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20/20 Vision for Schools (Part 2 of 4)
By Jeremy | January 4, 2008
A plentiful harvest, but where are the laborers?
With schools squarely in his sights, Pacheco has redefined youth ministry beyond the old paradigms of youth group altar calls and pizza parties both in his home church of Bay Ridge Christian Center and among the bi-vocational youth pastors he networks through Youth Rock. “Youth ministry is not about ministering to youth. It’s about empowering them to minister.†Pacheco attributes his paradigm shift in part to a breakfast the Coalition hosted in 2005 for the NY Billy Graham Crusade. One of the presenters asked how many of the 787 youth workers in attendance get paid to do youth ministry. For Pastor Edwin and Coalition co-founder Kevin Young, the three-dozen mostly para-church hands that went up vividly captured both the state of youth ministry in the city and the picture Jesus painted of a plentiful harvest and too few laborers. Relying on several dozen vocational ministers to reach 2 million youth in the five boroughs and 5 million in metropolitan New York would remain an exercise in futility. As area director of Student Venture, the high school ministry of Campus Crusade, Young was one of the few “professionals†at the breakfast and has been one of the architects of 20/20. If an outmanned and under-resourced labor force can stand a chance, he reasoned, then reinforcements would have to come from within our congregations. He began calling for churches “to redefine ‘youth minister’ to include any believer who maintains any meaningful contact with youth, such as: parents, mentors, teachers, custodians, health care workers, entrepreneurs who hire teens or market sneakers at them, and especially other students.†Peter Ong, director of the Laity Project for PaLM (Pastoral and Laity Ministries), agrees with Kevin’s assessment. “For Jesus, laborers were not limited to the twelve disciples. Those who actually do ‘the work of ministry’ are the people in the pews, not those behind the pulpit.†Ong, who has ministered to Chinatown teens for more than a decade, notes that this expansive view is especially critical within immigrant congregations.The Adoption Matrix
Mobilizing congregations for prayer and scalable engagement requires a plan, and for two years, Coalition members experimented with grassroots models for how to adopt local schools. What has emerged Pacheco describes as a matrix designed to move congregations through seven levels from no engagement to holistic, 20/20 engagement. Adoption begins by identifying a specific neighborhood school for intentional and consistent prayer. It continues as congregations overcome generational mistrust by cultivating personal relationships at the school, what Pastor Ray Parrascondo of Staten Island calls building a “resume of trust.†Beyond relationships are meaningful acts of service, where congregations become answers to prayer and offer tangible value to the school. Next is a ministry of presence, where churches meet ongoing needs by volunteering as coaches, lunchroom monitors, or tutors; sponsoring extra-curricular activities; or coordinating after school leadership clubs. Finally comes the credibility to speak into policy decisions both at the school and systemic level. A church holistically engaged in this way is a 20/20 church.Topics: 2020 vision, adopt-a-school, coalition, youth ministry | 4 Comments »
January 4th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Jeremy,
Let me ask a different, but related, question. Where is the pay for the Laborers if:
a) there are some out there Laboring that aren’t getting paid, or
b) if we recruit some new ones.
Surely this has to be a piece of our dilemma…
January 4th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I’m diggin this! It’s this kind of collaborative efforts that are the essence of the Kingdom. If all the church would minister within this context.
January 5th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I would like to chime in on Chris’s question:
- The paradigm has to change. If the paradigm rests on the paid full/part time staff “youth workers” it won’t be effective.
Because a church or organization hires a “youth worker” for a specified task within the compliance of that organization’s mission. If that mission doesn’t include training people to serve the schools, then any effort is short lived, therefore not being able to build the resume of trust.
So how can the approach be different?
In Baltimore I see a glipse of change in this area. For instance, I was just hired as a student minister director for a church that in its job description requires me to spend 10% – 15% of my time in the community.
A local YFC office allows it’s staff members to spend 10% of their time on “Kingdom” projects.
One of the biggest churches in Baltimore has one of it’s Sr. Elders on staff working 75% on Kingdom projects, plus they pay a full time Glocal Director (Global – Local)
Another family pastor in town is serving 15% of their time building these type of bridges in the city schools.
So it doesn’t give the solution, but it is bringing about a change.
Too slow in my opinion, but change non the less.
I would propose rallying local businesses, churches and organizations to pool their resources so that those who are already laborers can have resources. That includes a team who works only on development so that new laborers can be hired.
But it isn’t going to work from the paradigm of a staff driven model either. Our “everyday peoples” are going to have to engage for this to bring solutions.
Empowering the people to do the work of the ministry.
January 7th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Chris, here are my initial thoughts re your questions.
a) Sadly, it’s true. Many labor without getting paid, especially those who labor among the poor who cannot afford their “hire.” Interestingly, that’s the one thing Peter, James, and John warned Paul and Baranabas about when they were commissioned as missionaries to the gentiles:
“James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.” (Gal 2:9-10)
Sadly, many churches need to be reminded not to forget the poor, where the harvest is just as great but the resources scarce to pay workers.
b) For recruiting new ones, I agree with Matt that the solution is a combination of things.
1) Embrace and encourage bi-vocational ministry by helping educate youth workers how to find paying vocations that synergize with their youth ministry callings (whether as teachers, small business owners, social workers, health care professionals, barristas, retail sales, music producers, web developers, artists, etc).
2) Establish kingdom collaboratives where churches and para-churches pool resources to hire youth workers.
3) Raise awareness among Christians of means re the vision and needs that exist in under-resourced communities. In other words, build bridges between the haves and have-nots for collaborative purposes.
4) Share. So many ministers protect their donor database like it’s Fort Knox, as if their gold will be stolen or otherwise compromised if they make an introduction. Yet God’s model is to steward His resources with an open hand. Wouldn’t it be refreshing for the guys with the million dollar donor base to introduce their funders to some of the indigenous youth guys who grew up in the projects and worked their way through city college and could use a door opener to introduce them to potential funders? Pipedream? Or Acts 2?
5) Innovate non-traditional, entreprenuerial funding sources. Matthew 25 is more than just the sheep/goats parable about giving water to the thirsty, food to the hungry and clothes to the naked. It’s also the parable about using our talents — the stuff we do control — to generate income.