Skateboarders Provoke Change in Ministry for New Jersey Church
"Geographically, we are at the center of the town of Oakland," says Nathan Busker, pastor at Ponds Reformed Church in New Jersey. "Yet one day a lady walked into church and had no idea what the building was, and she had lived in the surrounding area all her life. We had a fantastic location, but it didn't matter because no one knew what we were about."
With a new after-school program, that all began to change. Busker arrived at Ponds Reformed three years ago and began to befriend local middle school kids who would hang out and skateboard on the church steps.
Others in the church saw the students as a nuisance and shooed them away, but Busker saw them as an opportunity for outreach.
"They had no place to go," Busker says. "I talked to our Christian education director, Arlene Sorce, and we formed a task force and started an after-school program for middle school students. The response has been phenomenal!
"In the fall of 2006, when we started the program, about 17 students signed up; only two of them were from the church. So now there are 15 kids and their families who we have reached out to, and they are part of the church. The families receive all of the church mailings and are treated as part of the community. We have started to see them at various events.
"We wanted to start small and do it right. Many of these kids have behavior issues related to respect, compassion, and nurture. One mother said, 'This program is a gift from God.' Before the after-school program her son had no friends. Now he has a circle of friends and this divorced mom shows up for church."
Oakland is located on the western edge of Bergen County, an affluent, heavily populated area of New Jersey. "To live here you need two incomes or a spouse who has an excellent job," says Busker. At first he wondered whether local teenagers would be interested in enrolling in an after-school program. Would it be a "cool" thing to do? "Now, because of the activities we have, our challenge is keeping kids out," he says. "Kids are bringing friends, sometimes a whole group of friends!"
The church offers a traverse wall for climbing, a computer lab with Internet access, a video games room, a fellowship hall, a combination pool/ping pong table, air hockey, foos ball, and a snack area with healthy snacks.
"We knew we did not want to make the program School Part 2," says Busker. "These students know what they need to do. They know they need to study, and they do it."
The church also brings in people who do special presentations. One woman shows how to cook a meal; a local man teaches guitar. Police officers have come to talk about drug use prevention, and a woman spoke with the teens about peer pressure and self esteem.
"When students have a half-day of school, we have them for the other half for field trips; we've gone hiking, to the movies, apple picking. Once we took them to an indoor 'fun-plex.'"
The program costs each student's family $120 a month. "This covers our cost for a couple of paid staff and food and snacks and the rest goes back into the program to update computers and pay for activities like the field trips," says Busker. "An Oakland foundation helps support the program by providing scholarships. Businesses in town have also donated money and resources."
Ponds has starting registering students for this fall's program. "It looks like it will grow to about 20," says Busker.
"I realized that we have to communicate to the community that we are there for them. Our challenge is to change perceptions about our church in Oakland. We have the desire to be a player in town. And because of our location [in the heart of the city] we need to be a player in town." Its after-school program is just one of the ways Ponds Reformed now provides resources that are relevant for people who live in Oakland.
- Over a year ago the church started the Ponds Educational Forum. "We wanted to become a resource for families in Oakland, so when they need an answer they turn to church. We focus on hot topics that families need information on; last year we brought in a speaker to address the push toward academics at an early age and the anxiety that can produce.
"This year we had Mike Teel, a quarterback for Rutgers University, speak about how you balance being a student and an athlete. He told how important role models are to him. He's from Oakland, and it was the first time people from the community where he grew up got to hear him speak."
- Ponds hosts coffee houses once a quarter and brings in local musicians.
- "I have son with special education needs, and we will start hosting small groups of parents whose children have special needs," says Busker. "These parents often need an advocate to help them work through issues with the schools. We are asking, 'How can the church become an advocate for these parents?' Most parents can't afford an advocate, so the church plans to help by bringing in a child advocate that can speak to the whole group."
- Ponds bought a house next to church in order to expand ministry. "We want to make it a gathering place for people in the community. Teenagers who want to hang out have no place to go and just enjoy each others' company," says Busker.
Interaction with the community has begun to change Ponds Reformed.
"In the '50s and '60s we were the only church in town; everyone came here," Busker says. "Older people remember the times when everything happened here. Then society changed; Oakland changed; and attendance declined. Now the changes that have been taking place have helped people rediscover the joy of ministry.
"People are discovering that these dry bones can live. People are experiencing what it means to serve and they are excited.
"We are seeing new faces; our new challenge is people are showing up who have never set foot in a church before. People are turning to church for the first time. They are asking 'What does the Bible say?' and 'What do you believe?' This is forcing people at Ponds Reformed to rethink their assumptions about what people know about the Bible and the Christian faith."
Posted 05/01/07
|