Sheriff Joe Arpaio is proud of his tent city. On his Web site for reelection as sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, he touts the camp as a cost-effective, “austere but humane” solution to jail overcrowding in a county that aggressively rounds up undocumented immigrants—and that, under SB 1070, [...]Read More
The Mayor Moves In
An Interview with Wally Bryan of Challenge House For most of the 1990s, Wally Bryan was mayor of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. After the turn of the millennium, he was in semi-retirement, living in what he calls the outer-city, and feeling “a little adrift.” He read Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life and [...]Read More
A Life of Reconciliation
An Interview with John M. Perkins John M. Perkins, the founder of CCDA, participated in the American Civil Rights Movement over four decades ago. In honor of Black History Month, we wanted to interview him for his unique (and 80-year-old) perspective on racial reconciliation. [Former] CCDA [...]Read More
A Young Family
Laying down roots in Cincinnati's Northside. "Sometimes he's up at four in the morning," marvels Northside resident and community volunteer Valerie Sacko. "Not four o'clock. Five o'clock," Pastor Abe corrects. Either way, it's a busy life for Abe and Joni Brandyberry, founders of [...]Read More
A Way of Doing Life
A teacher and a policy expert on real neighboring We usually think of Christian Community Development as the work of CCD organizations. But what about people who incorporate CCD principles into their everyday life and work in their neighborhoods without working for a Christian Community Development [...]Read More
Rural Surprises
Go to the people... The past 12 months have been a crash course for me on the realities of doing ministry in rural areas and small towns across America... For example, even though I’ve traveled regularly to Jackson, Mississippi to see my friend John Perkins, it wasn’t until last year [...]Read More
A Beautiful View
Coming home to Vista Hermosa When they were teenagers, Suzanne Broetje and Laura Peréz moved with their families to a valley along the Snake River in southeastern Washington State. Their first experiences of the place couldn’t have been more different. Suzanne’s parents, Cheryl and Ralph [...]Read More
Rural Justice (Part 2)
Two practitioners share the ins and outs of doing CCD in rural America [In the first part of the series], we interviewed Rev. Tim Olsen of Summit House, part of Sioux Falls Seminary in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. [For part two], we talked with Pat Vander Pol, ministry coordinator of Justice for All [...]Read More