Starting an area from scratch is something that doesn’t happen overnight. There are three principles that many Area Developers uphold: Local Ownership, Staff Supervision, and Incarnational Ministry. To have a good start to brand new ministry, you need to make sure all are in a healthy spot before you make big steps (like hiring staff) to launching.
Halifax County is rural community of 35,000 people on the North Carolina border in southside Virginia. People there do not experience lots of change. Getting buy-in to build local ownership would take time. It took three years to grow a fully functioning committee who decided to pursue a full time Area Director. Growing a full-time budget, in a small, economically challenged community, full of late adopters, takes time.
It also takes time to raise up the right leader for the job. The area did not see club for three years while informational meetings were taking place and the committee and donor infrastructure was being built. Volunteers started a club in years three and four. Years five through seven saw one of these volunteers’ step into a Teacher Staff role. That teacher staff expanded the volunteer team that led to one of them coming on full time staff in year eight.
An important objective in the development of this Area Director was to model and teach Incarnational Ministry. Some communities cling to traditional ministry models thinking that all ministry takes place in the church. Ideas like “going where kids are at” and “earning the right to be heard” are strange to some. It took time to grow one of their own who could take the reins and lead the charge in Halifax. After seven years we finally had the staff supervision needed to ensure quality ministry AND to grow new clubs and start neighboring areas. Was it worth it to pour so much time and energy into one county? For seven years?
There are about a dozen counties in southside Virginia that are just like Halifax County. Rural communities with about half of the population being people of color. And Young Life has never been in any of these places. The hope, desire, and vision that fueled the 7-year start-up in Halifax is to have Young Life in all these counties.
What is your long-range vision? What are you persevering at? Caleb saw and tasted the promised land, was denied entry, languished in the desert for 40 years then asked for some of the hardest territory in the promised land which was still full of those blasted Canaanites! Is it the rocky soil of a kid’s heart? A subset of the school you have been doing contact work with but have yet to see them at club? The school next door that does not seem to have any adult interest in Young Life?
Be encouraged and keep 1 Thessalonians 5:24 on your mind and in your heart; “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.”
Written by: Steve Schmitt