I can hear the cries of the fatherless.

I hear them every day.

You hear them every day.

They are all around us.

As I sit staring at my laptop I stop to consider all that has happened in 2012 thus far, I humbly recollect receiving stories of single moms giving thanks that their children have positive role models in their lives. I hear stories of entire communities mentoring fatherless youth in Oklahoma City, Houston, Chicago, Memphis, Portland, Cleveland and more. I hear stories of youth shooting with cameras instead of with guns. I hear stories of fatherless children being told the truth about themselves. I hear stories of mentors rewriting the fatherless story.

I can help the cries of the fatherless.

I hear them every day.

You hear them every day.

They are all around us.

When we stop to consider our lives and what our purpose is, we must ask ourselves, “Do I desire to provide hope? Do I desire to provide change? If so, what am I going to do about it?” Each of us has the opportunity to reach out and step into the life of someone else. Some of us have been called to our workplace. Some have been called to our schooling. Some to our family. Others of us are called to the fatherless. Help rewrite the fatherless story through mentoring.

I have helped the cries of the fatherless.

I create stories every day.

You create stories every day.

They are all around you.

When it comes to fatherlessness I feel like I am a detective in some television crime drama on TNT. I set out trying to solve a simple case but as I investigate the situation more I uncover something much bigger than I expected. What I thought would be relatively simple has forced me to take a step back and reassess everything I thought I knew about fatherlessness. The problem is bigger than I expected but it is not hopeless. (Is this where I remove my sunglasses and cue a song by The Who?)

I live in Houston, Texas. A city of 5.5 million people. I live in one of the fastest growing and youngest cities in the country. I live several blocks from the largest medical center in the world. We are a growing city of innovation. We are also a city where over 1.1 million people are affected by poverty. And like every other city in the United States, we are a city where fatherlessness is an issue. Fatherlessness is not an issue isolated to only the inner city. It knows no boundaries and I see its effects all around.

The Spring Branch neighborhood of Houston is home to less than 4% of our city’s population. Spring Branch is not a major player in the city but there is a major need when it comes to mentors. There are over 2,000 students in the Spring Branch Independent School District looking for mentors. That is nearly 10% of the entire district and this is just one of Houston’s eighteen school districts.

I was discouraged. We are a large church in the city but we only have so many people. We could fully meet the need in Spring Branch and provide mentors for 2,000 students but what about the other seventeen school districts? What about the thousands of other students? Do I even want to call Big Brothers Big Sisters to find out how many children they had on their list? It was in the midst of this discouragement that Jesus started to gracefully speak. I had piled this huge burden on myself and on our faith community. I was prideful. I thought that it was up to our church to step up and provide mentors for the entire city. My math was off though. I never thought fatherlessness and the need for mentors was as big it was in our city. In the middle of my pride and discouragement Jesus reminded me that all he was calling us to do was to be faithful in our context. Spring Branch is our backyard, would we be faithful to the fatherless there? Would we be an incarnational community in the midst of the brokenness, poverty, and fatherlessness in Spring Branch? Would we provide a glimpse of the love of the Father to the thousands of fatherless children in Spring Branch?

The grace and patience of Jesus caused me to ask new questions. Instead of asking how our single church could solve the overwhelming problem of fatherlessness in our city, I am now asking, “How can we be faithful to the fatherless in Spring Branch? How can we equip and send out our faith community to the fatherless in Spring Branch? How can we educate and equip other churches throughout our city to be incarnational with the fatherless in their backyards?”

Our church is not the only game in town. We cannot tackle the problem of fatherlessness alone and Jesus never intended for us to. My desire is to see hundreds of churches in our city be the Church to the fatherless. We have a Father who is passionate about the fatherless and my prayer is that the churches in our city would work together to proclaim this love. Churches working together is not a suggestion, it is something that has to happen if we are serious about loving the fatherless.

The problem of fatherlessness in our city is huge but it is not hopeless.

