust across our deepest and most intractable lines of difference, recognizing that all social change happens at the speed of trust.

How does reform really happen? We continue our conversation from last episode with Dr. Richard Beck, exploring the prison ministry and reform work of three Local Leadership Foundations - Next Chapter: The LF of Rochester, MN, the Memphis Leadership Foundation, and the Dallas Leadership Foundation. What emerges, is the incredibly surprising way in which God's invitation of hospitality emerges.

Dr. Richard Beck - Author, blogger, and professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University - joins us to discuss the psychology of why we get so stuck in our tribal ruts. He suggests that an often overlooked Saint, Therese of Lisieux, offers a simple, yet profound way of finding ourselves swept up in a God of hospitality, who turns all our expectations on their heads.

 

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.