In the spring of 2025, we sat down with 14 people from the Crossroads neighborhood to connect and learn about their gifts, talents, hopes, and dreams!
They gave us permission to be videoed during interviews led by members of our ABCD team.
Asset Based Community Development
Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) is summarized in one definition: discovering the gifts and talents of the people in our neighborhood to join together in healing, joy, and shared love.
In May, Rev. Teresa, Karlita Johnson, and Phazhe' Jackson traveled to Indianapolis to be with our friends from The Learning Tree for their Common Ground Gathering. There, we met with over 100 other people from across the United States and Canada who are using ABCD in their communities.
At the end of August, we began training with De'Amon Harges, founder of the Learning Tree and friend of TCAC and The Episcopal Church, to further join in God's mission in our neighborhood. We began by walking the neighborhood around The Church at Crossroads and meeting more of our neighbors. We're already discovering gifted and loving souls in our own backyard! There's more to go and we're looking forward to all that is ahead!
Besides you and God, who shows up for you?
What are our key reasons for exploring Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD)?
Points Church Outwardly: We understand that ABCD properly points the church into the community where God is already present and acting in people's lives. ABCD focuses the church externally in a way that is especially critical at this time in our society and culture for joining in the mission of God's healing love and peace for all people and communities, especially among those who would be segregated from one another.
Supports Storytelling: ABCD supports storytelling as a way to more deeply know people and to understand, identify, and celebrate one another's assets (spiritual gifts, talents, and others). We understand that storytelling may especially be helpful for cultivating a community of abundance centered in loving, transformative relationships.
Naming/Blessing/Connecting People: ABCD guides the church to actively ministering in its neighborhood to name and bless people and to help connect them together for loving community.
Economics of Sufficiency: ABCD includes the economics of a community and people, such that an increase in monetary sufficiency and wherewithal are cultivated within the process of focusing on peoples' assets.
We previously engaged in Roving Listening Neighborhood Walks (in 2024), where we met people in the community and engaged in conversation using the following 3 questions:
What gives you joy (other than God) or makes you excited to get up off the couch?
What do you know well enough that you could teach others?
Are there any hobbies you’d like to learn or wish you could spend more time doing?
