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To Three Deep
Leadership
Academy
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Ministries bring hope to north Minneapolis
Community of Men
A group of guys in north Minneapolis
gathered around a table playing chess in 2004. Brad Peglow,
executive director of Community of Men knew that he couldn’t
just jump right in and urge the men to go deeper—deeper into
their struggles, their lives and their faith. But he knew
that if they played chess and ping pong and enjoyed some
friendly competition, this would serve as a backdrop for
getting them to open up.
Developing a community of men
Soon Brad began to share his own past struggles with
addiction and brokenness and the group began to grow—and
open up.
“The purpose,” Peglow said, “was
really just to help men to build a group of go-to guys, to
have a community where they could be honest and deal with
whatever issues [they had].” And so Community of Men was
formed with the mission to “build a community of men in
order to draw men out of isolation and into community.”
The 16-week support accountability
group is designed to help men overcome their destructive
behaviors and walk according to their created purpose.
Peglow said, “We found we’re all
united around a common purpose of being better men, more
godly men.”
The model for recovery is simple,
Peglow believes: “What is it that feeds our behavior? What
are our insecurities? What are the things we hate about
ourselves?” And then, Peglow says, “What does God’s Word say
about us and how do we learn to accept and believe God’s
Word to be true?”
Small groups
Peglow currently works with about 30 men, separated into
four or five groups. Joining the Community of Men, Peglow
says, is like joining a brotherhood, where guys share deep
emotional and spiritual needs and work through them
together—along with the Holy Spirit.
The three phases of the ministry
include engaging guys in community where trust can develop,
exposing the lies that men believe about themselves that
have them stuck in their behaviors, and then empowering them
to be godly men—which is an ongoing process. And as Peglow
describes, it’s often in phase three where men will go out
and engage other men to begin the process with them.
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Youth Resources
Helping youth
In 1998, while Ron McConico and his wife were at a youth
conference, three youth workers came up to them and said
they were quitting youth work. “At that point,” McConico
said, “we had been in youth ministry about 20 years.”
According to McConico, the average length for urban youth
workers is about 18 months.
Soon after Youth Resources was formed. And for the first six
or seven years, it was a ministry that McConico did on the
side. But he took it full time in 2007, in an effort to
encourage and equip the urban church and youth service
organizations.
Focus on youth workers
With the longevity statistics for urban youth workers so
stunted, the first focus of Youth Resources is to train and
encourage them. Starting in April, a one-year training
program will begin that is designed for the part-time youth
worker and volunteer.
“Because very often,” McConico
said, “the person that is doing that type of youth work
would be somebody to whom the pastor would say, ‘You have
Wednesday night’s open, so why don’t you take the youth
group?’” Since these youth workers aren’t often trained, the
training program will attempt to give them the necessary
skills to perform the job better.
Youth Resources has partnered with
several other organizations to provide this program,
including North Central University, Tentmakers, Northwestern
College and Youth With A Mission.
Since some 80 percent of people
receive Christ before the age of 18, according to McConico,
he believes more focus should be given to youth workers,
those who work directly with kids. “In the urban community,”
McConico said, “only one in 20 churches has a paid full-time
youth worker.”
And McConico sees a direct
correlation between this lack of youth workers and the
problems of the city. “If we can empower the youth worker,”
McConico said, “I think it would be a lot more bang for the
buck in regards to the Kingdom.”
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Retha Dowells-Coble
Executive
Director - House of Israel
(612)
695-1465
More to come soon.
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