SE neighborhood partnerships

SE Neighborhood Partnerships is a converging community united in our response to God's calling toward community development in SE Portland.

Neighborhood Roasters

Could a coffee company benefit a neighborhood and our planet, while also being profitable? A bigger question could be posed: should businesses reflect the gospel of Christ by existing for a broader community-building purpose rather than simply profiting the owners? Sam Purvis is seeking to answer these questions through pioneering a business enterprise that has, in its vision, profitability, livable wages for single parents, business training and ownership apprenticeship programs, high quality products, and environmentally responsible business practices. For more information, click here.

Missionomics

Present in SE Portland, as in most distressed areas, is the issue of scarce economic resources. Multitudes of backlog and story lie behind this general statement. Lack of job skills, minimal motivation resulting from generational poverty, and livable wage issues just brush the surface of things that dwell below the surface of areas suffering from financial distress.

SE Neighborhood Partnerships believes that offering the gospel is to offer the manifestation of the kingdom. In the kingdom when the "other" needs, the people give. We are starting a business to give to the "other" - those struggling to provide for themselves and their families. 

Our first business start-up will be a neighborhood coffee shop and will directly address the issues of livable wage, financial education and business training and ownership. Other prevalent neighborhood issues to be addressed indirectly by profit allocation and seedling partnerships will include the need for childcare, positive adult presence for kids, and advocacy.

Below is our four point mission:

  1. Our goal is to be a business that is economically successful, socially valuable, and environmentally responsible in both business practice and operation. We provide a high quality product, experience and brand, created through a process everyone feels good about buying into.
  2. We create space for investors to provide more than financial resources in order to contribute to the success of this company. We ask our investors, to the best of their ability, to use their gifting, knowledge and success to partner with the Lents neighborhood in walking further into the story of community development.
  3. As a company we are committed to using local vendors in an attempt to create both lasting partnerships with the community, along with a sustainable, localized supply and demand of labor and services.
  4. As a result of the created company, we aim to leverage our business, our network and our partnerships to benefit and create sustainable community development within the SE Portland area.

Within each statement of this mission lie the practical pathways of movement towards addressing the issues named in the third paragraph of this small business biography.

Current progress of this small start-up company is changing daily. 

You will be updated as movement allows. 

What would it take for a neighborhood to be transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ? 

As the people of God we eat, sleep, work in the garden, talk over the fence, patronize businesses, and take the kids to school in neighborhoods. That's pretty normal and could be temporal and fairly insignificant - unless you're traveling along on the missional journey of God. In that case it all takes on an eternal significance. The difference is determined by conscious awareness and cooperation with Jesus who is leading this journey. Where is he leading? Could it be into neighborhoods? Might he lead us to live in a particular neighborhood where we intentionally journey in mission for the sake of our neighbors? 

Some of us are asking these questions and beginning to attempt some responses in Southeast Portland.

God has a dream for every one of Portland's neighborhoods. His love for Laurelhurst, Woodstock, Alberta, Sellwood, and many other neighborhoods is breaking out in fresh ways as folks from Imago Dei have transformed their block with the power of the gospel. It's often called "community development" - committing to a local place together as agents of God's love and kingdom. Some are relocating, some are redistributing, and others are reconciling across race and class barriers.  And still others are joining hands with the city, with small businesses, and with schools as ways of bringing God's healing love to Portland's most aching spots.

A profound example of one of these "aching places" is the Lents neighborhood, the center of which is at 92nd and Foster. 

But God's dream for Lents will not soon be held back. We are persuaded that the Holy Spirit is stirring the hearts of many Christians to move to Lents and other SE neighborhoods to live incarnationally and missionally. Our passions and backgrounds are manifold, but our calling toward SE by our common King are the same. SE Neighborhood Partnerships is presently a converging conversation that is prayerfully pursuing a variety of ministries in Lents. For now, we are:

  • holding monthly Scheme 'N Dream potlucks to discuss, connect, and pray about how to together respond to God's common call;
  • encouraging participants to move to Lents, preferably near other participants;
  • moving forward with starting a missional small business in Lents; and
  • forging partnerships with public schools in the Lents neighborhood.

How you can participate

SE Neighborhood Partnerships encourages you to join the conversation!  If you have felt called by the Spirit toward SE, or if you are interested in community development lifestyles, we'd love to hear from you and see you at our next Scheme 'N Dream potluck.

Contact:

Clark Blakeman, Director

503/231-5096, ext. 301

Surfing: 

SE Apartment Ministry
Lents Neighborhood Association
Lents Listserv
Lents Neighborhood
Lents Farmers Market
Photos
Portland Development Commission
Wikipedia

Brentwood-Darlington Neighborhood Association
Brentwood-Darlington Neighborhood
Wikipedia

Portland Public Schools
Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN)
Mt. Scott Middle School
Growing Gardens
Love Portland
Weed and Seed  

Join the Listserv: 

Google group

Pray & Dialogue: 

The next SENP Scheme 'N Dream Potluck is scheduled for:
Date:  
Time: 
Location:  
Bring: Dessert, Drink or Snack
Contact: Clark Blakeman,

Comments:

On March 07th,Rosemari Hart said:

did you know that Growing Gardens helps people who meet the income guidelines to build a garden & learn to grow their own vegetables. It's a great organization, & can always use support & volunteers. There's also a farmer's market in Lents on Sunday afternoons.