If you want to join the conversation in Houston about rewriting the fatherless story through mentoring please contact Trevor Weber at trevor@thementoringproject.org.

Have you ever watched the plight of a firefighter? In person or on TV? They are truly amazing: running into burning buildings while others are running out, saving the day and receiving very little praise. While they have many jobs, their primary one is to fight fires, both big and small. Depending on the size, some fires may only take several minutes to put out, while others take 60 minutes or more.

A fire is rampant in our neighborhoods and we need a new breed of firefighters to to run to the rescue. Cries are permeating the air like smoke. Darkness is moving it�s way into our neighborhoods. The inferno is slowly building and the neighbors are crying desperately for help. A home is ablaze and what should have been its firefighter, was actually it�s fire starter. Did you know it only takes 5 minutes to start a fire that can burn down an entire home? Similarly, it only takes a father 5 minutes to walk out the front door and never look back. It takes less than that to burn down the heart of his child.

While fires can be damaging and result in lives forever changed, thankfully there are firefighters willing to step in and help rewrite the fatherless story.� Five minutes in the life of a fatherless child can seem like an eternity. Five minutes in the life of you or me can, well, seem like just another five minutes. Or can it?

Did you know that�

6 minutes a day, according to many �workouts�, is all it takes to have great abs?

13 minutes is the amount of time it takes to boil an egg?

30 minutes is all it takes to cook a meal via the Food Network with Rachael Ray?

45 minutes seems like forever when waiting to get your food at a restaurant?

60 minutes per week is all it takes to help rewrite the story of a fatherless child?

While only some of us aspire to become firefighters, rushing in to save a burning home, the rest of us can become a different breed of firefighters: we can rush in to save a burning heart. All it takes is 60 minutes to mentor a child. All it takes is you. Are you willing?

In January of 2011, I set out to make a short film which could shed light on our country’s job crisis through the story of an ex-convict searching for a job. I was introduced to Pedro through a friend who worked as a fatherhood counselor for ex-convicts in Harlem. Pedro was 49, looking for a job in construction, and willing to share his story with me. With multiple assaults, drug offenses, and two homicides on his record, it wasn’t likely that the outcome of my film was going to be positive, but I knew beneath his hardships his charisma and heart would reach people.

We met for the first time on a snowy day in Harlem. Sitting face to face in a Jamaican restaurant on 125th street, Pedro pointed a chicken wing at me and repeated, “God will hold your hand, but the devil is waiting for you to fall”. This was the first time I’d heard his mantra, and I thought he was talking about his job search.

We became friends over the following weeks through long walks and boxing lessons. In that time he didn’t make it to one job interview given all the complications of transferring medicaid, welfare, and job transcripts from his halfway house to his three quarter house. I wasn’t sure what aspect of his story I could actually convey on film until the day we took a trip to where he grew up, the projects of Hoboken. It was there that I met Tony, his twenty one year old son. I did the math on the back of my PATH train ticket home to realize that Pedro had only been out of jail for four years of Tony’s entire life. It hit me that while this man was in need of a job, his desire to become a father to his son was far more important to both of us.

Over the following months I filmed them box, Tony feeling grateful for the time with his father, Pedro feeling excited that his son might become a professional boxer. All the while I spent time with each of them individually, digging up repressed memories in their relationship, and hitting walls where certain memories had been permanently blocked out. Pedro was severely abused as a child, and raised by the streets. Tony’s father was never there, and also raised by the streets. Coming from a home with two loving parents I proceeded into this foreign territory with caution and sympathy.

Tony became a father during the course of shooting and the training sessions ceased. They stopped spending as much time together, and Pedro refocused on getting a job. This film is a window into a brief moment in their lives in which a new chapter in fatherhood began. Since the completion of the film I connected Pedro with a former prison chaplain who counsels at a church near his home in Harlem. He is still jobless but is on good terms with his son. Tony still lives in Hoboken and his baby girl is nearly six months old.

