The Good Neighbor Settlement House Interview PGE 106

My guests for this episode introduce us to an updated version a type of organization which has been around since the late 1880s, but which most of us have never heard of or know anything about. The type of organization is a Settlement House. The updated version is modeled in a Settlement House one of my guests founded and the other has helped strengthen and sustain. It is called The Good Neighbor House and is located in Waco, Texas. As my guests will discuss, in its updated version, a Settlement House offers local communities, towns, and cities a resource to strengthen the peaceful bonds of it residence; it offers our nation a resource to strengthen the practice of our democracy; and it offers Christian churches a resource for fulfilling a key mission and mandate of the Church’s work–that of showing hospitality to the stranger. In considering the current challenges of both our nation and the churches in the U.S., Settlement Houses can provide a relevant and needed contribution, and are thus something worth knowing more about and considering.

The founder of the Good Neighbor House, Dr. Laine Scales, has been on this show before. Laine is Professor and PhD Program Co-Director for the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work. She completed 15 years as Associate Dean in Baylor’s Graduate School from 2004-2019. Her scholarly work led to her appointment as co-director of Baptist Scholars International Roundtable (BSIR). Laine is the author of All That Fits a Woman: Training Southern Baptist Women for Charity and Mission, 1907-1926 and co-author/co-editor of several works, including the 6th Edition of Christianity and Social Work: Readings in the Integration of Christian Faith and Social Work Practice, and Christian Faith and University Life: Stewards of the Academy. Her research interests include doctoral education, history of Baptist women in social work and missions, and rural social work. Laine‘s research on historical settlement houses led her to establish Good Neighbor Settlement House in Waco Texas, a social innovation experiment in nurturing community through an intergenerational experience of the arts, music, education, recreation, and worship.

Tyler Mowry is a PhD candidate and in the Department of Religion and a Content Specialist on the Learning Design team at Baylor University. He has participated in a number of community development efforts, including K–12 educational advocacy in Bogotá, Colombia and West Chicago, IL, and urban agricultural development in East Atlanta, GA. Tyler is a member of the board of trustees and the maintenance team, which is responsible for care of the building and grounds at the Good Neighbor House, and his family and church are frequent users of the space.

You can learn more about Good Neighbor House in an article title, “Good Neighbor House: Reimagining Settlement Houses as a Response to Contemporary Community Challenges,” in Chapter 3 of Christianity and Social Work: Readings on the Integration of Christian Faith and Social Work Practice, Sixth Ed., by T. Laine Scales and Michael S. Kelly. Direct link to the article can be found here:

The intro and outro music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project.