NAC Teen SOYO Orthodox Youth Outreach
by Fr Kevin Scherer
NAC Teen SOYO OYO Coordinator
Orthodox Youth Outreach (OYO) was designed to be a resource to the local Church in fulfilling the commission of Christ as outlined in Matthew 28:19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” The driving philosophy behind OYO is simple: train Orthodox young people, as early as possible, that it is the normal action of every Christian to share the love of Christ to every people group – especially the poor and needy. Our desire is to train up an army of servants for Christ who have only one vision: to empty themselves on behalf of the other.
Today, I’m convinced that most people don’t wake-up and decide that their going to be missionaries – quit their job, sell their house, and pack up the family for foreign soil. If the Church believes that Christ’s commission should be taken seriously, then we must be proactive about the formation that it requires. The fact is that when most young people in our Church reach college age and are making decisions about their future, the mission field is not even on their radar screen. Don’t misunderstand me, I do not believe that God has called each of us to this holy vocation, but I do believe that He has called each of us to support it! If we want to continue this apostolic activity of bringing the light and love of Christ to every nation, then we must start young – as young as possible!
Based of these convictions, OYO has developed a strategy for this kind of formation. We call it E4 – expose, engage, equip, and entrust. This four-tiered, service learning, approach combined with a modified orientation and debriefing component have become the foundation for the kind of short-term service projects we schedule. On the weekend of January 2nd-4th, of this New Year, OYO got to “test drive” this kind of service learning approach on 28 teenagers and young adults. I hope that the remainder of this article will serve to inspire many of you to join me in this holy vocation of forming the spiritual vision of a new generation.
On Friday, January 2nd, teenagers and young adults, from three different states and eight different parishes, gathered together at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Los Angeles to participate in the first-ever OYO regional event. After registration and lunch, the group split up for an afternoon of orientation. The students spent a session discussing the realities and reasons behind urban poverty, while the sponsors were trained in OYO’s orientation and debriefing philosophy. The remainder of the afternoon was spent together orienting around the specific experiences and ministries that the group would be encountering during the weekend. Before we packed up the vans and headed for our ministry headquarters in the heart of South Central, Los Angeles, we gathered together in the Cathedral chapel to pray for God’s mercy and blessing on our endeavor.
Our headquarters for the weekend was an older apartment building, now owned by a private parachurch ministry. The Center for Student Missions (CSM), our host for the weekend, rents living and office space from this ministry in order to accommodate groups like OYO. The rooms were modest to say the least. The guys shared one room and the girls shared two. Each studio was furnished with an assortment of twin mattresses (not near enough to accommodate our numbers) and one small bathroom. The heat was purposely kept at a low temperature. The result was a very cramped, two-night, real-life encounter with what many urban poor live with day-in and day-out. The definition of a single-family dwelling has a completely different meaning for the inner-city poor.
After we unpacked, we headed out for our orientation to the less traveled streets of Los Angeles. Our first stop was dinner at a very small, but authentic Thai restaurant. It was a family owned business, with generous family-style portions of spicy cuisine. The family waited on us as though we were in their home. We not only got a taste of their food, but their hospitable culture as well.
After dinner, the group traveled together in different vans throughout the city on a Prayer Tour. With the use of walkie-talkies, our hosts provided us with a substantial education and exposure to the city’s homeless culture at night. Four or five times throughout the night, we pulled over the vans (in well-lit and safe areas) to dialogue and pray over the political and spiritual realities of the homeless culture. On one occasion, in a deserted parking lot, outside of City Hall, our hosts asked all of us to lie down on the asphalt for a brief period and reflect on the hundreds of homeless who would be sleeping on that cold, black mattress. For most of us, the chill of that parking lot never left our bones that evening. It was hard to sleep with this newfound perspective. Consider what one 14 year old girl wrote: “Lying down in the parking lot during the Prayer Tour still stands out in my mind. It really made me think about what homeless people go through every day; and it was shameful to know that I have never really paid attention to their needs.” Our evening ended with a very moving debrief and Small Complines.
