Loving Our Neighborhoods Together | Jon Anderson

This summer, The UpWords Podcast is spotlighting local leaders shaping faith and community life in Madison. Host Dan Johnson sits down with Jon Anderson, founder and executive director of Collaboration Project, to talk about what happens when churches stop working in silos and start loving their neighborhoods together. Jon traces the winding path from twenty years of local pastoral ministry to launching a nonprofit he once swore he'd never start, shares how COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd became unexpected catalysts for church collaboration, and unpacks why Collaboration Project now organizes its work around neighborhoods rather than issues or denominations. Along the way, Jon tells the story of a chance lunch conversation that turned into 1,200 free prom dresses for high schoolers, reflects on 25 years of Madison Missions and a decade of the Kingdom Justice Summit, and offers a biblical definition of justice rooted in shalom. He closes with a hope for what Dane County's church could look like ten years from now.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Jon Anderson — Founder & Executive Director, Collaboration Project

Jon served as a pastor in the Madison area for twenty years before launching the Collaboration Project in 2019. He has a passion for serving the local church and encouraging it as it serves the most vulnerable. Jon has a history of starting programs centered on engaging the church in local service. He helped begin Madison Missions, a local youth service camp that engages hundreds of students every summer. He also co-founded the Kingdom Justice Summit, which annually brings together hundreds of people from dozens of churches around Christianity and justice in our city. 

RESOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED 

• Collaboration Project — connecting Dane County churches to love their neighborhoods together
• Kingdom Justice Summit — annual local gathering exploring biblical justice, hosted at Upper House
• Madison Missions — Collaboration Project's local youth service camp, celebrating its 25th summer
• BibleProject's "Justice" video — referenced by Jon as a helpful primer on biblical justice

CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

How can we see the Church of Madison or the Church of Dane County? And then when we think about the church as a body or a family, if it starts with that church of a city, it really broadens our understanding of those metaphors, right? The church is not a body that is just of this congregation that gathers, but actually it's a collection of congregations. And so recognizing that while we might be really strong arm because this church is well resourced, they're still missing out on being part of truly what the body is, as I think scripture describes the local church.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Welcome to the Upwards Podcast, where we explore the intersection of Christian faith in the academy, the church, and the marketplace. This summer, we're featuring leaders from right here in the Madison community, people whose work is making a tangible difference in our city. Today, Dan Johnson sits down with John Anderson, Executive Director of the Collaboration Project. Their conversation explores what it looks like for churches to work together across traditions, love their neighbors well, and pursue the flourishing of the communities they call home. Whether you're passionate about your local church, your neighborhood, or simply wondering how faith can make a meaningful impact where you live, we think you'll find this conversation both encouraging and challenging. Let's join the conversation now with Dan Johnson and John Anderson.

— Welcome and introduction to Jon Anderson

SPEAKER_03 1:31

Well, John Anderson, welcome to the Upwards Podcast. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Awesome. Well, this summer we're highlighting some local voices in our community, and we want to elevate those for people to hear, both locally and I think across the U.S. who are listening to the podcast. And we just have some really interesting stories. And yours is the first one in the series. And so we're we're excited to have you here today for that. And thank you. And no pressure, I guess, right? Yeah. All right. No, this is an absolute honor to be here. Thanks for having me. So you've been in Madison a long time. You're a student here, worked at a couple of different churches here. Currently the executive director of the collaboration project, which we'll talk about a lot. But what do you most love about Madison, Dane County? What's the thing that keeps you here as a leader in our community?

SPEAKER_01 2:20

First of all, thank you for that intro. That was a really nice way of saying you're old. Um yeah. Oh man, I, you know, I did go to undergrad here and did not imagine that I would stay here. And yet here I am, let's say 30 some years later. And I love it. I love Madison for I think many of the reasons that many people love Madison, tons of great outdoor opportunities. Uh, you know, I love gardening, biking, running. These are all wonderful things to do in our area. And then the church environment I love because in many cases we're in a post-church kind of culture. And so living out your faith in this kind of context, I think keeps it really grounded and it's wonderful in the way of challenging it and I think encouraging self-reflection on is this real? And it's not just part of the culture.

