This past month, here at Agape, we’ve begun to expand our ministry to the young people in our neighborhood. We’re beginning discipleship groups for the young adults in our area between the ages of 10-13. The three boys in the picture (Matt Jr., Raymond, and Mario) are at the core of our group. I take them once a week to play football, eat, and get to know one another at a nearby park, and I want to continue to invest in this venture throughout the upcoming school years. It’s the beginning of a small group and of a youth ministry. Agape is working towards partnering with a church plant in our neighborhood. I want for this group to eventually fuse into that church. I’ve reflected on this venture and it’s very meaningful to me.
From my middle school days on up, my youth minister played basketball each week with my 2 best friends & I. It brought us together each week in a routine way to spend time together, to catch up with one another, and to spend time thinking about God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will. It was a rock of stability for me as I grew up. I always had that day after school to look forward to. I always had those friends to love and to love me as I grew up. In our neighborhood, the lack of stability is pervasive. Instability marks this community. People come and go and come back and go again; sometimes go and never come back. People move from place to place. I want to provide a stable atmosphere of care and a stable activity for these boys as they grow up. We often desire to give our children what we never had. Thinking about this has helped me to realize that’s not my mindset: I desire to do my best to give all children what I had, because what I had made all the difference for me.
~Sean Stewart
