Sara Joy Proppe: Empowering Churches to Connect with Their Neighborhoods

In this episode, we talk with Sara Joy Proppe, an accomplished and interdisciplinary woman with a passion for cities, stories, and the Church.  She’s an experienced real estate developer, educator, writer, podcaster, urban planner and the founder of a unique organization called Proximity Project, which empowers churches to connect their mission and their story to their physical place in the neighborhood.

Sara Joy is dedicated to bottom-up, incremental action, good stewardship of land and resources, and neighborhood engagement.  What’s so inspiring about the Proximity Project model is that it enriches everyone who gets involved. Churches can benefit by becoming a greater part of their neighborhoods, knowing their neighbors, being devoted to their mission of welcoming—as well as tapping into opportunities for greater financial stability by finding ways to better use their land. And neighborhoods benefit from the resources and community spaces that a church can offer. 

Truly, everyone is made better off when our local institutions, neighbors and places are more integrated and acquainted with one another.

This conversation may be of special interest to anyone who’s part of a faith community and wants to see that community become a more full and active presence in their neighborhood, but we think it will really interest anyone who cares about more tightly knitting the fabric of their city.

Additional Show Notes

• Proximity Project website

• The Redemptive Placemaking Toolkit

• The Embedded Church podcast

• Walk Tasman Drive website

• Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org.

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