— From 20 years as a Madison pastor to founding Collaboration Project — the Genesis story

SPEAKER_03 3:07

So you were a pastor here locally for almost what 20 years-ish. That's right. And then started a collaboration project in 2019. Tell us a little bit about kind of moving out of pastoral ministry into kind of nonprofit work uh where you were a solo leader for a while and now you have a great team around you. Tell us a little bit about that transition, that time, and give us a little insight into a collaboration project for our audience that may not know about you.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah, I mean, I love this story because you're right. I did work in churches in the area for 20 years, two different churches combined. And there's lots of evidence over those 20 years of me saying very publicly, like, I never want to work in a nonprofit, or I never want to start a nonprofit because I don't want to do the paperwork and I don't want to raise money. I think we're like my two kind of go-to taglines. So I think as often as God works, like there's a sense of humor behind this story too. But the question, I think, is the what is the Genesis story of this? Yeah, yeah. Tell us a little bit about how clever launched. So, yeah, so in both my jobs uh at the two different churches, a lot of my work, and this is clear in retrospect, but a lot of my work was really about trying to help engage the part of the church that I was responsible of working with in serving in the community. And I think it was through that work over a long period of time that a couple things happened. One is I started getting to know lots of nonprofits in the area and lots of civic organizations and leadership. And I kept hearing the narrative about the local church over and over again. It wasn't one of hostility, it was one of indifference. And not universal, of course, right? But if anything, it was kind of like, yeah, they're they're a mild good in the community. And that kind of drove me crazy because I felt like my understanding of the church is it is truly the hope of the world that that God is working through the body that is the church to bring about transformation, both here and and one day. And so, man, if we were living out that mandate, like the response from the broader community, I think would be much warmer, or you certainly hope for that. Yeah. And it was that combined with the same organizations as I'd be in conversations, would talk about how the church often wasn't moving the needle on the social goods it existed to solve. And so while they might be involved, they were, you know, low-scale volunteering or donors, but there wasn't a sense of like churches or Christians as a whole or as a collaborative are about the missions of these social agencies that were around housing and around food and education and et cetera, et cetera. And then I think coupled with and very closely tied to, starting to see because of my work, I worked at a congregation. My job was for that congregation. And I think most people working for church had that mindset. And so I started to see, like, gosh, there's a whole bunch of us doing the same kind of things, and none of us are really paid to talk to each other about it as much as we like the idea, like it's just hard to get out of our silos because you're kind of stuck in your programming. And so I started wishing for a number of years, like, I wish there was this third party organization that would bring us together to learn from each other, to create kind of a safe space so that nobody was like the church hosting uh or the organization, but that rather was kind of a neutral party and that we could start to reduce this redundancy. And last thing I'll say about this is I started also seeing organizations like this, these third party organizations that basically existed to bring Christians or churches together for the good of the community they were in. And they were starting to pop up all over the country. And then, and again, it's kind of how God works. I think that was rumbling in my heart for a long time of like, man, I wish somebody would do that. And then I had the opportunity to do that in 2019. So that's really kind of the backstory. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

So you've been at it for seven years-ish, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Yeah, I think that's right.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

And you know, I think the interesting thing seeing kind of from the outside a little bit, we've worked together on some projects over the time.

— How COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd became catalysts for church collaboration

SPEAKER_03 7:01

And I'm wondering in these seven years, how have you seen maybe churches, organizations shift a little bit into engaging what you're doing, coming together for good and purposefulness? What would be some you know, rods in the sand where you're like, hey, we're we're seeing progress here within our work as we see congregations or churches or nonprofits gather for and produce good in our community?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

The first thing that comes to my mind is some outside forces that had nothing to do with any totally out of our control. About a year after founding, um, and I'll say, like, I think our work, especially originally, and still to this day, it'd be summarized by like our whole thing was kind of bringing groups of people together to learn and then releasing them back out in the community. And that might sound a little bit like a super spreader. And that's what happened about a year in as COVID hit, and we had to really reimagine what it meant to do the work that we felt like we were called to do. And everybody was doing that. So I think that was a catalytic moment in terms of like churches suddenly who had never talked to each other, were scrambling to figure out just the basic questions of what does it mean to gather? Yeah, how do we care for one another? What does it mean to be the church? And then coupled with families throughout the community, we're facing some really severe crisis as far as inability to pay the rent, to know where the next meal was coming from. And so in the midst of that hardship, and I think this is so often the case, there were some beautiful stories of the church as a whole and and congregations throughout the county uh coming together to support each other with really basic needs, with significant generosity. And, you know, I don't ever want to go through that again. I don't know that anybody does, but I look back at that, and those kind of stories were some beautiful pictures of hope. I'd say then also when George Floyd was murdered, and the response in the midst of that and and in our community was this word gets overused, I think, right now, but I don't know a better one. It was truly unprecedented in my time in the area in terms of churches, the outpouring of people coming together and saying, hey, we we want to love each other, care for each other, was a beautiful picture of collaboration. Again, that I hadn't seen and both, I think, born out of crisis and and hardship.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

