UTM & the Philosophy of CCDA (Part 2) Relocation
For over half my life, I’ve lived in urban communities on the North Side of Grand Rapids that at one time or another, were characterized by poverty, drugs, and violence. In America today, choosing to live in such a neighborhood is not that uncommon like it was a couple of decades ago. Some people are drawn to urban communities filled with blight nowadays because they see the potential of making a buck off of flipping houses or because they love the location, with its close vicinity to their job or to the city’s vibrant nightlife. However, if you turn back the clock to a different time and culture back in the 1990s, most people considered living in the ‘hood as outlandish, dangerous, and lacking wisdom, especially in the height of the drug wars and gang violence throughout our nation’s cities, which the media sensationalized. In my early conversations with suburban white folks, many used adjectives to describe Sherilyn and my choice to live in our particular high crime urban neighborhood as foolish, brave, irresponsible, cool, dumb, crazy, and ill-advised. One person even questioned whether I really loved my wife because of my commitment to living and raising a family in the neighborhood where we did ministry. But Sherilyn and I understood that the best way to love the people that we served started with becoming their neighbor.
The father of Christian Community Development, Dr. John M. Perkins, calls this concept of establishing a neighborhood presence by moving into the neighborhood, Relocation. For Dr. Perkins, relocating into a community of need is the essential first step for anyone who does substantial ministry in a disadvantaged, under-resourced community. So as newlyweds, we followed Perkin’s example and relocated into the neighborhood where we served. A few years later, we purchased a duplex in the Belknap-Lookout community on the NE side of Grand Rapids. When we relocated to the community, we came face-to-face with the actual reality in urban communities and the people who lived there rather than the media and political stereotypes which create racial and cultural bias.
For instance, the overwhelming majority of single, black moms in our neighborhood were not “Welfare Queens” that refused to work and purposely had kids out of wedlock so that they could receive more government benefits. Instead, most were like Terrie Grice, a hard-working, single mother of four who labored full-time plus any extra overtime she could get at Spectrum Health. As a committed Christian that loved Jesus, Terri made sure her children attended church each Sunday and that they regularly participated in UTM programs. She loved her kids so much that she also enlisted the help of my wife Sherilyn to take care of her youngest three kids (Alicia, Christina, and Marquis) while she worked her less-than-desirable 2nd shift position at the hospital. So for five years (until she was able to move to 1st shift) the Grice family and ours were inextricably intertwined as Sherilyn and I came alongside Terri when she needed practical help with her kids when they were in Elementary and Middle School.
The longer we lived and ministered in our neighborhood, the more we realized that certain urban issues were not necessarily what they seemed on the surface. For example, when students that attended our after school programs grew into older teenagers, several fatherless teenage boys that I coached in elementary school turned to selling drugs and joining gangs. Given the fact that I nurtured deep relationships with them over a long period of time, I also knew their stories as to why they turned to the streets to supplement their income. They weren’t thugs or criminal monsters like Nino Brown from the crime drama movie “New Jack City” or Ray Ray from “South Central” which sensationalized crack dealers. Rather, many of these students of mine were poor, fatherless and trapped into a survival mentality which then lured them into selling drugs by an older sibling or relative in a similar manner as Dave-O (Current UTM staff member) by his older brother with a luring sales-pitch that many fatherless 12 year olds wouldn’t refuse: “Since we don’t have a daddy to provide for us, crack cocaine will be our daddy.”
In response to listening and seeing the needs from an insider perspective, we created a family-like community within UTM built on life-on-life relationships that introduced these students to their Heavenly Father and discovered their identity in Christ. Eventually, several young men left the sin and negativity of the streets and gave their lives to Christ. Athletic programs such as the ROCK were initiated and staffed by those who had recently converted to Christianity from the streets. What’s more, the entrepreneur-spirit that we witnessed in our students became the idea and catalyst for current programs of UTM such as ManUP and Hustle City, While others saw them as “Thugs” and “Monsters,” we saw them as future community leaders that were not beyond redemption. Several young men and women that grew up within UTM programs and experienced life-on-life discipleship are now Christian leaders in their urban churches and communities scattered in particular cities of Michigan (including our neighborhood) and Pennsylvania.
Looking back, “Relocation” turned out to be one of the wisest things we ever did. While we experienced some hardships related to living in our community, they weren’t any different than what our neighbors experienced. And those hardships drew us closer together as we worked together to overcome them. Whenever Dr. John M. Perkins talks about the principle of Relocation, he often quotes this ancient Chinese poem:
Go to the People;
Live among them;
Love them;
Learn from them;
Start from where they are;
Work with them;
Build on what they have.
But of the best leaders,
When the task is accomplished,
The work completed,
The people all remark:
‘We have done it ourselves’
Since UTM also adopted the principle of Relocation from the philosophy of CCDA, the overwhelming majority of our staff and volunteers are now “home-grown” leaders that came from the neighborhood itself. They are the ones God raised up to lead. As we continue to move forward, it is their ideas and vision that God is using to break the fatherless cycle. And one of the main reasons it rings true is that we valued the principle of Relocation.