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It was 3 a.m., and Rev. Imani Smith was still awake. On that early morning in May 2006, Imani was not up because of insomnia, but because she was struggling with God and asking if he was even using her anymore as a youth worker working for the Department of Youth Services.

“I was before God, in a lot of pain, trying to figure out, ‘What do you want me to do? I can’t do it,’” Imani says. On top of already feeling disconnected from her work community because of a lack of spiritual bond among her colleagues, Imani was shaken by the recent death of a client. She felt like she had lost sight of responding to the Spirit in her job. She felt more like an officer of the system than a minister of the gospel.

“I wasn’t feeling like I was in the place I started from,” Imani recounts. “The death really just shook me because you get to a point where if you’re not being purposeful and feeding yourself spiritually, the work and negativity of work overtakes you.” Yet, in the midst of her turmoil, God provided comfort and insight by leading her to Genesis 12, where she read about God’s command for Abram, Sarai, and Lot to leave their home and go to Canaan.

“There was a strength that came out in that passage because they were taking care of one another and understanding that this journey wasn’t going to be easy,” Imani says. “These were people in places of void who felt marginalized. They weren’t ideally matched and didn’t have the ideal circumstances, but the thing that kept them together was their faith as they moved into the land of hope. I thought, ‘This is what we as youth workers have; this journey is before us.’ God was telling me to go through the journey in order to get the stuff that I needed for the next place that he wants me.”

But Imani didn’t know where she could find that community of support—a place where she could dialogue with other Christian youth workers in the city, be fed, and feel connected with others who understood her experience and shared a common bond of faith. She felt barren like Sarai.

Imani is not alone in her experience and cry for help. She represents a group of individuals in urban ministry—specifically, Christian youth workers who are church-based, parachurch, or working in secular organizations—whose work is crucial to building our cities, but whose work also comes with high burnout, trauma, and feelings of isolation and being under supported. In 2006, a study conducted by Applied Evaluation Systems, the consulting enterprise of Emmanuel Gospel Center (EGC), found that Christian youth workers in Boston wanted an organized center of practical training and support. While resources are available to youth workers, there are very few places that are equipped or committed to train, develop, and support Christian youth workers, and that take into consideration the spiritual worldview and unique mix of challenges that these youth workers face. In January 2006, a collaboration of organizations serving youth in Boston launched a collaboration called neXus Boston to train and support Christian urban youth workers, help them work together more effectively, and conduct applied research to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of youth services.

BRINGING STREAMS TOGETHER

Although neXus Boston transitioned out of a six-month planning phase at the beginning of 2007 and is still in early stages of development, the formation of the collaboration has been underway for several years. The efforts and contributions of six main streams were vital in the founding of neXus. One stream rose out of EGC and Boston TenPoint Coalition’s long-term work to support church-based youth workers through the Youth Ministry Development Project (YMDP). When the project met its ten-year goal of seeing 20 full-time church-based Christian youth workers in the city (in 1995 there was only one), and of helping to develop a more cooperative culture of church-based youth ministry in the city, leaders began thinking about what they should do next. “The Center wanted to follow up on YMDP and continue our desire to support the average Christian youth worker,” says Jeff Bass, Executive Director of EGC.

Dean Borgman, the Charles E. Culpeper Professor of Youth Ministries at the Center for Urban Ministerial Education (CUME), Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Boston campus, was another important stream. Dean, who has tremendous vision for the training of Christian youth workers, and for the research needed to support this work, wanted to find a home for the Center for Youth Studies (CYS), an organization he founded and continues to direct. He also wanted to promote the local use of CYS’s website, which has valuable resources like the Encyclopedia of Youth Studies.

Meanwhile, the Black Ministerial Alliance (BMA) was connecting to an extensive network through two of its programs, the High-Risk Youth Network and the Boston Capacity Tank. These programs include partnerships with more than 250 members representing 150 different organizations, including community- and faith-based organizations, public agencies, volunteers, and others, who work together to strengthen the system of services impacting youth in Boston. The DeVos Foundation, through its Urban Leadership Initiative (an intensive 15-month program in cities nationwide for youth workers to build leadership), was also influential in its commitment and interest in investing in Christian youth workers in Boston and how they could carry that further.

An increasing concern about the failure to encourage developing youth ministry leadership also arose among leaders in youth work. This was especially important to Chris Troy, who had been meeting with Al Padilla, Academic Dean of CUME, about space for a youth workers’ resource room, technology access, and meeting rooms that CUME was offering as they built their new Dudley Square building. This possibility motivated Chris, the Founder and President of the Boston Urban Youth Foundation and a youth worker with more than 20 years of experience doing streetwork in Boston, to be persistent about spurring other leaders toward seizing this opportunity and discussing how it could serve youth workers. “Chris displayed a real commitment to raise up a new generation of Boston leaders,” Dean says.

The executive directors of these organizations and other key individuals (such as Virginia Ward) began having conversations about the needs of Christian youth workers and how they could bring their resources and the assets of their organizations together to support youth workers. “[We asked], ‘How could we collect and disseminate the best and most helpful of research and best practices of youth work, how could we revive and revise the street workers courses, and mostly, how could we demonstrate genuine and unselfish collaboration?’” Dean says. The opening date of the CUME building further accelerated the push to have things set in place for a project to support Christian youth workers by the building’s opening.

