Kingdom Placemakers: Becoming Attached to the Place You Help Create

Placemaking is a bottom up approach to shaping a public space.

According to Project for Public Spaces, "Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Put simply, it involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work and play in a particular space, to discover their needs and aspirations. This information is then used to create a common vision for that place. The vision can evolve quickly into an implementation strategy, beginning with small-scale, do-able improvements that can immediately bring benefits to public spaces and the people who use them" (http://www.pps.org/reference/what_is_placemaking/).

There are 11 steps guiding the PLACEMAKING strategy (building a better community):

1. The community (the people of the place) are the experts.

2. Create a place, not a design.

3. Look for partners

4. You can see a lot by just observing.

5. Have a vision.

6. Start with the Petunias: Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper

7. Triangulate

8. They Always Say “It Can’t Be Done”

9. Form supports function

10. Money is not an issue

11. You are never finished.

Read more here on the 11 steps: http://www.pps.org/reference/11steps/

The result is community ownership and excitement. See the quotes below....

"If you’re not building social capital in the community where you’re working, you’re not Placemaking; you’re just reorganizing the furniture."

“Human capital and creative talent increasingly goes where it likes; talent increasingly goes to great places; but talented people become most attached to places that they help create.”

 

As you think about making disciples who make disciples and form a church in a local place, community or neighborhood, how might these steps help along the way?

As followers of Jesus into the neighborhood, we alert people to the reign and rule of God's Kingdom through Jesus. We enter into these public places proclaiming the good news both with our words/stories and by our ACTS (the acts of Jesus followers), demonstrating a kingdom place worth entering into!

Let's be Kingdom Placemakers!

 

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How are You Engaged in this Neighborhood Conversation?

Have you ever prayed this : "Our Father who is in Heaven, Holy be your name. Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven....." STOP there for a second. Why don't you join God in being the answer to that prayer as a new church, a new church leader, and/or a disciple of Christ. What could you do to make your neighborhood a better place - a community place where people liked to be with one another?

In the article entitled, How to Be a Citizen Placemaker: Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper, the author suggest citizens re-engage their communities to make them better places. Here are some highlights from the article:

"When you think about making your neighborhood a better place, think Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper (LQC). In public space design, the LQC strategy is framed as a way for communities to experiment with a place and learn how people want to use it before making more permanent changes. That experimental attitude can be adopted by anyone. Just ask yourself: what’s one thing I already enjoy doing that I could bring out into the public realm?"

“If you don’t spend at least some time thinking about the state of mind of Placemaking—every decision, behavior, everything that we do as residents in our place every day—on top of the infrastructure that’s provided by the place itself, then you miss a really important part of the conversation, where everybody gets to have some of the responsibility.”

"If you are a change-oriented person, we need you to lead. Whether you want to move your office outside, organize a citywide cooking festival, or start small by making a concerted effort to engage directly with your neighbors every day, know that your own actions are an essential component of your neighborhood’s sense of place, by virtue of the fact that you live there."

“We need professionals to think about themselves not narrowly disciplinary professionals, whose work is to simply solve a narrow disciplinary problem, but as citizen professionals working to contribute to the civic health and well-being of the community.”

"Team Better Block co-founder Andrew Howard explained how his own LQC street transformations in cities around the US have caused his understanding of how people engage with places to evolve. “As a planner,” he explained, “I always thought that, if I made the best plan, that would attract the right people to come from somewhere else and make that plan happen. What I’ve realized through Better Block is that every community already has everybody they need. They just need to activate the talented people who are already there, and shove them into one place at one time, and that place can become better really quickly.”

Read the entire article at this link....

Article

Church, it is time for you to intentionally engage your neighborhood as a missionary. Step fully into the life of the place you live for the sake of the Kingdom of God

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Three ways to positively step up your personal leadership & engagement

You are going to have incredible opportunities and challenges in your church, church plant, startup, business, etc. During the challenges, the temptation is to disengage. It is easier, instead of stepping up, to step out and pursue the next big thing. Alli Polin of Break the Frame, says:

"Leadership is more than being skilled at driving outcomes, it requires leaders at all levels to engage and bring the team with them on the journey.

Leading for the sake of “getting it done” and “achieving the vision” are far different experiences for both the individual leaders and their team. Pushing actions and solutions, without concern for employee engagement, reduces work to a series of soulless checklists."

He goes on to remind us WE ARE PART OF A TEAM! As a team member and as a leader here are 3 steps you can take to lead and engage during challenges and problem solving:

1. Do Your Homework - not every idea is a great idea. If you have an idea, do,some homework and see if it is a viable solution.
2. Speak Up - share your thoughts an ideas instead of complaining and grumbling.
3. Let Go - Sometimes your brilliant idea, even after you did your homework, will fall flat to a group or the leader. Let it go. Reward yourself for participating, give yourself a pat on the back for "trying" and re-engage your team to accomplish the mission/vision/values of the group.

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