Urban Youth Workers Institute: Tommy Nixon, CEO
/The Neighborhood Leader
Are you called to Light up the Youth?
A father reaches out to the kids on the block. He doesn’t want them to steal from him, so he grills hot dogs. His efforts to build friendship and show kindness grows the backyard cookout into a full-on ministry with the neighborhood youth – all while taking care of his daughter with disabilities.
In Pomona, a leader ministering to troubled youth, this last year, has lost 14 of his students to violence. Not only is he dealing with the war outside, but also, the war inside from enemy attacks on his spirit. He is planning on going on sabbatical.
A leader plays video games with a group of drug dealers living rough. He pursues relationship with them online, his headset the only connection to their world, and finds out that one kid doesn’t have any food. Not wanting to embarrass him, he contacts another leader and has food delivered while they’re still playing. At that moment the hungry youth realized the provision of God.
REVIVAL. We need a great revival in the Christian faith.
A song titled “Lord Send Revival” comes to mind. Hillsong Young and Free cries out passionately, “Lord send Revival, Lord send it now, a move of your Spirit, Heaven break out, come now in power, cover this land, like you’ve done it before, would you do it again.” Our praise is powerful to move the Spirit into action, but we can also partner with the Spirit. Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38).
It’s time for the Kingdom flame to ignite the world, but how do we work the harvest, and who do we pursue?
Urban Youth Workers Institute in Santa Ana, CA identified the need to equip willing laborers with the leadership skills necessary to lead our youth in a great revival. UYWI exists to empower urban youth workers so that urban youth have the leaders and role models they need to live transformed lives by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Why?
The world is increasingly young, urban, and multi-ethnic. By 2045 the majority in the United States will become the minority when 51% of the population will be multi-ethnic. However, this change for those 18 and younger, happened in 2020. This is what the future of the church will look like. When it comes to revival, urban youth represent the richest group that if caught on fire by the Holy Spirit, will have a global impact.
So how do we reach a multiethnic urban youth? 1.2 million young people are leaving the church every year. At this rate it is estimated that 42 million young people could leave the church by 2050. We are facing an incredible urgency to reach the next generation! What could be a more important work than ministering to and retrieving the lost youth?
Youth need leaders that can model, walk, and talk out what it means to be Christian and to have a personal relationship with Jesus. But leaders cannot go into the battle alone, they need the church body to help support and pour into them, so they have the strength to serve the broken, addicted, violent, and lost urban youth.
UYWI provides free resources and monthly trainings on topics such as: how to disciple youth, build leadership skills, understand trauma-informed mentorship, and more. But their bread and butter is a low cost, yearlong leadership program (UYWI Certification Program) that focuses on equipping leaders with the 12 elements of effective youth ministry with a specific focus on Personal Leadership (Developing Me), Ministry (Developing My Ministry), and Community (Developing My Community).
One of the greatest tricks of the enemy is to make you believe that you are alone in your battle, tiring you down and beating you down through isolation. UYWI stands firm in the place of disconnection and offers a network of connections unique to your location called Fuel Networks, launched during the pandemic. If you need help, help is there.
Tommy Nixon, CEO at UYWI, shared with us “[their] goal is to reach 15,000 leaders to reach 1 million youth with the Gospel.” One of the ways they are doing that is through Digital Discipleship. Tommy explained, “We launched a resource called Digital Discipleship, a video resource and training to help leaders and churches know how to reach and disciple youth digitally. Along with those videos, there are technical videoscreated to help any novice set up their technology to better engage with students. In September 2020, youth no longer wanted to attend youth groups via zoom, but they were still playing war zone and fortnight. Using this resource, we put together a tournament to help leaders reach youth in the language they understand.”
If you’re starting up a nonprofit, church, youth group, ministry, or just the parent in the neighborhood with all the kids at your house and you’re unsure of what to do with them, UYWI is a great resource.
If you’d like to partner with UYWI and their mission, please consider becoming an Urban Ally and answer the call to Light up the Youth.
