This Blog is going to be little bit different than the other ones that list worthless details about my life to make you think I'm cool. We're going to get deep for a quick minute. So if you can't handle that .. stop reading now and go back to watching "Saved by the Bell" re-runs. For the rest of you..read on.
In 2005 my wife and I started a non profit organization called Dirty Vagabond Ministries with the goal of providing effective youth ministry to urban communities. We didn't want it to be a "spring break" kind of thing where we paint a couple houses and then head back to our comfy lives. We wanted to invest our lives and energies into these communities. The issue lies here: Out of 19,000+ parishes in our country, only a handful are urban parishes with a full time youth ministry program. This has become a huge problem for the Church for two reasons. One .. they cannot afford a youth minister. Two .. youth ministers don't want to work in these churches because they are messy and there is no money.
Our plan is to create a community center in a downtown urban area and provide 2 youth workers to do radical, relational, ministry to the youth of that city. We would provide the funding and the resources to make the ministry be able to happen. Dirty Vagabond Ministries, in a sense, would be working for the church outside the church, though our goal would be the same - raising Saints rooted in the Sacramental life of the Church.
This fall we will be launching 2 pilots of the program: one in Queens New York, the second in Steubenville Ohio. We recently met with a very enthusiastic Bishop Conlon who gave us not only his blessing but also a building to use in downtown Steubenville.
Now we face the challenge of raising $100,000 to make the program a possibility. $10,000 of that will go to immediate repairs/ renovations to the building we were given in Steubenville in hopes of opening that building by August.
Our prayer is that you would consider being a part of this vision. There are two places you can go to read more in regards to this non-profit.
www.dirtyvagabond.com
http://dirtyvagabond.blogspot.com/
Here you can read about the adventure and enroll in our monthly giving program or make a one time tax deductable gift. Even if you can make the sacrifice of giving up on Coffee or Chimichanga a month .. you could get involved at $5 a month. This would help us immensely. Your money has the potential to change thousands of peoples lives. Think about it. Pray about it. Do something about it.
Please feel free to email me personally if you have any questions/ comments in regards to what we are doing .. bob@dirtyvagabond.com
I'll be honest: I love hip hop. I love being part of the game. But I feel like this is what I was created for.
Thanks for sharing the dream
B
