THE MISSION OF MISSION YEAR

I had lunch today with my friend Dave, who is City Director for Mission Year Philadelphia. Mission Year brings together young Christians from all around the country, puts them in an inner-city neighborhood, and supports them as they live in community, befriend their neighbors, and serve at schools and shelters and non-profits. The experience of ministry on the street level, and of learning to live with and love total strangers, is a powerful one. A large percentage of Mission Year alum, having signed up for a year of radical urban discipleship, "graduate" into a lifelong commitment of such a calling.

While I was in their office, I chatted with my friend Shabrae, who this summer is launching Mission Year's partnership with City Year, another (although secular) urban service organizaton for young adults. The goal of this fused program is to recruit people, mostly urban high school grads (Mission Year participants are predominantly suburbanites from Christian colleges) to do all of the service of City Year, and enjoy all of the community and ministry benefit of Mission Year.

The combo could be a powerful one for this group of young Christians, many of whom have been excluded from ministry opportunities like this because of the relative inability of raising financial support (City Year is well-funded and as a result, participants in this joint program won't have to raise any money of their own; in fact, they'll leave the program with considerable educational scholarships). In addition to giving them a year to breathe the exhilarating air of following Jesus with reckless abandon and total commitment, they'll hopefully be the first of many classes of participants who will help Christians in this country think about faith less in terms of intellectual assent and proper doctrine, and more in terms of service, community, and relationships. The body of Christ, and our cities, will be better off for it.