Staff Writer

“Probably the greatest problem

I see today is the disharmony

that exists within the redeemed

community,” said Royce Evans,

director of ministry residency

and the Urban Initiative. “We’re

so fragmented by denominational

doctrine and personal preference

our ability to get along with

each other is affecting the way we

are serving.”

That is why the Grand

Rapids Theological Seminary

(GRTS) has opened a new urban

ministries cohort in Muskegan.

The program began in

Grand Rapids in 2008. Since

then, GRTS included another

cohort in Grand Rapids, one

in Kalamazoo, and the present

one in Muskegan. In Lansing,

another cohort will be officially

launched fall 2010.

The urban ministry cohort

is a 6-year program designed to

provide opportunities for those

involved in full-time ministry

to receive a masters level training.

Everyone in the group, or

cohort, progress through the

program together and meet

once a week.

Evans said that one of the

great advantages about this

program is that it brings together

ministers from different

denominational backgrounds,

races and genders. The tangible

benefits of uniting such a diverse

group of people are already

being felt in the community.

“There are some people in

that room I would never have

been involved with if it weren’t

for that group. I am now aware

of the other activities that

other churches are doing and

am beginning to be invited to

participate in other ministry

opportunities,” said Stedford

Sims, student of the Grand

Rapids cohort. He is the pastor

of outreach for Sherman Street

Church, as well as working with

a prison congregation called

Celebration Fellowship.

Another student in her

fourth year, Denise Stevenson,

is pastor of women’s ministries

at City Hope Ministries Church

as well as working full time with

Pregnancy Resource Center. She

said networking with the other

students has helped them find

out about and take advantage of

the different ministries.

“A lot of us are seeing the same

issues in our communities and it

allows us to strategize and assist

each other,” Stevenson said.

Some of the issues are certainly

severe with unemployment

on the rise and gang activity

increasing in urban centers.

“There was a period of time

when we were probably burying

a gang member, a person of

gang affiliation or sometimes

just the victims on a weekly

basis,” Evans said.

Stevenson said encouragement

is needed in the community

she works with as she often

sees young girls who need to

take on a lot more responsibility

than your average teen by

either caring for their younger

siblings, or getting a job to help

support their family rather than

hanging out with their friends.

“The most striking thing is

a lack of hope,” Sims said. “No

vision for a better future. No job

prospect, no vision of a college

education and then going into

a career. What happens is the

gospel cannot just be preached.

It has to be lived out in front of

their eyes.”

Evans strongly believes that

Urban Ministries Cohorts will

be invaluable to the community.

“Outside the seminary there

are probably thousands of

schools of thoughts for the cures

to societal ills,” he said. “We

don’t have that distraction. We

profess the centrality of Christ

and a biblical worldview. So

our marching orders are pretty

clear.”

Guest columnist

Budgets are tight across the country, and belt-tightening is the order of the day.

At most high schools, the first thing to be tapped into for savings is interscholastic athletics, because those in charge still haven’t decided that sports has value as part of the academic model. It’s happening at the collegiate level as well, especially since the demands of Title IX have forced schools into equal spending and opportunity for females.

Add women’s soccer, eliminate men’s wrestling. One-for-one, seems fair enough.

But that kind of thinking is short-sighted. Athletics in high school, as well as at colleges below the money-driven Division I programs, has significant educational values.

To many, saying “sports teaches you to get up when you fall” or “sports teaches you how to work together, to challenge yourself, to always strive to do your best” would be cliché-spouting. But reality proves that kind of thinking to be wrong.

Over the years countless numbers of studies have been done that prove that involvement in all manner of extra-curricular activities produces a positive response from those who take part.

• A Women’s Sports Foundation survey of 13,481 athletes, male and female, found that athletes had higher grades and lower dropout rates than non-athletes.

• A study of 56,140 students by the Texas Education Agency revealed that 23 percent of those involved in sports or other extra-curricular activity failed one or more courses, as compared to 46 percent of those not involved.

• A Minnesota State High School Association study showed students who participated in two or more activities has a better GPA 92.82) than those who took part in only one (2.61). Non-participants weighed in at 2.39.

• A Kansas High School Activities Association study found only six percent of students who dropped out of school had taken part in athletics. The other 94 percent of drop-outs had been non-participants.

• The Institute for Athletics in Education at the University of Chicago conducted 30,000 interviews over a five-year period. The findings were that kids who participate in sports are 92 percent more likely to stay away from drugs, boys are 2-1/2 more times likely to graduate, girls are three times more likely to graduate, girls are 80 percent less likely to get pregnant and minority athletes are two and a half times more likely to graduate from college than non-athletes.

• In one of the most impressive studies, Fortune Magazine surveyed all Fortune 500 companies. What they found out was that 47 percent of those in positions of executive vice-president and above had been National Honor Society members. But 95 percent were former high school and college athletes.

I once wrote about a professor at Havorford College, a prestigious small college in Pennsylvania, who thought athletics were a waste of time, and decided to prove it. He took part in a 40-year study to follow athletes and non-athletes through life and career.

When he finished he completely changed his mind. His finding was simple. His survey showed that even more than grades or ACT/SAT test scores, the first predictor of success in later life turned out to be participation in extra-curricular activities.

Forget Big Ten football. That is an entirely different animal. In fact, barely a dozen major football programs in the country actually show a profit. A school that has a $120 million athletic budget-Ohio State comes to mind-has an entirely different focus on athletic competition than a smaller school where the reward for students in the preparation and competition itself.

What happens across West Michigan every Friday night, as well as what happens here on campus throughout the week, has significant educational value.

Otherwise there is no reason to spend the time or the money.