The executive directors also realized that they couldn’t do all the work on their own. In February 2006, the collaboration hired EGC’s Applied Evaluation Systems to do a three-month planning study to guide the formation of relationships, infrastructure, and a strategy for neXus’ development “for and by youth workers.” The study, which interviewed 39 youth professionals from a variety of occupational backgrounds, confirmed what Boston’s youth work community had known, anecdotally, for years: Christian youth workers need an organized center of practical training and support.

By July 2006, neXus Boston hired Khary Bridgewater as a six-month interim director with funding support from the DeVos Foundation. Khary, who was already the Urban Leadership Initiative’s Boston City Coordinator, overseeing the selection process of participants and providing support and assistance as they went through the training, found the interim director position a perfect match for what he was looking to do at the time.

“I had just finished my management degree and wanted to go deeper in my interest in doing community development work,” Khary says. “I was really excited because the neXus collaboration was the DeVos training put into action. These organizations weren’t coming together because of money, but because of shared values, and they were all in agreement. It was a very powerful moment, and the chance to participate in something like that was exciting. I was witnessing the body of Christ doing what it is supposed to do.”

Khary helped the directors plan and orchestrate the launch of neXus by solidifying the vision of neXus, giving more clarity on its mission, and helping to secure funding. He is confident that these goals were met. “I was surprised that it required a lot more work to collaborate than I thought, but the partners are more than willing to put in that effort. They have a real commitment and desire for this,” he says.

By January 2007, neXus hired Rev. Matthew Gibson, who brings fifteen years of extensive experience in urban youth work, as a full-time Director who mainly oversees the development and implementation of neXus’ programs and seeks to engage youth workers in them, in addition to managing the day-to-day work of neXus.

MEETING REAL, PRACTICAL NEEDS AND ADDRESSING A HIGHER CALLING

neXus Boston provides essential, practical support to Christian youth workers, but it also addresses something greater that involves the Kingdom. “neXus is important because youth workers are a key part of the body of Christ, and what they do to develop youth has huge implications for the future of the Church in Boston,” Matthew says.

Khary also sees its importance as one that has tremendous impact on the city. “neXus is right on in terms of need. We really hit a sweet spot because there’s a groundswell of support. Both the youth workers and funders wanted it, and it’s not often that you get that. This is a winning opportunity to have high impact on the youth crisis in the city,” says Khary, who currently serves on the neXus Collaboration Council.

He also understands the lack of support for the unique challenges Christian youth workers face in their already draining, high-stress environment that can make them feel like they’re on the fringe of ministry with nowhere to turn.

“[Doing youth work as a Christian] is not just about saving kids from harm’s way,” he says. “It’s hard enough to deal with emotions, but even harder to help engage at-risk and high-risk youth to see themselves as the image of God. This spiritual dimension can be very draining for youth workers, and they need a place where they can feel valued, where resources are available, and where they can be around others who think like them.”

neXus is also important for helping youth workers deal with the trauma they face. “There’s crazy stuff out there,” says Matthew, who has also experienced trauma because of his work. “Youth workers need therapy, but a lot of times they’re not going to seek that out. neXus can be there to say, ‘You’re not crazy,’ and provide support for those who want it. The youth workers also need a place where they can heal by meeting people who are doing what they do and to just hang out with them in a social setting.”

Dean Borgman believes the existence of neXus is crucial for numerous related reasons. “neXus is critical because the crisis among youth is critical, because there are so many different strategies and approaches out there, because there are so many personal hurts and agency agendas, because youth work is so complex and needs professional expertise along with dynamic relationships with individuals and groups of youth, because most youth workers feel isolated and unsupported and so soon burn out, and because we can exploit and trap some young leaders with high potential,” he says.

The reality that the work of neXus Boston seems to be one-of-a-kind nationwide further reinforces the need for its existence. “We’re finding that everyone we talk to about neXus says, ‘That needs to be done…someone should do that!’ There is youth research being done, but no one is pulling it together for youth workers,” Jeff says.

THE BIG PICTURE: LOOKING AHEAD

neXus is still in its early stages, with leaders from the Collaboration working with Matthew Gibson and a growing number of youth workers to begin to turn the vision of neXus into reality. There is much eager anticipation, excitement and big dreams for the impact that neXus can have.

“What excites me about neXus is seeing leaders of programs in the forefront of serving youth taking time to sit down together and build something for the sake of others outside our own programs and immediate interests,” Dean says. “I am excited about being able to sit down and talk to youth workers who are burning out, or are entirely frustrated, and offer some help and hope. I am always excited about teaching people first, and then the principles of youth work.”

Matthew is looking forward to both gathering what others are doing nationwide and worldwide and being able to promote what neXus uncovers. “The thing that youth ministry needs in Boston is a think tank to mine the best practices and techniques that can help us here and then to critique that so we can find leverage points for creating change,” he says. He also hopes that neXus can create a power base within systems to create change in policies once people notice a united front of committed and trained youth workers with a solid support system behind them.

Although neXus is still in its early stages, Khary is confident that great change and impact will indeed happen. “It’s coming together,” he says. “I don’t think it’s going to take that long—I think it’s going in the right direction.”

And where is Imani in her journey now? A few weeks ago, feelings of distress that plagued her last spring seemed to be returning. But hearing about neXus from Jeff and being convinced that the project was “ordained” in its direct correlations to her personal, work, and spiritual life, she found a renewal of hope and assurance in what God first told her almost a year ago—that “no matter what comes, if you have a place where you can renew spiritually, you can make it through the journey,” she says. “The question is, ‘How do I come out on the other end? How do I put things in order?’ That, I think, is at forefront of what neXus will answer.”

by Grace Lin

[published in Inside EGC, March-April, 2007]