And you guys, I don't know at what point, but made a little bit of a shift into more neighborhood-oriented work. Talk a little bit about that shift. Uh, I think that's really interesting and bringing people together within a community rather than, let's say, Dane County or southern Wisconsin. Uh, talk a little bit about the neighborhood initiative stuff that you guys are doing.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

It

— Why Collaboration Project organizes around neighborhoods (17 high school attendance areas in Dane County) instead of issues or denominations

SPEAKER_01 9:43

might help. I'll I'll zoom out a little bit and just mention our mission briefly, because I think this came out of a question of like, how do we do that better? And so, really, our mission is trying to help the churches of Dane County, which of which there's a little over 300 currently, uh, live out their unity in Jesus and love their neighbors in a way that transforms the neighborhood for good. So, love that work and find it very exciting, you know, getting me out of bed every day. But how do you do that has been a very challenging question. And so, yeah, over the course of seven years, lots of experimentation, a lot of trial and error, more error than trial. Uh, but it's really how we landed on the neighborhood or geography being the common ground for the common good, and finding that Christians from all kinds of different congregational contexts and denominational spaces, more often than not, almost universally, would find commonality and a love for a specific part of the community. And so we've really tried to now center our conversations around literal love of neighbor and love of God. And so that feels very biblical, but also like how we practically do that. Uh, and I'll I'll say just how we define neighborhood. That's a tricky one, and we've we wrestled for a long time with how to do that best. And at the moment, what we've done is we've defined it by high school attendance areas. Oh, interesting. And so sometimes that throws people because it's usually bigger than how people think of their immediate neighborhood.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

And it actually has nothing to do with high schools, it's just how we're figuring out how people identify with their own spaces. As of this recording, there's 17 high school attendance areas in Dane County. Uh, but even that number shifts as the population grows and as areas maybe add a new high school district.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

So that's what how we're defining that, and then trying to build out these networks. Yeah. And eventually all 17 of those.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

So Dane County is a rapidly growing community, building everywhere. Affordable housing is a huge issue in our community. You know, I think there's an interesting gap between kind of those that have resources and those that don't have resources. How have you seen churches kind of come together or organizations come together to really serve the most need in our community, the people with that have the most need in our community in really healthy ways?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

I'll unpack it by just explaining a little bit of the structure of our neighborhood networks and then highlight that with one or two quick stories. So within each of our neighborhood networks, what we offer is a community leader gathering that happens about four times a year. And that's for Christians from different sectors who would self-identify as a leader. So there's no like really strict guidelines here, but from the business community, civic community, nonprofit, and church. And we come together and essentially try to platform somebody who's what we call a person of peace, like a person who's serving that community from a faith-based perspective or otherwise. So this would be like alders, a police chief, a community center director, school principal, and they basically share on behalf of their work. And then we invite the group over the process of lunch and kind of meeting one another to try to discern a faithful next step in response to what they heard, with the hope that, and you know, we we have some other small ways that we add carrots to this, but like hope that that leads to collaborative service in that community. Here's a cool case in point that's really fresh.

— The prom dress story: a lunch conversation that turned into 1,200 free dresses for La Follette High School students

