"This Is Our City: Portland" can be found online here.

How do you quickly explain the premise of "This Is Our City" to someone who isn't familiar with it?

It's an article and documentary film series that highlights Christians across the country who are contributing to the flourishing, or shalom, of their cities. In Portland, Oregon; Richmond, Virginia; Phoenix, Arizona; Detroit, Michigan; Palo Alto, California; and New York City, we are meeting and telling the stories of Christians who are using their vocations—whether in government, business, education, the arts, or the social sector—to seek the common good of their neighbors and their neighborhoods.

In the introductory remarks for "This Is Our City: Portland," the writer explains the marginal role Christianity has played in that city for quite some time. What made Portland such a compelling draw for you and the team to make it first in the series?

Precisely because Portland (and the greater Pacific Northwest) has never hosted a strong, sustained evangelical Christian presence, we wanted to see how Christians there are contributing to a city where organized religion is met with indifference, if not hostility. What does it look like to bless a city where you have no "spot at the table" of cultural influence, or have only recently landed one? That question guided much of our reporting there.

These stories include business people, politicians, even a Native American evangelist, among others. How did you find and choose the people who were featured?

We wanted to showcase Portlanders from a variety of sectors, and, excepting the field of technology, we managed to find Christians doing creative work in all the seven main channels of cultural influence. We also wanted our reporting to reflect the diversity of Portland—hence, we have Richard Twiss, who contextualizes the gospel for young Native Americans in the city; John Canda, an African American leader who gathers Christian men to stop gang violence; and Pam Hogeweide, a white, tattooed woman whose Christian convictions have compelled her to join the Occupy Movement.

To bring a multiple-part package of stories, photos, and videos together is a complex undertaking. What tools have you and the team used to overcome the complexities of geographic separation, communication, project management, and planning?

Lots of coordination, no doubt! We are challenged by the geographic distance separating us, spanning Seattle to Philadelphia, and we use conference calls and e-mails more frequently than is ideal for such a complex project. However, our team visits to each city have given us ample face time to ensure we have a unified editorial vision. We take time in each city to discuss the stories we'd like to pursue and brainstorm how we can get more Christians to engage our content, using it as a model to pursue shalom in their own community. The team trips have been crucial.

What resources, particularly with respect to finances and manpower, were required to bring the Portland package together?

The project was enormously blessed with financial support from both Christianity Today and the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, based in Vancouver, Washington. That backing allowed all our team members to travel to Portland for on-the-ground reporting, multiple video shoots, and in-person conversations with key Christian leaders, including two "listening sessions" in April and a launch event in November. That on-the-ground reporting opened up more doors for follow-up stories at our website, ThisIsOurCity.org.

Has anything notable transpired since the Portland coverage that has extended the conversation, opened up dialogue, or even developed "what next" thinking among the evangelical leaders in the city—things that might shed light on what's to come for the other cities covered in the project?

We really see the launch events in each city as the key to creating momentum around sustained Christian engagement with their communities. The Portland launch event, hosted at Imago Dei Community church last fall, drew some 200 educators, pastors, and journalists, who were given ample time at the end to brainstorm on ways to collaborate to continue blessing Portland. We plan to follow up with our contacts there to see what that launch event might have started. And we already know that our Richmond launch event at the end of March has inspired another day of "dreaming on behalf of Richmond," led by key Christian leaders there. It's exciting to see what storytelling can start.

See the story behind the story of other award-winning content from the 2012 Evangelical Press Association convention.