[Ed. note: Originally published in August 2010 issue of Tri-State Voice]

Goliaths fall when adults like Saul get out of David’s way.

For the last twelve months, student leaders from greater New York have proven this truism time and again. Now some are organizing a citywide prayer walk of 1,600 public schools the weekend of Halloween and inviting the city’s 7,100 churches to participate.

Imagine that: students leading congregations as together they intercede for 1.1 million public school students — on a weekend long symbolic of darkness and mayhem.

This second I Am My School effort, spearheaded by student leaders from God Belongs in My City and 20/20 Vision for Schools, expands a May 15 pilot that included ten walks in four boroughs covering twenty-five schools.

The students will pray, “I am my school,” because “I am,” the name God calls Himself, has sent them to love and serve and transform their schools. On the Monday following the walk, students will wear I Am My School t-shirts to school in an effort to identify other Christians on campus. They will also encourage their churches to adopt one school within walking distance for ongoing prayer, advocacy, and service.

This kind of catalytic student leadership is exactly what Latino Pastoral Action Center hoped to inspire on September 12, 2009, when they produced “Kickin’ it Old Skool,” the first student leadership conference in collective memory that was actually led by students. Most “student leadership” events involve adults teaching students, or adults teaching other adults how to lead students. Rarely do adults voluntarily play a supporting role to students leading the event.

LPAC empowered twelve student organizers from four boroughs defy the stereotype and design a leadership event that they and other students would lead, armed with a budget to pull it off. Sixty-eight of their peers gathered for the conference at Washington Irving High School in Manhattan, and 175 enjoyed the evening concert as well.

At Kickin’ It, LPAC’s President Rev. Dr. Raymond Rivera called students, “essential to efforts to transform communities.” Then he charged them, “Share your story. Declare your future. Inspire other students. Remember, tomorrow needs you. Prepare for it today.”

Little did he know that less than two months later, three of the Kickin’ It student organizers would rally a dozen or so other students to coordinate God Belongs in My City, the largest student led prayer walk in New York City. Fifteen hundred marchers walked a total of eight miles in Manhattan culminating in a Times Square rally and silent prayer “flash mob” in the main lobby of Grand Central Station.

In May 2010, those same empowered students organized the I Am My School pilot that provides the basis for the upcoming effort.

Another recent manifestation of authentic student leadership occurred at Reload 1.2.3, the groundbreaking multi-state, multi-site youth training event on June 12 that required every adult involved in the program — from musicians and singers to trainers and general session speakers — to integrate a “Plus-1? student protégé into their content delivery. With live music and workshops at all three venues, this strategy created a platform for more than fifty student leaders to provide meaningful leadership at a premiere training event for more than five hundred youth workers. Kickin’ It student leaders presented the “Student Led Student Leadership: Pipe Dream or Possible?” workshop that was simulcast to all three venues.

Dr. Larry Acosta, president of Urban Youth Workers Institute, challenged adult leaders at Reload 1.2.3, “You need to empower youth to lead with real ministry opportunities,” not just “passing the offering plates every fifth Sunday.”

To the Plus-1’s and other student leaders, Larry exhorted: “We need you … to rise up and lead the church into the future. You’re alive at this time in history at such a time as this. We need you to help us complete the Great Commission in the cities, in the … neighborhoods, in the projects, in the parks, in the places where too many from my generation are afraid to go.”

The Biblical character David was an untested teenager, a shepherd boy with no military training, when he simultaneously proved to be the only man among soldiers courageous enough to confront the giant Goliath. For forty days, Goliath’s taunts paralyzed Israel’s army with fear. Then David overheard the mockery, witnessed the cowardice of the adults around him, and was moved to action. The rest, as they say, is history.

Join veteran leaders like Dr. Rivera and Dr. Acosta in creating space for young people to continue making history. For more information on I Am My School, sign up online at 2020schools.net/i-am-my-school.

- Jeremy Del Rio was 13 when his youth pastor invited him to preach, 19 when his senior pastor asked him to start a youth group, and today directs 20/20 Vision for Schools, a movement to transform public education within one generation of students. www.JeremyDelRio.com

Related

• Watch the Reload 1.2.3 General Sessions for free online.
• Watch the Reload 1.2.3 Workshops for free online.

Goliaths fall when adults like Saul get out of David’s way.

The Biblical character David was an untested teenager, a shepherd boy with no military training, when he simultaneously proved to be the only man among soldiers courageous enough to confront the giant Goliath.

For 40 days, Goliath’s taunts paralyzed Israel’s army with fear. Then David overheard the mockery, witnessed the cowardice of the adults around him, and was moved to action. The rest, as they say, is history.