SPEAKER_01 12:52

It happened just about a month and a half ago. We had a community leader gathering for the La Follette area network. And over the course of a lunch together, a woman there who's a lay leader at a mainline church, they had started getting involved at the high school, and they have kind of an unofficial pantry that has food and clothing. And they're a smaller church, and so they didn't have capacity to provide for the clothing. But over the course of this community gathering, some people who happened to be at their table were a new Christian nonprofit that's providing, basically like taking clothing and redistributing it. And so I was just like a table way, so I saw all this happen. This one woman from the church basically pointed at them and was like, you and I need to have lunch and we're gonna figure some stuff out. And so they sat down and had lunch, and by the end of that lunch, she had offloaded all the clothing to this new nonprofit. And they approached us afterwards and we're not quite sure if we can do it, but we're gonna give it a go. And here's what's so cool is within two weeks of this conversation, uh, this organization received over 1,200 free prom dresses that they then brought to the high school and provided a free shopping experience for girls that were about to go to prom and distributed a whole number of those. The week later, we had a dinner, which is also part of our neighborhood network, at that high school. And the principal led with this story. And what was so beautiful, not only was the story, but then he just pointed in the room and he's like, hey, the people who made that happen are here tonight, and had them stand up. And it was just kind of this beautiful spontaneous moment. To me, that story is not one that we're trying to like replicate exactly, but is a perfect example of the kinds of things that we hope come out of this trusting relationship, learning about the neighborhood, and then going, okay, what do we do with that? That's a beautiful example of what we want to see more of.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

I think that I mean, uh you probably have story after story after story of the things like that happening, but to see the impact on our community. What

— A challenge to well-resourced churches: why "we've already got it covered" misses the point of the church of a city

SPEAKER_03 14:44

would you say to the reverse side of that? I think of churches in our community really well resourced, who maybe think like, okay, we we have all of our mission-wide ministry things, you know, we have a food pantry, we have clothing, we have you know money for people in need, all this kind of stuff. We don't really need to partner in some way in our with other organizations in our community. And I I've heard that narrative from different organizations in our what would you say to them as someone who's leading within our community, who is you know at the forefront of bringing organizations together, what would be your encouragement to them?

SPEAKER_01 15:23

It's a good semi-provocative question, Dan. I think with a question like that, I would encourage a church to reflect again about the theology of church, of which I feel confident they would feel like they have. But I I think increasingly I have understood uh as I read through the New Testament that Paul will write to the church of a city and it's not these specific congregations. And how can we see the church of Madison or the Church of Dane County? And then when we think about the church as a body or a family, if it starts with that church of a city, it really broadens our understanding of those metaphors, right? The church is not a body that is just of this congregation that gathers, but actually it's a collection of congregations. And so recognizing that while we might be a really strong arm, right, because this church is well resourced, they're still missing out on being part of truly what the body is, as I think scripture describes the local church. So there's that. If that's not compelling, I would also say if you're that well resourced, all the more reason to be at the table because you can offer from your experience and wisdom and trial and error all these other churches that don't have the same resources. And by all means, like come as in as a leader learner. Don't step out because it's inconvenient or because you kind of got it all figured out, so we'll just do it alone. Think of it as an act of service to the broader community and the broader church because there's a lot that they've figured out. And gosh, wouldn't that be great to share that experience and that knowledge? There's even more to it than that, but those would be two, I think, framing possibilities that I would hope bring would bring other people to the table that might might opt out.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

We'll get back to our conversation with John Anderson in just a moment. If you've enjoyed it so far, there's still plenty ahead. The Upwards Podcast is made possible by SLBF Studio. Our desire is to make space for faith, learning, and meaningful dialogue. To learn more, go to slbf.org slash studio.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

Well, I'm gonna get you off the hot seat for a second. I

— Celebrating 25 years of Madison Missions

SPEAKER_03 17:39

want to talk a little bit about some of the programs and a little bit of your history here in our community. So you helped start the Madison Missions, which is just had a big celebration milestone. 25 years, which is so fun to see. And uh wild. So tell us a little bit about you were at the forefront of that. Tell us a little bit about how did that all start and where's your understanding of it now?

