Have you ever felt pressure from people or situations at work or in your neighborhood that you can’t fully control? The practice of Circles of Responsibility is adapted from Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and is designed to guide you in many aspects of discernment, including decision-making clarity, reducing anxiety, navigating conflict, and helping people shift from rumination to responsibility.

There is a high probability that on your commute to work, taking children to school, or going to the grocery, you pass a place dedicated to the safety of your neighborhood. It is the local fire station. Their very existence, tall doors rolled open and trucks parked neatly inside, offers a sense of stability in a community. A way to love your neighbors and neighborhood is to know not only the location, but the names of the men and women whose work is providing that sense of safety every day.

Few practices connect us to our neighborhoods more than volunteering at our local school. Local schools are where diverse families from the neighborhood daily converge in car lines and classrooms. Volunteering at your local school provides a front row seat to your neighborhood’s needs and dreams.

Tina Lin volunteered and worked at Denver’s Isabella Bird Community School for 9 years. “Education is uniquely challenging work,” Tina says. “Volunteers don’t fix everything, but they ease the load.”

The Kallander family attended their first Flower Street block party before they closed on the sale of their home in the Lakewood neighborhood. That first block party began to build a foundation of community and connection with their neighbors. The next summer, the neighbors who had lived on the block since 1956, passed the baton to Karin Kallander and two other families to organize the party. For the last 16 years, at the end of every August, there is a beautiful block party on Flower Street.

On Thursday nights every summer, something remarkable happens in Dan and Stephanie Lagerborg’s backyard—people show up. They bring something to grill, a side dish to share, and an openness to relax and connect. There’s no formal invitation, no sign-up. Just a grill, beverages, a beautiful backyard, and a rhythm of weekly welcome.

When we think about leadership, we often picture roles “out there”—at work, church, or on a nonprofit board. But leadership starts closer to home—right in our neighborhoods. No matter where you live—condo, apartment, or cul-de-sac—there are simple, powerful ways to lead. Sociologists say we all have five “neighborhoods”: familial (extended family), relational (friends), digital (online presence), psychographic (shared-interest groups), and geographic. Jesus calls us to love all our neighbors, but let’s focus on our literal, geographic ones.

My refrigerator has a feature for families like ours. It beeps when the door is left open over a set amount of time. This is particularly helpful in households with multiple people, especially during lunchtime when leftovers are being brought out and put back in batches. We don’t realize the fridge door is open, so it beeps to alert us. The problem is I often don’t hear the high-pitched chirp. I’m not sure if it’s the tone or the noise of the kitchen, regardless of the cause, I tune it out and keep making sandwiches.

For more than a decade Josh Haynes has been inviting men to the practice of sharing a drink and sharing a conversation about life and faith. Josh shared the origin, “We would pick a Thursday night once a month, everyone would show up on their bike, and we'd ride to a local brewery.”

Our family first joined a community garden when our kids were in elementary school. At the time, we didn’t know much about growing food, and we lived in a townhome with a small shady yard that had yielded two seasons of disappointment. We quickly discovered that gardening in the company of others gave us access to a wealth of knowledge and opportunity. Alongside neighbors—many of whom we might not have met otherwise—we dug, planted, watered, and weeded, and slowly learned the rhythm of life in the garden.

My mother, Marilyn Mackey, called her mother every Saturday morning for 30 years. “We would call to stay connected and know what was going on in each other's lives.” My mother reminds me, “That was when we paid for long-distance calls too.” But the practice of staying connected begins a generation before her. “My mother’s relationship with her mother, Grandma Miller, was that we saw them every weekend. We would go to their house on the farm and have a meal and play games.”

“The best thing you can find at a garage sale isn’t a bargain—it’s community.”

Each spring neighbors open their garages and cover their front lawns with tables full of treasures. Garage sales are commonplace events. But for The Knolls, Cherry Knolls, and Tiffany neighborhoods, located in Centennial, an annual Neighborhood Garage Sale has become a cornerstone of community life.

I co-lead a church that meets in our home. We decided a practical and joyful way we could serve our neighborhood was to sponsor the Easter Egg Hunt. Last year, we chose to hand-deliver an invitation to the egg hunt to every house in the neighborhood. We asked the families in our church to contribute eggs, create a cookie decorating station, and hide over 800 hundred eggs!

Cycling is a practice rooted in the joy of exploration and spans across cultures and generations. The invention of the bicycle in the early 19th century revolutionized personal transportation and leisure. Bike riding has evolved from a means of transportation to a recreational activity and sport for cyclists of all ages. Cycling is emblematic of Colorado culture as it is a practice that expresses freedom, adventure, and well-being.

Role-playing, commonly associated with acting and theater, can be a powerful tool for cultivating connection and understanding with our neighbors. Through the practice of creatively entering an imaginary situation, we can begin to build the necessary skills to respond to challenging interactions. 

A labyrinth is an ancient and embodied prayer practice. It is a way for your body to help restore your focus and attention on God. Labyrinths have been created by Christians across the centuries and countless civilizations. The lessons from the practice of walking a labyrinth are essential to our time that is marked by distraction and hurry.

Tutoring is a tangible way to invest in your neighborhood's future. Whiz Kids was founded as a tutoring nonprofit organization in 1990 when business leaders, church leaders, and school officials came together to address a growing academic gap among elementary age students in Denver. Their longevity and intentionality have made an impact in the lives of thousands of students in our city.

In the chill of the winter months, it is instinctive to retreat into the warmth of our homes. But winter also presents unique opportunities to love our neighbors in tangible and practical ways. Checking in on neighbors is a practice that can foster meaningful connection and offer important physical, emotional, and relational care.

The MLK Marade is a practice of loving your neighbor. It invites individuals to step out of their silos, to walk together in solidarity, and to reflect on the principles of justice, peace, and empathy. As we march from the MLK Memorial in City Park to Dever’s Civic Center, our steps reverberate as a powerful reminder of what is possible when communities unite in love.

A Rule of Life is ancient Christian language for practices to organize your life around what you love. We all have, consciously or unconsciously, created rhythms for our life to protect what we value. Regardless of our age, gender, or personality, we all have a Rule of Life. We all have practices that shape us and form us.

December 21, the darkest night of the year, falls just days before Christmas. The world feels suspended in shadow as if holding its breath for something new. These long nights are a threshold—where the silence deepens, the stars emerge, and the veil between heaven and earth feels paper-thin.