I was so distracted by convention last week that I failed to really process/understand/comprehend an e-mail I got about our brand new youth ministry. It’s really cool to see people get on board with what we are trying to do.
Background: About 6 weeks ago I had lunch with two pastors at Harbor Mid-City. Basically, they felt like the time was now to form something more substantial. Christine Brinn had done an amazing job with some of the young women and created an awesome model for mentorship. We wanted to build on that and reach more students. So we quickly formed a team, had 3-4 meetings, and launched last week with a handful of students. Idea-to-launch in 6 weeks. Stellar.
What we want to do: Our dream is for this thing to be Good News in a holistic way. You can’t be in this neighborhood and think that a youth ministry can just be about teaching the Bible. So we want to meet practical needs… as many as possible. Stuff like, making sure our students get a good meal experience with us. We want to offer educational tutoring. We want to offer leadership development. We want to offer family services. And we want to provide a more substantial level of mentorship than we currently can handle. And we want to get all of that started yesterday because the need is so great.
The problem: Practically speaking that’s an awesome dream. But as I’ve said a bunch of times… an unfunded vision is just a dream and when we said what we wanted the vision to look like we were really just dreaming. We had 4 adults. We had no where to meet. We didn’t have tutors or mentors for everyone. Pretty much all of the vision was laid out in faith that somehow, in time, God would provide.
How God hooked us up! This church moves quick… have you noticed? I got an email from Kathy that outlines two amazing things. First, a church in City Heights has made their building available to us. That’s amazing stuff right there! Not only did we get hooked up on a place to meet– we can use it tonight! Second, Kathy made a pitch to InterVarsity over at San Diego State to students about getting involved by offering educational tutoring to students in the neighborhood. That’s right, you guessed it… our tutoring ministry kicks off NEXT WEEK!
Building momentum towards the rest: These are two awesome things. A place to meet and a gaggle of people wanting to help teach is awesome. Those two things make the dream a little more of a reality. But there are also new challenges ahead. We still need access to family services. We still need people to help provide the stuff these kids need. We still need more mentors. And, of course, all of that stuff requires money we don’t have.
But for now, I’m celebrating!
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