As we walk or drive around our neighborhoods, it can be easy to ignore their past, especially when the build environment of the past isn’t there anymore. But the ways neighborhoods have changed over the years profoundly shapes the present – they often haunt the present. How neighborhoods and cities in the United States took shape in the mid-20th century shaped the world we live in today, and churches played a major role in that shift.

Greg Jarrell shows the central role White churches played in shaping neighborhoods during this period, and explores how Christians today can seek healing and repair for our cities and towns.

Check out Greg’s book Our Trespasses and his album How Bright the Path on Apple Music or Spotify.

The podcast episode on reparations that Greg mentioned is here.

Churches love to tell their stories, whether their founding, their accomplishments, or their connections with wider history. How can churches tell their full stories—not just the ones that make us feel good—and how can they be part of wider neighborhood efforts to tell their full histories? Public history has resources to help this process, and in this episode historian Denise Meringolo talks about how to tell such full stories. The way we tell our church’s stories has moral implications, and public history aids this process of morally reflective storytelling.

Check out Dr. Meringolo’s books Museums, Monuments, and National Parks and Radical Roots.

Looking for a public historian? Start by consulting a nearby college or university, or check out the National Council on Public History’s list of consultants.

Access to banking proves vital to participating in our economy, but many people have little or no access to mainstream banking. They sometimes have little choice but to take out predatory loans at extremely high interest rates—sometimes up to 400%. Exodus Lending in Minneapolis gives people an alternative banking tool to get out of predatory cycles.

Ross talks with their co-founder Meghan Olsen Biebighauser about how the organization started, how it listened to neighbors, and how this ministry opened up other vibrant avenues for loving neighbors in their city. Hear a powerful example of congregational discernment about loving neighbors.

Check out the work of Exodus Lending!

Love God and love neighbor are the two great commandments of Christianity given by Jesus. But what happens when Christians don’t love neighbors? What happens when loving neighbors becomes secondary for Christian public life rather than primary? David French explains the Christian right’s support for the MAGA movement, then offers an alternative vision for Christian engagement in public life based in faithful generosity toward neighbors.

Check out his book Divided We Fall and see his columns in the New York Times.

The David Hollinger book Ross mentioned is Christianity’s American Fate.

It’s easy to imagine loving neighbors as something focused locally, with denominations as broader bodies that span towns, cities, states, and even international borders. But might denominations have responsibilities not only to care for church institutions but also responsibilities for empowering works of love for local congregations?

Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe discusses how denominations can empower local congregations for works of love and justice. Check out Bishop Rowe’s website.

Check out Ross’s book which Bishop Rowe mentions, The Good News of Church Politics.

In this episode we delve into how churches can engage in public-private partnerships without undermining their mission. The discussion with Peter John Hobbs, who directs community ministries for the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, covers the possibilities and challenges of such collaborations, the evolution of faith-based social services, and the importance of maintaining a humble, collaborative approach to address community needs.

PJ mentioned the underappreciated theologian Douglas John Hall. Check out his book The Cross in Our Context.

 Loving neighbors involves facing sins that shaped our neighborhoods. Many church communities are asking how they can be agents of repair amid the racial fragmentation across United States history. Reparations are a vital part of such healing. Ebonee Davis-Hayes discusses the reparations program at Virginia Theological Seminary, the first of its kind in higher education.

Check out this video on reparations at Virginia Theological Seminary.

 When we think of church meetings, we often associate them with decision making and getting work done. But meetings are also places to build community, connection, and belonging.  Good church meetings also help congregations better love their neighbors because congregations that meet with love and care are practicing the very things we’re supposed to share with our neighbors. The Rev. Dr. L. Roger Owens offers fresh ways to think about church meetings.

See his Faith and Leadership article on meetings here.

Check out L. Roger Owens’ books Everyday Contemplative and What We Need Is Here.