Click here to view the embedded video.

�Weh-he-ell, good morning! It�s going to be a good one!�

Stan has a presence. You can see him coming down the hall in his raincoat,� with his son�s high school mascot, but you can always hear him first. He grew up in North Portland in the 70s � a place rife with inner city violence, struggling neighborhoods, and families desiring to offer their children the best, but couldn�t.� His mother knew this desire well so Stan went to live with his grandparents, who were preachers. He was in church every day the doors were open, and there wasn�t a single moment that he was allowed to go unwatched. He had an entire community rally around him during his formative years. He spoke of lunches together, games on warm Sunday afternoons, and always having someone there to simply listen. He always had someone showing up in his life.

Stan wasn�t a mentee in a formal mentoring program such as The Mentoring Project or Big Brothers Big Sisters, but his life was affected as if he had been. He was able to have two caring adults present with him at home, which is something 30%, or close to 30 million youth today are not growing up with. Today, Stan is married, has two boys of his own, and is finishing his Masters degree while working full-time as a behavior specialist at an alternative school for expelled youth, 90% of whom are boys. We could guess that over half of these boys are probably fatherless. They are blessed to have Stan as a mentor.

Stan�s house is now the place where all of his son�s friends come for video games, pizza, and just to talk. He is thrilled his home has open doors where he can be a role model for these young men: where he can love them, show up in their lives, and coach them in grace and truth. The adults who took Stan under their wing changed his legacy, and he is now able reciprocate that gift by molding the future of countless youth. Mentoring is exponential, and generational changes reach farther than you can ever see. Be the change in someone�s life today. Change a future. Change a legacy. END THE LIST.

Just down the street a child wakes up with no one home. He is lucky if he gets to have breakfast. He looks in his closet and cannot decide which shirt to wear, the blue one or the green one. He has no one to wake him up in the morning so most mornings he is late, missing the bus and having to walk or run to school. Once at school he is in his own world, constantly getting in trouble, and is behind in nearly every subject. After school he is bullied, so he fights. Shamefully he runs home to an empty nest as mom or grandma has gone to her second job to help pay the bills. A dollar microwavable meal awaits him in the freezer. He is tired, angry, feels hopeless and desires something different.

One day a close friend introduces to you the idea of mentoring. At first you are hesitant, telling yourself, �I have too much on my plate. I am already stressed as it is.� Interested, however, you decide to do it. You meet the boy just down the street. You are both nervous.� Soon, however, you realize you have much in common. He actually reminds you a lot of yourself at his age. Your heart melts, your spirit is lifted. This is your adventure. This is the reward you have been looking for.

You and the boy have been meeting now for 6 months. He has been getting up to his alarm for over 3 months now and making it to school on time. He only has to improve his grade in one more class in order to make honor roll this year. He is no longer getting in trouble in class and is not getting in fights after school. Your outlook on life has changed. You have more patience and love for your family members. At work you are able to look at tasks not as a duty but as an opportunity. One day you even bring the boy to visit your work. On the drive home in traffic one day the boy texts you saying he just made honor roll! You�re ecstatic and the traffic no longer seems to matter.

Stories like this are occurring every day around the country. People are taking steps to become mentors in addition to everything else they are doing. They are making a difference in the lives of fatherless children and because of it a difference is being made within them. This is mentoring. This is ending the list. This is The Mentoring Project.

On a recent episode of Oprah�s Lifeclass, Iyanla Vanzant helped a 48 year old fatherless son heal. While there are many differing views about these two women, the focus of this blog is not on their beliefs, but on the story of a fatherless generation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There are millions of boys growing up in our country that have never had their father touch them and say �You�re a man now.� There are millions of boys in our country that have never heard from their father �I am proud of you.� They have never had a man affirm them. They have never had a man acknowledge them for who they are. We live in a generation of youth that beg for a man to be proud of them, someone that will come alongside them and love them unconditionally. We live in a generation of youth that desperately needs change.