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Uh fun timing of that question because I just had a chance to meet with their summer staff this week and and celebrate 25 years of this and share a little bit of the Genesis story, of which I I feel fairly confident was like mostly exciting for me. But I was on staff at a church called Blackhawk Church that's here in town, a large evangelical church, and it was large-ish or smaller than it is now back in 2001. And I was relatively new on staff in the middle school ministry there. And the long story short is we took a group of students on uh on uh short-term mission trips here in the US, or actually it was in Canada. And basically while we were there, we're like, I think we could do this thing that we're experiencing back home and make it accessible to a whole bunch more students because price point was traveling and all that can be an inhibitor. So uh essentially we started a serv a local service camp out of the desire to engage more students and pretty quickly coupled with a chance to see our own community through a different lens. And that's part of the story that I think is really fun to tell because maybe it wasn't immediate, but it was within the first year or two, the realization of just the kind of students that were part of that church at that time, not all, but many of which, the majority of which were coming from a pretty privileged context, had the ability to see the city in not its full reality form. And so wanted to create a place where we could visit different nonprofits and different parts of the city and different kinds of people who are parts of the community and get to know them and realize, like, hey, that's actually more complex. There's more going on here than than maybe some of us know. And that was certainly the effect it had on me is I think starting to see Madison as having a more complex reality than when I was a college student on campus or a west side suburbanite. And then just the beauty of seeing students like serving in the community and having growing, like developing this love for service and and feeling like what I love about middle school is their their response was usually like, I can change the world. I'm going to change the world now. And just that that enthusiasm and that hope, we all need a little bit of that.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

So well, and what a milestone. I mean, 25 years, that's so cool to see a church program even last 25 years, which many uh you know don't. Yeah. Especially around youth ministry-oriented things, right? To see 25 years is such a cool, cool milestone.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Well, and I'll say I haven't been part of it for oh gosh, 13 years now. And it's only, I think, gotten better. And on a really personal level, what I think is so cool is my middle school daughter is going to be part of it this summer. Uh, and just handing off my kid as a parent now is like, man, this is awesome. So it's a lovely thing to get to watch that kind of full circle.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

Yeah, that's so fun. Probably some of our listeners know Kingdom Justice Summit, which is a part of Collaboration Project. We hosted that here at Upper House this last spring again. Uh, such a great event that brings our community together. Tell us a little bit about Kingdom

— The origin of the Kingdom Justice Summit and why it stays hyper-local

SPEAKER_03 20:57

Justice Summit. Where did that start? I know probably people may know Kingdom Justice Summit more than they know Collaboration Project. And so I think linking those two things would be really interesting for our audience.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

It is really fun to reflect on these things. Uh, so that started in 2015, and it started really out of a curiosity of an event for just the volunteers of the church that I was at at that time. And I think somewhere in the planning process, we're like, well, let's just open this up to the broader community and see what happens. And so I think it was that first year we had uh just under 200 people come from I think it was 25 churches and feeling like, oh, okay, there's something happening here. This is kind of exciting, especially that second number of just like the diversity of churches represented in the room. Well, the numbers weren't massive, it was like okay, there's at least representation and voices from all these different spaces. And up to that point, I hadn't been in spaces like that, locally at least. And it was centered originally and still to this day, really around basically two five. Foundational questions. The first was, and is what is biblical justice or what is kingdom justice? See those as synonymous. And secondly, what does it look like lived out in our community? And so from the very beginning, it was intentionally like hyperloc, in part because there was national things happening that were great and better and more funded and cooler speakers. And you know, so we didn't want to compete with those, but I think what those spaces didn't provide was hyper-local contextualization. So what has been cool is to be able to have this conversation now for a whole bunch of years in a row. Uh, we've had it every year but one. And to get together and really workshop some of the things that you referenced earlier, like housing or education or food insecurity, or and go like, okay, what do we do with this here in this community? And so that's been a neat, I don't know, just a privilege to be part of that journey.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

So

— Defining biblical justice as the pursuit of shalom and right relationship

SPEAKER_03 22:52

how do you guys define justice? Because I think justice is a word that we throw around a lot. We use it in very different contexts, sometimes as a filler word for when we can't think of another good word in the mix of things. Yeah, yeah. But how do you think about justice in relationship to your work, even you know, in your faith? Like how do you how does that resonate with you?

SPEAKER_01 23:14

I think the the most concise work I've seen around this is I think Bible Projects, they have a video that's just titled Justice, and I would recommend it to anybody listening. They'll say it better than I'm about to. But my understanding of biblical justice is I think there's a far more nuance, but it is essentially about bringing about shalom, which is essentially about bringing about right relationship. And so it's restorative, uh, it can be punitive, but ultimately it's with the intent of bringing about right relationship between people and all of creation. And so to me, the starting point that I is largely not controversial is all humans matter, that the Imago Day that God is revealed in creation, and we are caregivers of that, how we do that is where things get really sticky, right? Like, and but that's where I think it we can have like a really wonderful, civil, passionate conversation, even in the midst of our differences, around how do we achieve that goal that we actually share the goal in mind. It's just how do we get there? That's the point of conflict. And so to me, if justice is co-opted by a political party or a certain platform is and therefore seen as I'm not about justice because justice is just for those people, I think we've missed the boat. And uh the encouragement, I think, is to step a little further back into the story and go, okay, where can we agree on the nature of humans, the nature of creation, what is right? Take us back to the garden, really. And then how do we like live out the garden realities in the here and now, which I think is the kingdom? Yeah. And that's where that word is so important. Uh so it gives us a glimpse of the now, not yet. If we can agree on that as a starting point, which I think we can, then again, let's have the fun and hard conversation of how do we achieve that? Yeah.