On Saturday, 12 student leaders rejected the contradiction that “student leadership” events could only be led by adults, and hosted 68 student leaders for the first student led student leadership conference in my memory of 21 years of youth ministry and youth development here in New York.

I was blown away by their poise, dedication, and — yes — leadership, despite inexperience and a lack of proven models for what such an event could look like. I was also impressed by the dozen adults who voluntarily stepped back to follow their lead, and provided the support necessary to allow them to shine, especially the visionaries at Latino Pastoral Action Center whose generosity and innovation made the day possible.

I’ll be posting more about Kickin’ It Old Skool throughout the week. Stay tuned. Meantime, check out some Twitter highlights from the event (including Twitpics and more) here.

All of us in youth ministry aspire to empowering students to actually lead. Rhetorically, it’s why we do what we do. Jesus called it making disciples and put it in his Great Commission speech right before he left his own disciples to run things. History records the advantages as every major social movement has been fueled by young people.

But too often we adult leaders stand in the way of youth actually leading. Usually it’s unintentional. Busy lives, lack of planning, mistrust — lots of reasons conspire against releasing real authority to students.

On September 12, that changes … at least for one day.

Join Latino Pastoral Action Center, the Coalition of Urban Youth Workers, Urban Kingdom Youth Ministries, CitiVision Inc, Generation Xcel, Greater Heights, and 20/20 Vision for Schools for Kickin’ It Old Skool, the first student led, student leadership conference (and concert!) in recent memory.

Bring your student leaders, and be challenged along with us to make real student leadership a regular part of youth development and student ministry.

It’s the only way to change the world.

Register online.

Related

+ Embrace the Mess: Why Youth Must Lead Now

Been thinking a lot about the Kickin’ It Old Skool Conference and can’t help but wonder how to incorporate this video accompanying the classic Gil Scott Heron song/spoken word masterpiece, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”

Here are the lyrics:

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

What do you think?

If you think that a student led, student leadership conference sounds too good to be true, be amazed on September 12.

The planning retreat with the conference’s student organizers last week was unquestionably the professional highlight of my summer. These teens are legit. (Too legit … too legit to quit.)

More Info and Register.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION COMING SOON

Rev. Ray

Spending the day at Latino Pastoral Action Center, holistic ministry pioneers in the South Bronx. Since the 1960s, founding visionary Rev. Ray Rivera championed the ideas of community development long before they were called community development. Today, he invests his experience and wisdom in emerging holistic ministry leaders throughout New York City and beyond.

Related

+ Check out LPAC’s new website here.

One of the billions of human beings around the world who subsist on less than $1 a day.

Rev. Ray Rivera from LPAC reminded me today about the Micah Challenge, an international effort to mobilize Christians against poverty. “The campaign aims to deepen Christian engagement with impoverished and marginalised communities, and to influence leaders of rich and poor nations to fulfil their promise to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”

Lost in the hubbub of America’s banking crisis the last two weeks has been the cry from the global South for American evangelicals specifically to embrace the MDGs to eradicate extreme poverty by the year 2015.

“And so we ask you as sisters and brothers, citizens of the wealthiest most powerful nation on earth, to publicly challenge your candidates and political leaders – now and after the elections are over – to lead the world in the struggle to cut global poverty in half by 2015. … If you who know the truth will not speak for us who will?” 

The Millenium Development Goals are consistent with any reasonable understanding of scripture.

Support the Micah Challenge by “signing” the Call online.

This is a moment in history of unique potential,
when the stated intentions of world leaders
echo something of the mind of the Biblical prophets
and the teachings of Jesus concerning the poor, and
when we have the means to dramatically reduce poverty.

We commit ourselves, as followers of Jesus,
to work together for the holistic transformation of our communities,
to pursue justice, be passionate about kindness
and to walk humbly with God.

We call on international and national decision-makers
of both rich and poor nations, to fulfil their public promise
to achieve the Millennium Development Goals
and so halve absolute global poverty by 2015.

We call on Christians everywhere to be agents of hope
for and with the poor, and to work with others
to hold our national and global leaders accountable
in securing a more just and merciful world.

The launch of 20/20 Vision for Schools may be over, but the work just begins.

Here are some initial thoughts and a synopsis of two launch events in three days.