Athletic competition is not a cliché. It is a way of impacting lives, of helping males and females alike become the best at what they do.

By Karissa Ryan
Staff writer

The Grand Rapids Theological Seminary is taking the Biblical mandate of “Go ye….” to heart and extending their “Urban Initiatives” program to Kalamazoo.

The program will offer both a certificate to non-degree seekers, as well as a Master of Arts in Ministry Leadership degree.

GRTS first saw the need to extend its services to those in Grand Rapids, and after four years of discussing with urban leaders, the “Urban Initiative” began in the fall of 2008. Soon after beginning the program, GRTS began receiving calls from all over Michigan, including Benton Harbor, Muskegon, Lansing and Kalamazoo.

“We realized that we needed to explore bringing theological education to these city leaders,” said Douglas Fagerstrom, president of the GRTS. “The most aggressive requests we received came from Kalamazoo, so we believed that was our first venue off site.” 

Students include pastors, church ministry leaders and any others who are currently involved in urban ministry.

The goal of the “Urban Initiative” program is to bring extended studies to those who are capable but who have also been limited in the past, whether that is due to financial problems, time restraints, or a location problem. This first class will consist of about 30 students, all from unique backgrounds and areas of ministry. Students will meet every Monday night for three hours at the Galilee Baptist church in Kalamazoo.

Unlike Cornerstone’s Professional and Graduate Studies Program (PGS), these classes are not condensed and will take a full semester to complete. The Master’s program will thus take six years, with each course lasting the full 14 weeks. For those not seeking a degree, the program is not quite as long.

Non-degree seekers and degree-seeking leaders alike will begin “Systematic Theology 1″ this fall. In the next few years, they will have completed “Systematic Theology 2 and 3,” “Biblical Theology,” “Biblical Hermeneutics” and “Social Ethics.” After these courses, only those wishing to obtain their master’s degree will continue.

While the program has only officially been around for one year, Fagerstrom has been involved with urban ministry leaders for the last five years while serving as president of the GRTS. He said he is “personally grateful to God that he has called us to serve those who serve the under-served in our urban population.”

He continued to share how successful the Grand Rapids initiative has been, measuring it by the colossal amount of positive feedback he receives from these leaders. Many have shared how it has already impacted their preaching.

Tara Kram, director of the Grand Rapids Theological Seminary admissions, has helped to facilitate the recruitment and the admissions of these students. She shares that in the year with the Grand Rapids cohort, it has been wonderful to see how God brings leaders from very “unique communities in and of themselves [who] normally might not have interaction with one another,” and that a benefit of the program already is the bringing together of leaders despite social or denominational class differences.

But they aren’t the only ones being impacted. “It’s important to see how urban leaders are influencing the Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and this is sometimes overlooked,” Kram said. “An even more important thing is what they are bringing to our community here.”

While the hopes are to extend the training into more communities, right now, according to Kram, it looks as though the program will simply be adding more cohorts in Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. Muskegon is a possibility for January, and although Lansing and Benton Harbor have been looked into, they are on hold at the moment. But with interest expressed as far away as Detroit, this will continue to be one way that the GRTS fulfills the biblical mandate of “Go ye…”

Then he asked for the five dollar bill back, and he gave me a second twenty dollar bill instead.

The money covered an expensive taxi story I was writing for the World Journalism Institute in Manhattan. I was the student reporter, he was the instructor. And Manny, a former Miami Herald editor, didn’t want me to go shorthanded.

That told me something about him from day one. It told me how much he cared about reporting. He was a nice guy, a gentleman, all that. But even more he had a fire for reporting, and he was passionate about passing that on to his students.

And that was true for all the professors and staff at the World Journalism Institute. WJI brought in the all the best speakers and teachers from CNN’s Clayton Sizemore to The Indianapolis Star’s Russ Pulliam. They went all out to give us first-class experience so we could succeed.

“My goal is to end up giving you the torch,” Garcia told us. “You move it forward and you keep it relevant from what you learn here.”

• Anthony Bradley (Covenant Theological Seminary) taught worldview, and helped us incorporate our Christian faith in the workplace.
• Michael Longinow (Biola University) was an outstanding encourager. He kicked off the journalism portion of the course with many smaller assignments to prepare us for the big project that we worked on throughout the course.
• Manny Garcia (El Nuevo Herald) boosted our efforts with an investigative edge that gave more depth to our stories.
• Clayton Sizemore (CNN) labored with us over our videos, as we filmed, logged, edited and produced video stories.
• And Kenny Irby (Poynter Institute) placed the finishing touches on our projects by helping us complete photo stories.

Each of these professors are experts in their fields. So we learned from the best, ensuring top-notch quality. And they were constantly encouraging us to pursue excellence.

“You have to write better than they do. Not as good as, better,” Longinow told us about the fierce competition ahead. “You have to stay out on streets reporting longer than they do.”

“Come early, leave late. Be relentless,” he added. “Doesn’t mean you have to be a workaholic. Just means you have to be driven and passionate. That will gain the respect of people who don’t know Christ.”

They encouraged us to look for diverse perspectives to tell the story from different angles.

“When other people zig, you zag,” Longinow said. “The crowds going left, you go (right)….I bet there’s a story over there and I’m going to find it.”

It wasn’t easy. It was a challenge. But it was worth it.

“It’s long hours – this career is long hours – and it can be like a battlefield,” Garcia said. “It’s like a war. You’re in a war because you want to get the story. You fight the battle…It’s a battle you got to learn things. You got to learn it on the fly.”

“We’re in a tough (economic) time right now, but this is the key: People will always need information,” he added. “And that’s what you can report and give them.”