Ministry Sees Lives Changed, Hope Renewed Through Urban Outreach
by Allie Martin
June 14, 2005
(AgapePress) - The urban ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, a division called "Here's Life Inner City" (HLIC) is allowing volunteers to share Christ's love and hope with urban communities in a practical way.
HLIC was formed in the late 1970s as a way to meet the spiritual and physical needs of those in the inner city. The ministry provides supplies and clothing for the homeless and also supplies full dinners known as "Boxes of Love" for the needy during Thanksgiving. The ministry also helps local churches set up clothing distribution programs, after-school programs, and career help.
Ted Gandy, National Director for HLIC, says the ministry seeks to combine both the Great Commission and the great commandment in its outreach efforts, and urban areas are major mission fields.
"Our purpose is to serve and mobilize the Church to live out God's heart for the poor," Gandy says. But, the ministry has diverse projects for meeting a variety of needs, the director adds, noting, "We do a lot of things. We're helping churches set up after-school programs, and we're doing quite a bit in the area of life skills and job training."
Another area "Here's Life" involves itself in is leadership development. Felis Meeks, a one-time gang member who grew up near Chicago, began attending an HLIC program in order to play basketball after school. The ministry introduced him to Christ, and now the inner-city native says his life has changed for ever.
Meeks' gradual spiritual transformation has culminated in his growing ministry to other at-risk youth. "As I began to grow," he recalls, "I began to know what God had for my life, and I knew I had been called to ministry. I was dealing with the youth, and as I began to study and trust in God, He began to lead me back to the old neighborhood where I grew up."
Gandy sees Felis Meeks as a living illustration of an important principle he sees demonstrated in the work of HLIC all the time. "No one is beyond the touch of God," he says. "It's so easy for us just to write people off and say, 'Well, forget them, they're too far gone.' And yet, that's not our experience."
Although Christians know, intellectually, that God has "incredible power," Gandy says, sometimes in practice, even believers may tend to write people off. But over and over, he says, HLIC is seeing people's lives transformed, which serves as a constant reminder that with God, all things are possible -- even in the heart of the inner city.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
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