When Iyanla said �I need a man� she hit the nail right on the head! These boys don�t need another �boy� to mentor them. They don�t need just anyone to come alongside them. They have had plenty of �boys� walk in and out of their lives. They have had �boys� abandon them, mistreat them, and simply hate them. What they need is a man. Our society gravely needs men to stand up, back up to our boys and �have their backs.” Even more, we need men to look these boys in their eyes and affirm them by saying �I am proud of you.� To affirm them until they themselves can say, �Someone is proud of me; a man is proud of me.�

Our country cannot handle another generation of fatherless youth. We need men to step up, act like men, and be strong doing everything in love. Will you raise up with the many others who are acting like men and mentor a fatherless child? Will you be the one to which a fatherless child says, �I have someone who is proud of me?�

�Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.� (1 Corinthians 16:13-14)

The Mentoring Culture at Bloomingdale Church
Written by Christine Massie

At Bloomingdale Church in the western suburbs of Chicago, IL, The Mentoring Project continues to progress as many adults and adolescents get involved as mentors or mentees.

On March 3, 2012, the church�s youth ministry staff hosted a three hour mentor training session in an effort to expand the number of trained adults ready to be paired with an adolescent needing a mentor. Thirty adults attended the training.

Since launching The Mentoring Project in the spring of 2011 Daniel Riemenschneider, the High School Youth Pastor, continues to see the positive influence mentoring culture has on students and adults in the church. �He explained, �Mentoring relationships are essential to effective spiritual formation of our young people.�

Additionally, the March 3rd training was the first time that Bloomingdale Church opened their branch of The Mentoring Project to women wanting to mentor teen girls. A good percentage of the attendees on March 3rd were women. Riemenschneider shared that as The Mentoring Project experienced so many successful mentoring relationships among males, �We knew that it was essential to offer this opportunity to adolescent girls as well.�

In fact, one young lady in the youth group took it upon herself to ask Nancy, a member at the church, to begin mentoring her in the fall of 2011 before the girls� branch of The Mentoring Project officially began.

Nancy was one of the women in attendance at the March 3rd training session, and she says she is excited to join what she has been doing with her mentee under the umbrella of The Mentoring Project. �I think it will be beneficial to have input from a group of people who are also mentoring, and it will be good to have some different ideas about things tried, both those that worked and those that are different,� she said.

In regards to the training session, Nancy said she found it informative and helpful. �The training wasn’t just information download; there were many opportunities to discuss ideas at your table and get many perspectives on the topic at hand,� she recalled.

Since the March training, the youth ministry staff has worked to better inform students about the opportunity they now have with so many trained mentors available in the church, and many students are responding.

Three more female students have requested mentors, and one, Katie, has been working with her new mentor for three weeks now. �I always have a fun time,� Katie said of her new mentoring relationship, �We talk about our weeks, and I just like having someone to talk to who is wise and has a lot more life experience than me.�

As some of the first mentoring relationships from Bloomingdale Church�s 2011 launch near the one year mark, leaders are encouraged by the deepening relationships and know that they are on to something that will last.

Dom has been mentoring Raymond since the spring of 2011. �He said the way he knows the mentoring project is working is that, �now Raymond is mentoring me. He tells me what to do.�

Dom and Raymond share a love of science and engineering, and have been able to work on many projects together around the church where Dom serves as a building and grounds volunteer.

�Yeah, like remember the time I told you that you were changing the smoke alarm wrong and then it went off and the fire department came?� Raymond joked with Dom.

�He put a picture of that on Facebook,” Dom said.

As they joke back and forth, it is obvious that they enjoy spending time together.

