There are some things that just go well together: peanut butter and jelly, mac and cheese, spray paint and empty walls, and World Impact and the Urban Youth Workers Institute. We just belong together. This is a Kingdom partnership that places its emphasis on a like-minded goal of empowering indigenous urban Christian leaders. This year’s national conference was no exception with live music, amazing speakers, great workshops, featured graffiti artists, along with time and space for encouragement and refreshment.
This year World Impact led three workshops, one of which focused on breaking the school to prison pipeline. This breakout was lead by Peter Watts and Cedric Nelms, both powerful men of God. During the session Pete began to talk about the effects of a child seeing their parent arrested: 73% of children who see their parents arrested develop post-traumatic stress disorder, these children have frequent changes in their residence, and they have impaired social and emotional development. He then had us break into groups and discuss how we deal with these side effects in our ministries.
As we broke out into groups, one young lady did not move, she just sat staring at the screen with tears welling up in her eyes. Pete and Cedric approached her and spent the discussion time talking with her, and when we came back to the large group, the young woman shared her story.
When she was eleven she saw her mother get arrested, and everything on that list projected on the wall was her. She had never connected the dots. The trauma she faced was not something she had ever dealt with, because it was just her life. As she told her story she cried, and the room was silent, some of the women gathered around her and held her hand, rubbed her back, and eventually we prayed. A room full of urban leaders laid hands on her and prayed in one accord for healing, peace and restored relationships in this young woman’s life.
As I prayed for her, I felt a moment of hope. Hope for a student I know affected by the trauma of seeing a parent being hauled off by the police, hope that they will find Christ—as this young woman had—and spend their life serving urban youth, hope that healing is possible. But I also saw the Kingdom in that room, a group of diverse strangers coming before the Lord with the knowledge that He would show up and do something.
UYWI and World Impact believe in urban leaders, we believe they have significant contributions that will transform lives and communities, we believe that together the urban church can do anything. Together we have hope that stories like the young lady’s in the front row will be heard by one of the girls she disciples, and that girl will see the healing power of Christ. Together we see the hope of the Gospel changing our neighborhoods.