I joined the Cafe today and am pleased to be able to connect with so many people from Indianapolis. I lead an organization called Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, based in Chicago.

The Cabrini Connections is a neighborhood based tutor/mentor program that connects workplace volunteers as tutors, mentors, coaches, advocates, with 7th to 12th grade inner city kids. When youth join us in 7th grade we make a promise to "do all we can to help these kids be starting jobs and careers by age 25."

We created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to help Cabrini Connections and every other tutor/mentor program in the city of Chicago keep this promise.

In 1999 I connected with the Dean of University College at IUPUI and as a result, some of the IUPUI staff started coming to conferences I host in Chicago. We began to talk about helping a T/MC type structure grow in Indianapolis. We're still having that discussion, but one demonstration of this partnership is that the T/MC web site was re-built in 2005 by IUPUI volunteers and is still hosted at IUPUI.

I tell you all of this because my hope is that some of you will begin to build a database of the different tutor/mentor programs serving Indianapolis, and will use the cafe as a forum to talk about what those programs do, what help they need from volunteers and donors, and what needs to be done to help good programs form in areas of the city with high poverty, but no tutor/mentor programs.

As you have this discussion, I'll be happy to share with you some of the ideas I am trying to implement in Chicago, and point you to research and other information you might use in your own community. School will be starting in a few weeks and unless we help tutor/mentor programs recruit volunteers, there will be too few kids in tutor/mentor programs at the start of the school year.

Visit http://tutormentor.blogspot.com to learn more about this idea and to find links to other information that you might use to support the growth of tutor/mentor programs in your city.

Daniel... Great to have you participate in the cafe mission, by starting this discussion item. And right on-target. If there's a hospitable center-point for driven Christians in a city... and especially one with PANCAKES... oh, and of course, COFFEE... then indeed it could host any number of great discussions. In fact, beyond just 'discussions'... it can be a center-point of ACTION.

I suspect many of us agree, after reading the Word and looking at Jesus' example... 'life on life' is a very effective way to replicate disciple-makers. So call it mentoring, discipling, or whatever... it should be a key piece of any ministry strategy.

We'd love to partner with mentoring ministries in our city. We've at least started compiling that 'database' using a wiki-page for MENTORING...
http://cityreaching.pbwiki.com/Mentoring

Moreover, the DeVos Urban Leadership Initiative folks (2 cohorts of 15 well-trained youth-workers) are currently meeting to discuss how they may best provide a 'Learning Center'... and probably at the cafe, one Saturday a month.

Other thoughts anyone?

Thanks for inviting me. I'm trying to combine the spiritual motivation of faith communities with the marketing and accountability of some of our best businesses. I encourage you to look at the maps on http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2008/07/focusing-power-of-faith-communities.html

These show the city of Chicago, poverty zones, locations of poorly performing schools, and the distribution of churchs, but individual denomination. Thus, if you're a Catholic looking at this map. the goal would be that you're saying "how can we support tutor/mentor programs at inner city churches" by "getting congregations from more affluent areas to provide volunteers, dollars, technology, etc."

If someone puts flags on the map to show which churches are doing something toward this goal, then you could begin to develop strategies to learn from those already involved, and to build new involvement in places where people are now sitting on the sidelines.

If this is happens from every denomination, and it happens from businesses led by members of these faith groups, the flow of resources to non profits working with kids will dramatically increase, meaning more kids will get better support and ultimately more kids will finish school and have a network of adults to help them to the next stage in their lives.

Without the maps you can fill a room with people, and still not be representing all of the places where kids need help in a community.

Well said. Geo-mapping our city and its needs by neighborhood... is a great way we can expedite the mission of the Church (in so many ways).

Visit http://IndyChristian.NET (our customized google-map of Indy). But it highlights how very far we have to go. And we would welcome collaborative Christians from Indy or elsewhere, who can help take our mapping methodology to a new level.

Btw, here in our metro area, there's a great GIS system for Social Assets and Vulnerabilities Indicators... http://SAVI.org ...but they're not yet really able to deliver their extensive data with a Web2.0 look/feel, like GoogleMaps. [but they're working on it]

Does anyone know of a Christian GIS 'group' ?

Neil,

Does the group helping you make Indianapolis a better place to live have to be a Christian group? Seems to me that you narrow your working group and limit your impact if that is the case?

SAVI is a great resource. Thanks for sharing it.

As you think of tools like this, you also need to think of ways to get a growing number of people from your community to view these tools and talk about what the information means in relation to who the people are who are looking at the information.

For instance, if you live in poverty areas you might look at this from one perspective, where you have limited resources to help yourself and your community change your situation.

If you live in an affluent area, or lead a business or university, you might look at this information from a different perspective, such as how you might use your assets to help change the future for those in poverty.

Unless people are looking at this information and discussing it with the same frequency, and numbers, that groups of people get together to discuss scripture, it's not likely that the GIS will have the value it potentially can have.

I have no 'group'. These 'driven Christians in the Racing Capital of the World' are a tapestry of folks involved in various and often overlapping teams on the same general mission -- the Great Commission -- yet with unique sub-missions.

You raise an excellent question that every Christ-follower should grapple with in their contexts.

Personally, I tend to ask myself what would be the model situation? My default answer leads me to believe that the Church, as it prays 'thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven', should be the most motivated to be a radical blessing in community, and one which will best glorify God in the process. I understand that from God's self-sacrificing nature and His call/command for us to recognize Him as Lord, to trust in His ways... and to go be/do likewise.

What else would we hope to instill in our neighborhood youth, if not godly character qualities? So yes, in my case, I look ahead and see that Christ-followers should be most qualified and motivated to help neighborhood kids succeed in life.

However I'm not terribly convinced that this is monolithically lived-out in what we call the American Church. And it shows. Barna Research indicates that only 4% of Americans hold a biblical worldview. A tree is known by its fruit, and that fruit says we've failed miserably at making replicating disciples. Whatever we've been doing, is in great need of renewal toward a more biblical model of 'Church'. I would intimate that the Bible only teaches that the Church is a geographically-dimensioned 'body of Christ' -- not a self-serving, competing, commuter-church.

Such a neighborhood collection, called the Church, should be well positioned then, to model life-on-life discipleship. The model mentors. Or at least should be (IMHO).

So my piece of the puzzle, especially during the digital paradigm-shift, is to seize the moment and use this time of 'change', to help connect & communicate among those who read the Word and understand it similarly -- no matter what (not actually) 'local' church they attend. And I believe that shift toward a geo-tapestry of driven Christians is now beginning to be coming of age.

Thus we can help influence our various churches to be most helpful to their own neighborhood schools, and the lives inside.

I love this answer. Hopefully I can help in some small way.