When Sherilyn and I first moved into the neighborhood that we serve over 20 years ago, we observed many church mission groups from the suburbs attempting to establish a ministry presence in our inner-city community. They reached out to the many fatherless children in our neighborhood, especially during the hot, humid summers within its parks and playgrounds. Different churches, depending on which week it was, canvassed the area and invited the children to a park in our neighborhood and entertained them with activities such as puppet shows, block parties with clowns and balloons, sports camps, or music/drama presentations. At the end of their activity, a gospel presentation was shared, commitment cards were signed by the children, and the mission group went back to their church thinking that a dozen or so inner-city children had trusted Christ for their salvation. The problem was that although there were different churches each week coming and going to share the gospel in these parks, the same dozen kids were raising their hands to become a Christian for each church group. A few of the churches attempted to follow up on the kids but had not really counted the cost. UTM staff member Dave-O recently shared with me a childhood story about the pastor from one of these churches picked him up and a few others to go to church. When the pastor left the car to knock on the door of one of the kids he was picking up, Davien and his cousin (who were still in the car) realized the pastor left the keys in the ignition. They proceeded to drive the car down the street, rumbling down a hill even though they’d never driven a car before….with the pastor chasing them on foot! Not surprisingly, this naive pastor gave up on Dave-O and his cousin. But the fact of the matter was, these churches came into our neighborhood with elaborate plans to evangelize urban kids but acted like deer-in-the-headlights when it came to discipling them. Instead, these churches left many of the neighborhood youth as spiritual orphans.
That is why Discipling is one of the primary ways that UTM breaks the fatherless cycle. For UTM, to Disciple means filling the “Daddy-Gap” through long-term life-on-life relationships with urban youth and young adults. Sadly, many fatherless urban kids do not experience long-term relationships with Christian caring adults because these adults do not stay long enough to make a significant impact. Mentors typically do not mentor for more than a year or two and urban youth directors at churches and non-profits usually last on average about 18 months due to burn out. That is why UTM staff and volunteers intentionally minister to neighborhood youth all the way through adulthood through life-on-life relationships. When we use the term “life-on-life relationships,” we mean more than the typical mentoring program. Rather UTM staff and volunteers model the love of God to the students they disciple through normal activities such as eating a family dinner, running errands, playing basketball, studying the Bible or even going camping with the family during the summer. As strong relationships are formed, we model and teach what our Heavenly Father is like and what it means to find our purpose and identity in Christ. We also walk alongside them as they set goals, develop life-skills, pursue their academics, make career choices, and eventually become Christian leaders that will make a difference in the lives of others.
Many of the fatherless kids (such as DD, Lydia, and Dave-O) that we began to disciple some 20 years ago through long-term life-on-life relationships—-now as adults, are discipling fatherless youth in this same way. Whether it is DD discipling his son’s best friends Victor and Jamari (as he disciples his son-little DD), or Lydia discipling at-risk teens that she spends time with from her job at Kalamazoo Central High School, or Dave-O discipling his nephews and nieces who also attend UTM programs, all of them disciple fatherless youth through long-term life-on-life relationships. Like a stone creating a rippling effect in the water, they have set in motion a movement. And the movement is about life-change as the fatherless cycle is broken through the transformative gospel of Christ.
