Profile of a City Impact Leader: "...teaching us how to see."
Written by Tim Soerens
John McKnight was a dear friend and mentor to many of us at the Parish Collective. His remarkable life influenced a wide spectrum of people from everyday neighbors to U.S. Presidents. He also had a profound influence on the landscape of North American Christianity.
More than teaching us new ideas, John’s life was oriented around teaching us how to see.
John helped promote the language of “asset-based community development” (ABCD), which has become an ins
His invitation was always to keep looking deeper, beyond the surface understanding of a person or a neighborhood, especially when the primarily label was “poor,” “disadvantaged,” and especially “deficient." His curiosity and faith allowed him to see what many others could not. He taught us how to see in ways that are far more curious, more affectionate, and, I believe, far more like Jesus.
Whenever I have the chance to talk about ABCD with ministry colleagues or other Christians, I like to remind folks that John and his many colleagues are pleading with us to remember a crucial theological refrain. His entire life was a testament to refusing to see people primarily through the lens of Genesis 3 (the fall), but by beginning with Genesis 1.
If we begin with the beginning, we see a God who delights over creation and calls us “tov maod” the Hebrew phrase which means “very good” or how I like to think of it, “so amazingly wonderful it’s hard to fathom” type of good. This is how God sees you. It’s how God sees your neighborhood.
This reality was easily felt when you were in John’s presence. His lens of abundance was contagious. John was a prophet of possibility, a priest of curiosity, and an evangelist to the future we long to inhabit.
We will miss him dearly.
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