Your engagement with the world entirely depends on what you see, on what you pay attention to. Therefore, the first activity of social innovation is always one of trying to see more clearly. Central to this is noticing how people are gathering and how communities are forming in your context. This is an important starting point for any kind of missional engagement.The community discovery tool is designed to help you identify the different places in your context where people are interacting in new ways and where communities are forming, and create a map that can be used as a scavenger hunt or trail. You can also find other groups, organizations or congregations to share your maps with and create a conversation about what you are learning.We partnered with Dr. Kenda Dean, the Mary D. Synnott Professor of Youth, Church and Culture at Princeton Theological College to create this resource. This is what she had to say about the tool:“Our project worked with churches that wanted to reimagine ministry with young adults. That meant they had to *find* young adults first, which required them to get out of their church bubbles and discover where young people gather in their communities outside the church. We asked questions like: Where do they go, and why? Why is the church absent from this space? What are young adults doing to fulfill their spiritual needs for identity, belonging, meaning, and purpose outside of churches?The Community Discovery Tool was the perfect solution. Of all the tools designed for our project, this became one of our favorites. Intuitive, accessible, and fun, it really helped our teams see their communities with new eyes, and discover how young adults were helping shape those communities. Added bonus: the exercises were a blast to complete, and deepened trust and working relationships among our teams and others as they worked and shared them with their congregations. I will return to the Community Discovery Tool again and again. I can't imagine a ministry that would not benefit from learning how to appreciate context in this way."You can access this resource (and many others!) for free by joining the Mycelium Network.

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Please contact us at info@rootedgood.org if you would like a customized version.