By Karen L. Willoughby, Managing Editor
JENNINGS – Youth from a dozen or more churches plan to go on mission this summer.
They’re not going out of state or out of the country. They’re going to minister in Jefferson Davis Parish. For most, it’s their figurative “back yard.”
“About a year ago, several of us got to talking,” said Blaine St. Germain, associate pastor at Bethel Baptist Church in Jennings, referring to a group of people who lead youth. “We felt like – Ephesians 4 – our job as ministers is to equip the saints for ministry. We do all these other things [mission projects elsewhere], but are we equipping our students to do the work of a minister?
“We decided we needed to do things – train and equip them to do this as a part of life – that they would develop a lifestyle of mission work,” St. Germain continued. “The whole concept of the 410 Project is being the church, showing the community the love of Christ outside the four walls of the church.”
The 410 project – the name comes from 1 Peter 4:10 – is set to take place June 13-16. Teens – junior high and high school students – will pay $100 each for food, lodging, morning devotions and training, plus evening praise, and for the opportunity of doing such things as washing cars, minor construction projects such as patching holes or repairing pipes, tending overgrown lots, mowing lawns and even planting gardens, all at no cost to the person being served.
“With every project, we want to do two things,” St. Germain said. “Love people where they’re at, serve them, while at the same time, equipping our people to use their gifts to extend God’s grace to a broken world.”
The plan is that all the teens – about 100 are involved so far – will go to one community on each of the four days, doing a dozen or more different projects each day in that community. The teens in some cases will be “apprenticed” as they learn from adults how to do minor construction projects, landscape yards, plant the homeowner’s choice of a flower or vegetable garden or similar service projects.
The reason some people don’t have gardens is because they can no longer work in them, St. Germain said, so one teen from that community will be assigned to return to weed the garden each week that the 410 Project planted, and if the homeowner isn’t able, to water it.
The teens already are raising money for the supplies that will be needed, so everything is a totally free gift to the elderly or infirm homeowner/renter.
“Every project will have two things,” St. Germain said. “An intercessor, whose assignment that day is to pray for the family we’re serving; and another teenager to share their faith.”
As part of their four-day mission endeavor, the teens will be taught to intercede in prayer, and to share their faith. “Every morning we will also have training seminars for different areas of ministry in the church,” the associate pastor continued. “We’ll have a worship seminar, youth ministry seminar, media seminar … to help equip the teenagers to serve in their local church.”
Contact St. Germain at 337.370.6456 or hathaway11@yahoo.com to join the 410 Project in Jefferson Davis Parish, or to talk about doing a 410 Project in your community.