Flying Free: On the corner of 8th & Butler

We've always prided ourselves that we are a "lean, mean, missions machine" but this past month really showed how that plays out in ministry here at YouthPartnersNET and CityConnexx.

In January I joined our other staff person Tim Snowbarger as a part-time ramp agent for United Airlines. The beauty of this 10/hr week part-time position is that Tim and I get to fly "free" anywhere in the US. Well you can imagine with about 200 ministry partners in nearly every major city, this benefit has saved us thousands of dollars off our ministry travel budget.

Since Tim and I also get buddy passes, I was able to take our Director of Operations Mark Lingle with me to San Diego for a large youth conference. We met a bunch of youth pastors who want to take their groups on mission trips with CityConnexx. And with Hotwire hotels, eating nearly every meal at In & Out Burgers, this road trip was very inexpensive. That same weekend Tim flew free to OK to meet with about 50 youth pastors and stayed with family while back down in his hometown.

The next week I flew "free" to Indy to attend the Christian Community Development Conference. I got to meet old and new friends and signed up some new cities to join our national network. I stayed with my good friend Jay Height, who followed me as the ED of Shepherd Community, the ministry we founded in Indy back in 1985. We dreamed up a few ideas while visiting over coffee.

The following weekend I flew "free" again to visit some folks in NYC and Philly. My son is at NYU Law School so I crashed at his dorm on a roll away bunk bed. In Philly Ryan, one of our partners, invited me to stay with him. We toured his neighborhood and visited a couple of new church plants that are doing some amazing things. One of the seven church plants is in a corner house that use to be the biggest crack house on the East Coast. It was made famous in several popular gangster rap songs. Go ahead and google it "8th & Butler". And the church just bought another house on the opposite corner they want to renovate. God turned this corner from a "crack house to a church house" from "dope to hope" from "death to life". In the drug days, six were killed one night on this corner.

Next week, I'll be "flying free" off to another city, another corner, another urban church that needs folks like you to invest in a transformed neighborhood and future. I met many young people raised in the hood who are doing some real good for God. I hope you and your church will join us on a mission trip. Do something "Good for God" that will change your corner too!

Dean