As relationships like this one gain investment over time and as more mentors and adolescents join The Mentoring Project, Bloomingdale Church hopes to make a dent in the national statistics showing that many teens lack intentional adult influence in their lives. �We strive for every adolescent connected to our church to have Godly adults who intentionally care about them and model Jesus,� says Riemenschneider, �Our plan to make The Mentoring Project sustainable is to build it into the fiber of our youth ministry and church. �The Mentoring Project is not an afterthought to our programming, but rather a necessary component to what we are doing week-to-week.�

Bloomingdale Church TMP Video

tmp.bloomingdalechurch.org

Abandoned. Boys. Crime. Daddy. Empty. Fatherless. Girls. Helpless. Invisible. Juveniles. Killjoy. Loser. Mentor. Newness. Opportunity. Pride. Quality. Restore. Security. Teacher. Understanding. Value. Warmhearted. eXample. Youth. Zealous.

Where would society be if we were to only teach some of our children the first half of the alphabet? If the next generation were to only know the letters A-L? How many words would they be able to put together? How far in life would they venture? How different would they be from the other children who were taught the entire alphabet?

Did you know there is an entire generation that has not been taught half of the alphabet? A generation well acquainted with the first half: they have been abandoned, they are insecure and helpless, they have an emptiness inside. They may have never experienced the second half of the alphabet. They have never had opportunity or security. They have always felt misunderstood or devalued. They are America’s invisible children. They are the fatherless generation.

Did you know there is an entire generation that can provide the other half of the alphabet to these children? They have the opportunity to instill change. They can teach a child the letters of the alphabet that have been missing all of their life. They can speak newness out of a warm heart. They can provide a child opportunity and value. They can shine light in dark places. They can be a friend. They can be a mentor.

A National research has shown that positive relationships between children and mentors have a direct and measurable impact on children�s lives. By participating in mentoring, youth can become:

• More confident in their schoolwork performance
• Able to get along better with their families
• 46% less likely to begin using illegal drugs
• 27% less likely to begin using alcohol
• 52% less likely to skip school

Showing up in the life of a child works. It works statistically; and even more it works in the grassroots efforts of thousands of mentors who are showing up every week in the life of a fatherless child around the world.

Who will you be a friend and a mentor to today? What missing letter will you offer a fatherless child?

Statistics taken from:

Tierney, J.P., Grossman, J.B., and Resch,N.L.(1995) Making a Difference: An Impact Study of Big Brothers Big Sisters.
Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures

DeMarcus Cousins of the Sacramento Kings NBA basketball team recently commented on a mentoring relationship he entered into with NBA all-star Chris Webber:

�I have the utmost respect for C-Web, he�s a real person,� Cousins said. �He just gives me advice, tells me how to handle situations. He went through similar situations so of course he has advice for me. I guess you can say a big brother looking over me.��

Did you know the definition of the word real is to be �genuine and authentic, not counterfeit or artificial?� On the basketball court Webber proved himself to be a “real” player. Through his many successes and many mistakes on and off the court he gained not only the attention of millions around the country, but specifically that of Cousins. Webber earned the right to be heard by Cousins simply through showing up.

TMP President John Sowers writes in his book, Fatherless Generation: Redeeming the Story:

�The children impacted by fatherlessness are used to having authority figures leave. For them, dads and authority figures are a revolving door. They are inconsistent, here today and gone tomorrow, and not to be trusted. By showing up in the life of a fatherless child you create a new groundswell of hope. It revives a space in a child�s heart that can begin to trust again. For a generation that has been defined by rejection, faithful and unconditional presence says,

�I am here.

I accept you.

And I am with you.��

SHOWING UP is the first step of building trust with youth who have been abandoned or hurt by their fathers. Remember that BUILDING TRUST through showing up takes time � it takes consistency and being �real�. When we bring these two things together we earn the RIGHT TO BE HEARD, to �give advice� as Cousins states. �It is at this point that we have begun to enter into a life-changing relationship.

DeMarcus Cousins needed a Chris Webber to step into his life to make a difference. Who will you be a Chris Webber to? Who will tell others that you are a big brother or big sister looking over them? The choice is yours. When will you make it?