Let's Connect is a project in St. Louis, MO through the organization Humanitri. Basically what we are doing is raising awareness of certain social issues that face communities in and around St. Louis, taking action on them (doing service projects) and bringing something back to our home communities. Our mission statement is "Connecting youth and congregations to the needs of the community."
Youth (mostly junior high/middle school age) gather three times a semester to learn and experience different topics. The youth come form a variety of backgrounds, from urban, suburban and rural communities. The gatherings or modules as we call them, are 2 day events held at inner or near inner city congregations. The youth spend the Friday evening learning about and ways to deal with social issues (such as poverty, homelesness, aging, single parenting, and imprisonment). We hope to continue to expand the themes of the events.
During the evening activities, the participants get a snapshot of what it is like to be in these different social situations as well as learn why they exsist and begin to understand how to move out to of them.
On saturday morning the youth head out to service projects and work either for or with the commuites they are learning about. At past events the participants have worked at food banks, helped paint and clean house, and toured some of the transitional neighborhoods in St. Louis.
After the projects the youth return to the host congregation and create Action plans. Projects they will work on back in their home communities.
Once a semester we hold a celebration concert and a Youth Leadsership Summit. This one day event is a chance for youth who participated in the modules to come back together and learn more about being servant leaders! We held our first on this past Sunday and it was a huge success!
At that event participating youth began the journey of exploring what it means to be a servant leader.
A servant leader is often difficult to define. How can someone be a servant and a leader? We looked at the example of Christ (as well as others), to help us begin our definition.
To put it simply, a servant leader is someone you puts others first, and in doing so leads by example. Servant leaders are concerned about the personal growth and well being of those around them.
It is my hope that this blog can act as a sounding board helping all of us define servant leadership and ways to act it out in our everyday lives.
Here are some pictures from the Celeration Concert held on January 7, 2007.
David Scherer, A.K.A. Agape, showing us how to dance
More Hip-Hop with Agape
and still more!!!
Learn more about David's Ministry at www.hiphopoutreach.com
