wfn.org | Grant supports Gen X congregation

[Beth Hawn]

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To:  'Worldwide Faith News'
Date: 1999-03-17 15:18
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Message ID: A2075E167870BE11810A7611E65C8882
Conversation ID: Grant supports Generation X congregation 

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March 17, 1999
Mennonite Board of Missions
Beth Hawn
(219) 294-7523
<NEWS@MBM.org>

MBM grant supports Generation X congregation near Chicago

CHICAGO (MBM) - On a recent fall night after a shooting near his new home   
in
Hammond, Ind., Rocky Kidd walked the streets with two members from rival   
gangs
as together they talked about Jesus.

"They believe in God, but don't see how they can fit in a church," said   
Kidd, who
was licensed recently to plant a new Mennonite church for people,   
particularly
Generation Xers, whose brokenness has forced them to the streets.

The gang members "were hungry for more," telling Kidd, "You're not like   
any
preacher we've ever heard before."

In Lake County, Ind., near the Illinois state line, Kidd is launching the   

Little Calumet Christian Fellowship from the inner-city apartment he
shares with his kid brother, Joe, and his 7-year-old daughter, Celina.

Among 800,000 people, Kidd will work in "the biggest city in America
nobody's ever heard of" - apart from its association with the 8.6-million   

metropolitan Chicago area.

"Christ is among the broken and hurting people, and he has invited us to   
join
in with him," said Kidd, who has a background in criminology, youth   
culture
and multicultural inner-city ministry. "If we don't help them, who will?"

With a $5,000 grant from Mennonite Board of Missions Evangelism and   
Church
Development department, as well as support from Illinois and Indiana-
Michigan Mennonite conferences, the congregation is being developed with
oversight from Chicago's Metropolitan Outreach Ministries.

The grant is one of several sources of funding, including supporting
congregations, that MOM has sought to fund a minimal first-year budget
for the storefront congregation.

Long-time Mennonites, Hispanics, African-Americans and others gathered
Dec. 13 at Comunidad Cristiana Peniel to license Kidd as church planter   
for
the Little Calumet Christian Fellowship.

"There is dancing here this morning," said Juan Laureano, MOM director   
and
pastor of Comunidad Cristiana Peniel.  Laureano and Alan Howe, MBM urban
ministry director for Chicago, will coach Kidd in the effort.

"We will support each other, and we will see the victory," Laureano said.

MOM was founded in 1996 to encourage and support Christian ministries
focusing on worship, evangelism, discipleship-training, Bible study and   
service;
to engage in religious, charitable and educational outreach to people in   
the
Chicago area; and to develop partnerships among Mennonite and other   
Christian
congregations to promote Christian mission.

MOM is supported by a number of Mennonite congregations and conferences.

Since 1996, MOM has founded Iglesia Cristiana Peniel in Chicago,   
developed a
twice-weekly radio program, "Contagiate," trained cell-church leaders,
organized evangelistic concerts, and created a series of issue-oriented   
home
Bible-study materials for use by seekers exploring the Christian faith.

The Hammond/East Chicago area is known as "Little Calumet," a large,
multicultural section of the greater Chicago metropolitan area with many   
needs.

The plan is for the center to be located in a busy, cross-cultural   
commercial
area where several area racial/ethnic groups (whites, Hispanics, African-
Americans, Asians) can feel comfortable in coming together to form a
multicultural congregation.

The center is designed to be especially accessible to young people and   
will be
promoted through musical events, MOM's radio program, a web page, video
presentations, media publicity and other activities in the Chicago area.

"This city is known all over America as the most segregated city in   
America.
We are gathering in the name of the Lord Jesus and we are gathering as a
contradiction to this tension among all the different groups," said Howe,   
who
also serves as missions and service director for Illinois Mennonite   
Conference.
"We would not be together, but God has gathered us around the Lord Jesus,   

and a new thing has happened."

"This multicultural gathering is the church," added Glen Horner, Illinois   

conference minister.

Kidd, raised in a Regular Baptist family in Kendallville, Ind., had known   
of
Mennonites only as kin to the Amish. While studying at independent Taylor   

University in Upland, Ind., and searching for a church that "would marry   
my
feelings about social practice with the gospel," Kidd's professor (Dave   
Biberstein,
a Missionary Church professor with Swiss Mennonite roots) pointed him to   
the
Mennonites.

 "I was welcomed with open arms," Kidd said, describing a meeting with   
Del
Glick, Indiana-Michigan conference minister.

 "He's coming into the family by adoption - not by birth.  He's being   
admitted
into the larger family of faith in the same way most of us were adopted,"   
Howe
said.  "We believe it is God who has placed this new person in this new   
place."

God also placed a vision in Kidd's heart.

"God has given me a vision and a passion to pastor a small- to medium-
sized multicultural Generation X/baby buster-oriented church," Kidd said.   

"I grew up knowing the truth, but continued to veer from the path.  Yet   
in
my brokenness, Christ accepted me. That is the reality of my life - the
brokenness.  Yet in my weakness, I am made strong in Christ."

Through its Evangelism and Church Development program, MBM provides
financial and technical assistance to conference-based church-planting   
systems.

MBM's ECD staff assist sites and personnel, coach church planters (and   
other
coaches), and support leadership development efforts.

Mennonite Board of Missions, based in Elkhart, Ind., promotes the whole
gospel for a broken world as it builds communities of faith through 933   
workers
and volunteers in 27 countries.  With ministries of witness, nurture and   
healing,
MBM has been a worldwide web on behalf of the Mennonite Church since   
1899.
* * *
Tom Price