— Uniting theologically diverse churches around shared love of place, not shared politics

SPEAKER_03 25:05

So how do you bring together churches that have very different theological, social, maybe socially oriented viewpoints for a common work? I mean, I think that is a really difficult task. So, how do you get people cheer a meal together, talk conversations together without just automatic kind of tension in the mix of things?

SPEAKER_01 25:28

That is the great challenge of our work. Absolutely. It goes back to I think how we got to and why we're excited about the neighborhood network. So I think what we've found, some of the experimentation I'll just comment on briefly, uh, because I think it highlights this challenge was around certain affinities, whether it was like education or anti-trafficking or immigration, those were part of our history in terms of like bringing people together on those topics. But two challenges kind of emerged pretty quickly. Like one, those affinities, like what was popular or interesting to the church at large was always shifting a little bit. And two, some of those spaces became so polarized in its politics that it was a distraction. What we found so far, uh, and may it stay this way, is that neighborhoods and geography has been this wonderful space of commonality, of like, I care about my local school, I care about the park that's across the street, I care about the housing project that's being put in a block from my house. But what do I care about that? Who, what do I want for that? Who is that providing access and benefit to and those kind of questions? It's a different set of questions that we found that like people from a really theologically different spaces have been able and willing and even excited to sit down together and discuss and problem solve. And it's usually in the context of those discussions that something else happens that I think is actually maybe even the more beautiful part. These relationships, these trusting relationships start getting built, where it's like you're not just your denomination or your theological viewpoint on this thing that I'm really concerned about. You're this person with a name and a family and a story and fears and excitements. And suddenly, like in that relationship, it becomes far more nuanced than you're this theological viewpoint. The last thing I'll say about that, and and I want to be clear because I think we get asked this question a lot. Our hope is not to like cover up those differences or even like bring people all to the same viewpoint, but rather I think to be loving in the midst of our differences. To me, that is a way more beautiful picture of the church living a countercultural reality, is when we can go, yeah, I think you're deeply wrong, and I still love you. I don't see that kind of conversation happening very often. And so we're hoping and finding to some degree that when the conversation is centered around lived space, it makes it more possible. Yeah, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 27:58

I I see the church, this is just from abroad, you know, I'm not in the day-to-day of your organization. And but as a community gatherer here on campus and working with some churches and organizations, there's a little bit of a real growth pattern with churches right now. It seems like there's a lot of churches that are kind of gaining momentum from a variety of different denominations in that our communities growing just, you know, geographically, there's more people moving into our county. Is your sense that we're engaging churches are engaging new people into the mix, or are we just kind of reshuffling the deck as we look at kind of church growth and patterns in our community?

SPEAKER_01 28:43

I think there's some of both. I mean, I certainly hear about and see probably more of the reshuffling, but that's I think more born out of like where the relationships exist and the people either myself or our team, you know, is in relationship with. But I am hearing more and more stories of whatever the language is in that denominational context, but either like new membership or conversions or baptisms, but people who are coming with a curiosity, coming with a kind of a clean slate. Like I don't really know anything about Jesus, don't know anything about the Bible, didn't grow up in that context, and I'm really curious. So I'm hearing more of those stories anecdotally. I don't have like good research behind that. Yeah. And I'm hearing that broadly. So I'm, you know, I feel even more aware of it. Yeah, uh it seems like a national story that's starting to play out and one that, you know, is exciting.

SPEAKER_03 29:33

So around your work, around justice, bringing organizations and churches together for the good of the city, um, where do you see the church often get right? And where are some hiccups or missteps that you often see kind of from churches jumping into this work or trying to figure out this work?

