Faith in Action

I received a funny text message from one of my best friends on December 30, 2007. In the message, he says that he is going to start a “Wackest 2008 Church Motto” contest. For those not famililar with the church motto practice in the traditional Black church - it goes like this. A preacher looking to excite the congregation toward the end of the year begins thinking about words/phrases that rhyme with the coming year. S/He then jumps at the opportunity to incorporate this phrase in the sermon or throw it across the upcoming church conference banner. Before you know it, members of that church are going around saying this phrase as if it was divine revelation from God while totally discounting the fact that their preacher just created a pseudo-religous nursery rhyme for their quick consumption.

My boy texted me the list of mottos that he feels are coming down the pipe this year. His guesses are:

We’re sure that these will make an appearance this year and sadly many more wack church mottos are yet on the way.

His text did get me to thinking though about a motto that I hope to put into practice this year. It goes: “I must lose excess weight in 2008.” Okay - besides the general “wackness” of the statement, it does speak to something that I am actively doing already on the second day of a new year.

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As I shared last month, I am a proud mentor in a program that serves incarcerated youth at the Charles Hickey School in Baltimore County. I’ve joined with four other strong brothers and we go to Hickey every Saturday for a strong 90 minute session - half youth develoment / half recreation.

The 15 (or so) young men that we mentor range between the ages of 15 and 18. Their charges are as petty as not completing community service as a stipulation of probation and as serious as selling narcotics and grand theft auto.

Because Hickey is a short term facility (supposed to be anyway), we only have about 5 weeks to positively impact the lives of these young men before they are moved out to a placement, another facility, or released back into the community.

We’ve been going strong now for two months and have learned much about the young men and ourselves. God has really blessed the mentors with great chemistry and comraderie. We all are 30 or younger, college educated, community-involved, married men - some with children. And all of us have a personal relationship with God that we do not hide from our mentees or staff. Prayer is a central part of our sessions and we stress to the young brothers that if they don’t have a spiritual connection with Almighty God that they will continue trafficking in the same hazardous circles that got them in Hickey in the first place.

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Hey Family.  Many of you know that I did a five year stint on a local public radio station connected to my alma mater - Morgan State University.  I hosted a gospel music show called the Gospel Grace Early Morning Show.  At different times there were various hosts and during the last 18 months or so I was the only host of the show.  I loved being on the air and really enjoyed talking to so many people every Sunday morning from 5AM - 8AM. (or was it 9AM?) 

Anyway during my last year on the air, the station positioned myself and a good sisterfriend of mine named Rev. Myisha Cherry to host a new religious public affairs program called Faith In Action.  With our show we purposed to “build the bridge between belief and service.”  At Myisha’s suggestion, I started this blog to serve as the online version of the show.  When she suggested this, I had no idea what a blog was, but I liked the idea of conversing with our Sunday morning listeners during the week.  As it turned out, Faith In Action lasted only a little more than 1 year because of managerial shifts.  I, along with many others, were scrapped from the station as well, but the blog continued and eventually grew to this level because I had no other creative outlet.  So thank Rev. Myisha Cherry and a certain public radio station for the Faith in Action Online Blog as you know it today.

Ok Heber - why the history lesson?  Good question.

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Distinguished Brothers:

As most of you know, I facilitate two men’s groups over at the Metropolitan Transitional Center (i.e. Baltimore prison). The two groups are:

1) Supporting Ex-Offenders in Employment Training & Transitional Services (SEETTS), a reentry services program that teaches ex-offenders everything they need to know to find employment upon their release. This program runs Monday - Thursday morning, from 9am - 11am

2) Lost & Found, a multi-faith, nondenominational, spiritually-based life skills program that teaches young Brothers everything they need to know to survive & succeed in a racially hostile nation. This program runs Tuesday & Wednesday evening, from 7pm - 8pm.

Both of these programs are designed to educate, uplift, and empower Black male offenders.

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