The next morning we rose early from an achy slumber for morning prayers. The entire group was eager to tackle the ministries that awaited us. Right away, our hosts whisked us off to the Garment District downtown for another educational exposure. After a brief orientation, we split up into several groups of four (each group led by an adult sponsor) and given a small envelope. Each envelope contained a small map of the area (with clearly defined boundaries) and money for breakfast. There was just enough money for each person, plus a guest, to spend a whopping $3 per meal. The exercise was called The Breakfast Search, and the idea was for each group to seek out and ask a homeless person to breakfast. The results were powerful. For most of us, homelessness is a stereotype – not unlike the stereotype that we apply to many others, including the rich, the famous, and the religious. However, when you come face-to-face with the genuine humanity behind a stereotype, false ideas and perceptions begin to crumble – what you find is another person made in the image of God. That morning was life changing for most of us and will remain forever etched in our hearts and minds. One 18-year-old student found himself on the other end of giving when the homeless person he took out to breakfast offered to share his food. He wrote, “The homeless were selfless despite their position.” Another student was convicted when the homeless person they asked to breakfast was the first to suggest that they should pray before eating. Each of the groups gathered together again for an emotional debriefing session – it was obvious that God’s Spirit was moving in the heart of each student.
After a brief morning Bible study, on the topic of God’s heart for the poor, we split up into two groups and headed in different directions. Group One would spend the day at the Midnight Mission and the “Say Yes” program, while Group Two would serve at the Union Rescue Mission and the Grandview Retirement Hotel. Each group had the privilege of serving lunch to hundreds of Skid Row homeless at their respective Missions. For one teenage girl it was an empowering experience that proved to her that one person could make a difference. She wrote: “When I talked with a man who was a crack addict, he told me about his life and why he was working in the soup kitchen. I asked him lots of questions about the way he pictured life and I told him what I thought about drugs. He looked at me and said, ‘You know what, maybe you’re right.’ He listened to me!” Many of the students, who served at the Midnight Mission, commented on the powerful affect of the personal testimonies that three men, who were in the residential treatment program, shared with the entire group. We learned that day that homelessness wasn’t a synonym for laziness, but a complex problem filled with issues like addiction, disability, mental illness, generational poverty, and dysfunctional family systems. Most importantly, we served real people and came face-to-face with their real needs.
During the late afternoon, Group One served by organizing resources at a ministry aimed at serving the 750 homeless children on Skid Row. The motivation was high and each student knew that his or her contribution was helping to serve “one of the least of these.” Group Two traveled to a Retirement Hotel where they spent the afternoon with the elderly segment of the inner-city. The converted inner-city hotel was filled with the forgotten and disabled (both physically and mentally). One student will never forget playing pool with a one armed gentleman in a wheelchair – the student lost! All of the students from this group came back with a profound appreciation for the importance of basic human community – how important it is to be remembered! One 16 year old girl wrote: “It really touched me to see how happy [this man] was to have a little bit of company and conversation with us young people. But it hurt me to think that he probably hadn’t had much company, if any, in a really long time.”
When we gathered together as a group again, we were tired and hungry – a familiar feeling to those whom we were serving. Our hosts introduced us to another authentic dining experience at LA 27th – a family owned Nicaraguan restaurant. Until that evening most of us couldn’t have told you the difference between a banana and a plantain, but by the end of the evening we were satisfied experts! Each of our dining experiences was an introduction to a different family and ethnic culture. How humbling it was for each of us to witness the courage and hospitality of these people struggling to survive in the inner city.
When we returned to our housing, we had a long and powerful debriefing followed by an inspiring presentation from Jordan Henderson, the Assistant Teams Director and Medical Coordinator for OCMC. Jordan’s day-to-day responsibilities revolve around coordinating summer mission teams to various parts of the world. Jordan educated us about the role of the Mission Center and the missionaries supported by it. He offered his own first-hand experience from the field and shared with the students how they could get involved in foreign missions. For some of the students, this was the first time they had ever been challenged to consider a full-time vocation in missions. One of the students wrote: “I really have looked at this option differently. I always thought that [others were] doing that, so it [didn’t] have to concern me. Wrong. I couldn’t believe the statistics. I want to be involved with spreading the love of Christianity.”
