Faith-Based Animator Network

Offered through The Neighboring Movement organization, the Faith-Based Animator Network (FAN) is a paid learning opportunity for those wanting to dive deep into neighboring and ABCD from a faith-based perspective. Applications for the next cohort are due April 1, 2025!

Watch this recent webinar to learn about this special opportunity! View the slides from this presentation here.

FAN seeks to form Community Animators and connectors who are covenantally dedicated to their neighborhoods, including its people, ecology and associations. These “Animators” recognize that God has abundantly gifted all their immediate neighbors with talents, passion and stories, associational ties, informal networks of exchange, and physical assets.

By training in “neighboring” and asset-based community development, they develop the tools to joyfully step into the role of “Community Connector,” working with the Great Weaver that is the Holy Spirit to discover hidden local assets, connect them to one another, and mobilize them toward the common dreams of God and their neighbors.

Animators are paid to build face-to-face relationships and curate an asset map over a 14-week cohort. They can also apply for a second phase, in which they carry out a relationship-driven, asset-based project that connects their neighbors and their congregation.

Throughout the cohort and beyond, animators form a community of practice and “community of care” to encourage, teach, train, celebrate and pray for each other so that each feels fully supported to animate their own places.

Click here or use the button below to apply to join a Learning Cohort. Our next cohort starts in July 2025. Please have each interested individual in your church apply separately.

The program includes two in-person workshops, weekly 90-minute virtual meetings, and engaging in mini-experiments as we work with the Holy Spirit to weave together the tapestries of our places and all life that lives there. The weekly commitment is about 5 hours per week.

This program is great for individuals and small groups who are passionate about finding God already at work in their neighbors and would like to gain resources and peer-support through their journey.

FAN asks churches to send 3-5 individuals from the congregation who are passionate about intentional, hyperlocal neighboring and can embrace the high commitment and accountability this cohort requires over 14 weeks.

They also ask that churches be ready to bless, commission, and celebrate specific church members to participate as Animators in our program, and to form an “accountability team” that cheers them on and gives them plenty of grace throughout their journey!

This opportunity comes at no cost to churches. The Neighboring Movement believes that by paying Animators through grants, they can resource them to have a long-term impact on the congregation and church culture as a whole, while establishing a missional and incarnational presence on their blocks that has ripple effects far beyond the church walls.

Animators will live out the Key Ingredients of Neighboring in their immediate neighborhoods:

Joy — Living authentically as God created you
Relationship — Connecting with others to give and receive care
Abundance — Discovering, connecting, and mobilizing the God-given gifts latent in all neighbors towards the common dreams of the neighborhood

By the end of the Learning Cohort, Animators know how to:

Engage in learning conversations
Discover and activate individual capacities
Be a connector
Build an asset map
Celebrate community engagement

Animators who complete a Learning Cohort are eligible to move into the second phase of FAN, Community Building Cohort, which allows Animators to dive deep into their learnings from phase 1 and create a community project of their choice. Time commitment is 5 hours per week at a $15 hourly rate.

* To see last year’s schedule for the Phase 1 learning cohort, click here. Some activities and initiatives will be condensed, removed, replaced due to limited time, but you can get the gist.

Next cohort begins: July 31, 2025

Applications due: April 1, 2025

Questions: Ian Campbell, Program Director

Apply Now