When the Lord began to open the door for this new role in the ministry of Adult and Teen Challenge I honestly had some questions. I knew there were some things that the Lord had laid heavily on my heart for the future in ministry. I wasn’t sure if Teen Challenge was in the picture. As I was praying for clarity and direction I heard the Lord say, “write down the vision that I have given you”. As I wrote it down, I realized that it was exactly what the ministry of Adult and a Teen Challenge was about. These four words have become our “unofficial” mission statement.
The acronym REDS stands for the four facets of our unofficial mission: REVIVE | EVANGELIZE | DISCIPLE | SEND.
REVIVE
At Adult and Teen Challenge we have the amazing opportunity to work with and serve the local church. From our rallies to our evangelism efforts, to our opportunities to help with projects and missions, we take seriously our connection with the local body. The heart behind “Revive” is to be an encouragement and a support to the body of Christ. With our rallies we have the opportunity to visit different churches during their times of worship and share what the Lord is still doing in and throughout the earth. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, He is powerful, He is mighty!
EVANGELIZE
The great commission says that we should “GO”! And we desire to do just that. ATCNI is a very unique ministry in the fact that we get to minister to men who are fresh off the streets, out of the jails, have lived under the bridges, and more. Not only do we desire to minister to men who have come out of such situations, but we desire to go and find them there as well. Our job security is evangelism! And what a good one it is. We have all been in similar places as ATC staff members and we cannot forget where we came from. We can’t forget that at one point in our own lives someone reached down to us while we were at the lowest of the low point in our lives. Now it’s our joy to put our hand back in the fire from whence we came.
DISCIPLE
The heartbeat of our ministry is discipleship. If we go back to the early days of Teen Challenge ministry we would find a few key elements that have brought us this far. First would be prayer, next would-be evangelism, yet all these things ultimately led to a ministry that was set apart for discipleship. What does it look like to find a man who is tired of his way of living and ready to change, yet doesn’t know how? That’s why we exist. Often, we run across men who want to change but don’t know how. The culmination of our approach is to help facilitate a man in yielding their lives to Christ, in putting their trust in Him, and committing to live out a relationship with Him through the obedience of His word and the experience of His presence. Amen.
SEND
While sometimes scary and unsure, this is where everything reveals itself. To take a man from the streets, lostness, death, jails, etc., to see them come to know Jesus, make a public profession to follow Him, submit himself to a process that’s intention is to facilitate a personal relationship with a God that will walk with you wherever you go, and miss this step, could be tragic. We know that all of the work that we pour into our men is intended to come to fruition beyond the walls of Teen Challenge. We have processes in place to help men take the next best step beyond the ministry. Whether it’s our Victory House, an internship, returning to be with family, or some other God inspired avenue, it is our goal to walk with our men well beyond their stay at ATC. This is life! And that’s exactly what we have desired to do with these men; life.