Again, we ended our evening with Small Compline. All of us were very tired, but filled with vivid and precious memories of real people and real ministry. These kinds of experiences are filling, even life-giving. They give one a sense of hope that humanity can be transformed by small acts of kindness.
The next morning before Divine Liturgy, we all traveled to a very cold MacArthur Park to feed the homeless. On the way, we stopped by a local Mexican pastry shop to pick up our supplies. MacArthur Park is infamous for it’s gang and drug activity. We saw neither, but we did run across many of the Park’s residents who were pleased to see us and appreciative of some orange juice and a pastry. It was hard to swallow that many had slept there the night before with only a blanket. It was moments like these that helped to define what real need looks like. For the homeless, each day’s activities and agenda are reduced to the very basic necessities of life. This was an important reflection for most of us who so very often confuse want and need.
Our trip came to an appropriate end with the celebration of the Divine Liturgy at St. Nicholas Cathedral, where we witnessed the Great Blessing of the Water – a powerful reminder that all of God’s creation, knowingly or unknowingly, waits in eager anticipation to be redeemed and restored. Later, as we stood around the tables at Tommy’s, eating our chili cheeseburgers, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed at all of God’s goodness – His goodness to America, His goodness to the Church, but most of all His goodness manifested in creation. Everyday each of us comes face-to-face with the image of God in the other – our vocation is to discover Him in each person and in each situation.
If it’s important…I really do believe that our students made a difference in the lives of many people that weekend, but I also know that those same people had an amazing ministry in our lives as well. That’s the mystery of serving, the mystery of loving – the more that you empty of yourself, the more that God fills in return. My greatest joy that weekend was watching God’s Spirit move in the lives of these students. Real transformation was evident in each of their faces – their attention, sobriety, eagerness, compassion, hard work, and tears. I told them at the beginning of our weekend together that I expected that God would reveal to their hearts some of the things that break His – I truly believe this happened.
At the beginning and conclusion of our weekend together, I asked the students to complete a survey. The pre-survey was conducted in order to establish a base line, while the post-survey was designed to measure change affected by their service project experience. Most of the survey used a five-point sliding scale – strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, and strongly agree. In the post-survey I asked them whether or not their experience in South Central had influenced them in various areas. I’d like to share with you just a few of those results.
- When the students were surveyed prior to the weekend on whether they faithfully practiced the disciplines of fasting and confession, the average response was somewhere between uncertain and agree (3.6). In the post-survey they were asked whether their service experience had influenced them to take these disciplines more seriously – the average response was agree (4.1)
- When the students were asked whether they regularly pray throughout the day, their pre-survey response was somewhere between uncertain and agree (3.8). When asked whether or not their weekend experience had influenced them to pray more throughout the day, the average post survey response was midway between agree and strongly agree (4.5).
- When asked whether or not the students were open to volunteering their time and talents to their local parish, the average pre-survey response was agree (4.0), while the post survey response was almost unanimously strongly agree (4.7).
The most radical differences were seen in relationship to the student’s attitudes and perspectives toward part and full-time mission work. Every participant noted an interest in serving on other short-term service projects, while several indicated a serious vocational interest.
- When the students were asked whether or not they prayed specifically for the mission field and those serving there, the average pre-survey response was the lowest of any question asked (2.8) – the post-survey response was midway between agree and strongly agree (4.5).
As I stated in the beginning of this article, the purpose of OYO is to raise up a generation of Orthodox Christians who are globally minded and whose hearts are broken for the things that break God’s heart. I believe we’ve made a good start. If I have sparked any interest at all in our efforts, please log onto the web and visit our homepage at www.OrthodoxYouthOutreach.net. Perhaps God will lead you to join us in this important ministry. We always need team leaders, adult sponsors, and benefactors. If you have a desire to shape the lives of young people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we would love to include you in our next short-term service project. Very soon we hope to be running these kinds of service projects in each region across the United States and Canada. The cities we are considering for the future are: San Francisco, Nashville, Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, D.C., and Toronto. If you have a specific interest in ministering within one of these cities, please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to serving with you, your teenager or one of the students from your parish very soon.
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