At the Table: Christian Community for the Common Good
While the world becomes increasingly complex, professionalized, and disconnected, the church is experiencing a crisis of identity. Do we follow suit and strive to out-program, out-professionalize, and out-attract the rest of the world? Or do gather at the table and focus on the small and simple community-based practices that have been our strength across the generations?
At the Table is a Podcast for church leaders interested in community-based ministry that contributes to the common good via mutual relationships, spiritual practice, simplicity, and an awareness of God’s activity in our communities. Each month, we will have conversations with leaders and practitioners of community-based ministry to reflect on and learn about the core practices, theological underpinnings, and immediate invitations of this important work. We believe that something miraculous happens when Christian community gathers with neighbors at the table.
You can learn more about the work of place-based ministry and the common good by visiting www.nicholastangen.com and subscribing to Nicholas Tangen's Newsletter.
At the Table: Christian Community for the Common Good
Discovering Mutual Delight: A Conversation with DeAmon Harges
Today’s episode is a conversation with DeAmon Harges, the original roving listener. DeAmon has been about that place-based work for his whole life, and credits his grandparents with instilling the skills and temperament for listening deeply within community. A couple months ago, I interviewed Pastor Mike Mather on the podcast, who worked alongside DeAmon at Broadway Methodist Church in South Bend, Indiana. Pastor Mike told me that DeAmon work as the Roving Listener broadened his and the congregation’s view of the neighbors and the neighborhood, revealing the wild abundance of gifts present in the blocks near the church.
DeAmon continues to listen and animate the gifts of his community through an organization he found with his neighbors called the Learning Tree, and his wisdom about how to discover and practice abundance is a gift to the church and the neighborhoods they live in. I hope you enjoy this conversation with DeAmon Harges.
DeAmon Harges | Institute Faculty | ABCD Institute | DePaul University, Chicago
The Learning Tree (thelearningtrees.com)
Music by Oleksii Kaplunskyi from Pixabay