1) The New York City Leadership Center’s Executive Forum
“An Urgent Appeal to Engage a Generation At-Risk: Helping Everyone Reach Their Highest Potential,” Thursday, September 18, 12-5 pm, at The Cornell Club

Hosted by:

• Hon. Dr. Wilson Goode, former mayor of Philadelphia and president of Amachi
• C. William Pollard, former CEO of ServiceMaster and chairman of FairWyn Investment Co.
• Dr. Frances Hesselbein, former CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA and chairwoman of Leader to Leader Institute

Convened by:

• The New York City Leadership Center

Presenters included:

• Hon. Cory Booker, Newark Mayor
• Rev. Dr. Floyd Flake, Pastor of Greater Allen Cathedral and former US Congressman (D-NY)
• Hon. Dr. Wilson Goode
• C. William Pollard
• Dr. Frances Hesselbein
• Jeremy Del Rio, architect of 20/20 Vision for Schools
• Edward Tom, principal of Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics
• Peter Vanacore, executive director of the Christian Association of Youth Mentoring
• William Collins, executive director of the National Church Adopt-a-School Initiative
• Mark Goldsmith, president and CEO of Getting Out and Staying Out
• Dr. Larry Acosta, president of Urban Youth Workers Institute

Participants:

• 120 Executives Representing Religious, Business, Government and Social Sectors to Collaborate to Address a Generation At-Risk
• Participants include representatives of the Geneva School, United Federation of Teachers, Teach For America, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Cornell University, New York University, Deutsche Bank, M&T Bank, Salem Communications, Dow Corning Corp., Princeton Theological Seminary, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, American Express Business Travel, The West Paces Hotel Group, World Vision, Latino Pastoral Action Center, hedge funds, and more.

Format

In keeping with our theme – “An Urgent Appeal to Engage a Generation At-Risk” – we structured the program into four parts.

The first part laid the framework for the rest of the afternoon.  In our introductory remarks, Mayor Wilson Goode and I made the case for the urgency of the appeal by describing the risk factors confronting young people in 2008.  Hon. Goode focused on the national crisis and I emphasized the dynamics in New York City, while also putting flesh and blood on the stats.

Next, a panel facilitated by Mr. William Pollard explored how the panelists are empowering young people to overcome the various risk factors in their unique contexts, as well as recommendations for how they, and the other guests, can collaborate for scalable impact.

The heart of the gathering was the table discussions facilitated by Ms. Frances Hesselbein.  The audience consisted of experts in their respective fields, including business leaders, youth specialists, educators, and foundation executives. The round tables solicited their collective wisdom to find common cause for future collaborations for exponential effectiveness in New York City and beyond.  I’m going to post the table questions separately as discussion questions in the 20/20 FaceBook Group.  Join the group today so you can weigh in.

Finally, Dr. Larry Acosta captured the day’s recommendations and proposed workable next steps for a scalable engagement strategy.  Rev. Gary Frost concluded with specific suggestions for how the NYCLC can serve an ongoing conversation.

I will be working with a team of contributors to collate the findings and recommendations into a White Paper and action plan consistent with 20/20 Vision for Schools.

2. The Launch Event
Saturday, September 20, 2008 @ Christian Cultural Center

Fifteen hundred church leaders attended the launch of The New York City Leadership Center and 20/20 Vision for Schools. Pastors Rick Warren and Dr. A. R. Bernard headlined the event, and sandwiched between them was a session co-facilitated by Pastor Gary Frost and me called, “The Power of Promise: Empowering Emerging Leaders.”

Pastor Gary contrasted Moses’ investment in Joshua with Solomon’s lack of investment in Rehoboam. I introduced the concept of the Joshua Paradox (“Moses groomed Joshua and others to lead in his absence, but Joshua’s generation failed to reproduce the investment — and their children and grandchildren paid a steep price”), and from there focused on the failure of successive generations to invest in the education of our children. Against that backdrop we launched 20/20.

If you haven’t already done so, register your church today.

Some have asked me about the relationship between 20/20 Vision for Schools and the New York City Leadership Center. Officially, 20/20 Vision has launched as a joint venture between the Coalition of Urban Youth Workers, the local network of youth workers who conceived and birthed the plan called 20/20, and the NYCLC. At the executive forum, The NYCLC described their interest in 20/20 this way:

The New York City Leadership Center has embraced education reform through 20/20 Vision for Schools as its first initiative because investing in future-oriented, emerging leaders insures leadership for generations to come; and transformational leadership requires engaging critical social issues with meaningful solutions.

20/20 Vision begins with the idea that New York City public schools can and must be transformed within a single generation of students, so that first graders in September 2008 – who are the graduating high school class of 2020 – reverse decades-long, chronic under-performance. We seek to mobilize grass-roots community partners to reject status quo failure and fight for our students’ future.

Related

+ Download launch weekend PowerPoints
+ Event photos coming soon

You talkin’ to me?

The original Greek Hippie Gangsta, Pastor Tom Mahairas of Citivision, gets in the face of a youth worker.





+ More from LPAC’s annual Transforming Youth Capacity Building Project Retreat here.