Tuesday Jam

On Tuesday nights here at GSGBC the doors open for young people from the community to come and hang out. There's no other agenda than to give the 13-16 year olds a place to be and to build relationships with the friendly faces in the church. So there I was last evening with 30-40 kids running in and out of the church, playing pool, ping-pong, eating candy and pizza.

I've been learning that one of the biggest concerns among people in Orpington/Green St Green is the "threat" of young people wandering the streets. There seems to be a genuine prejudice among adults against kids. Certainly there is some justification for their fears; several youth have been caught vandalizing, painting graffiti, and assaulting people. It's gotten to the point, however, in which any time an incident occurs, the immediate conclusion is that it must have been one of the local youth, regardless of evidence.

Having recognized the problem (in fact, some of them were vandalizing GSGBC), Penny and her youth workers began to reach out to these kids to build relationships and give them a friendly place to be. Apparently, it's really been working. The kids know that they have a genuine advocate in Penny and according to the youth workers I talked to last night, the kids are much better behaved than they were 12-18 months ago.

Several people have asked me if we have any problems like this in America. It seems to me that we do have the same root problem - parents who pay little to no attention to their children - but it doesn't manifest itself in the same ways. I haven't heard much of suburban youth vandalizing and attacking in the way it's been reported to me here. Of course, we also have police on duty 24 hours a day, which is not the case here.

At any rate, it's great to see a church in the heart of the community addressing a real need that the civil agencies are powerless to change. And it's really making a difference in the lives of the young people who know nothing of Christ as well. Some have begun coming to church services as a result. Many have begun asking questions about who God is and what the church as and what the Bible says about things. Praise God that he's moving. Indeed he has established a city on a hill and a light on a lampost in GSGBC.