SPEAKER_01 29:54

One of the things I find really helpful and encouraging is that, like I mentioned earlier, there's about 300, 320 churches in Dane County right now. Uh, and that's really broadly speaking, Catholic, Protestant. And we work with about a third of those churches each year and, you know, over time, like over 50% over the last few years. And I have yet to meet a church that doesn't say and actually act upon wanting to do good in the community they're a part of. Like to me, that's a beautiful universal that I'm seeing. Some, in my opinion, do it better than others, of course, or have more resources than others, but both the heart and the action on that, I feel like, are real. And I find that beautiful and hopeful because they're not only caring for one another, but they're some sort of outward focus. I think where there's still a significant growth opportunity is to be doing it together and to be, I mean, this is why we exist largely, but is to get to know the church that's just a block down or two blocks down. There's so many spaces where congregations are gathering, we call churches, that are so proximate to each other and have never met each other. Uh, the leadership haven't met, the congregants haven't met, coupled with like Christians living in their neighborhood, they're that they don't know their neighbors well enough to know their own like faith story. So that we're surrounded by other people who are believers in Jesus that we have no idea about. And we share this commitment of like, I want to love my neighborhood, but we don't know that about each other. So we don't do it together. To me, those are two sides of the same coin that I think we could do a whole lot more of and could create a really beautiful and powerful witness, both tangible and theological. Like we love you and care for you and we're providing, and here's countless stories about it. I think what could be, man, that would be amazing.

— Jon's 10-year hope: churches known as "points of light" connected into a resilient web

SPEAKER_03 31:38

Well, last question. Ten years from now, you're looking back at Collaboration Project and the work that you've done in our community over this time. What would you hope that the church, our community would look like with the good and the faithful presence in our community?

SPEAKER_01 31:54

There's a couple ways I think about that that I think I hope both articulate kind of this preferred future. One is I think about new people coming into the community, because this is going to be happening. And the predictions are that we're going to be growing at a significant rate for the foreseeable future. And as people come into the community, whether as Christians or not, if there's any kind of curiosity or any interaction with the church, what I would love to see in 10 years is as people have an interaction, churches or church leadership or neighbors, people who identify as Christians, somehow they're going, I don't know what it is. I can't explain it. I don't understand it, but there's something weird in this city. There's something weird in this area. There's something in the water or the air here that I do not get, but like you all seem to like each other, you speak well of each other, you're working together. I don't, this is not like where I'm coming from. What's going on here? And it would be almost this inexplicable sort of I mean, the kind of way we talk about it on our team all the time is like as an ecosystem, and that the ecosystem itself will have shifted into this highly collaborative, loving community that none of us can quite point to like what is the causal factor, but it's a whole bunch of factors. Another way I think about that, that's maybe a little bit more of a I hope not fear-based, but I think it's a real-based, is I think of all the Christians throughout our community as like little points of light, and that our work is trying to help connect them to one another so that you have this, like you can visualize it, just this grid of interconnected, beautiful web of light. And that it creates this incredibly strong web so that when crisis hits, and it will, and we don't know what it is, but it will hit, that we'll have this kind of like strong network that can be resilient in the face of whatever that is. And that the people who are just prepared to respond with beauty and grace and generosity and sacrifice are the Christians. And it's because they know each other and they trust each other, and they're ready to collaboratively love and serve together. And we can't prepare for that with like a timeline, right? You can't say this is coming at this time for better or for worse. But as we know human history, like something will happen at some point. And so I think that will be the test whenever that happens of how well we do that. But the opportunity for that to me could be profoundly beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

Well, John Anderson, thanks so much for being on the Upwards podcast with us. Really appreciate your time. So fun for folks to hear collaboration project, your story. Your work in our city for decades. And so we're we're super excited and thankful for that, uh, for that work is it is really meaningful. And I know that your impression is on our city and our community in really significant ways. And so we're really grateful for your service over these decades and hopefully some more to come.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Yeah. Thank you, Dan, and thanks for all the ways we've been able to partner. This has been a joy. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

What would it look like if the church became known not for its divisions, but for its love of neighbor? That's the vision John Anderson leaves with us. A vision rooted in collaboration, humility, and faithful presence in our communities. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who would enjoy the conversation. Also, consider visiting slbf.org slash studio to find other podcast offerings. That's slbf.org slash studio. Until next time, keep looking upward and living with purpose. Go in peace.