Articles from our E-Update

If you're thinking about coming to The Gathering Conference in September, but are unsure what to do with your kids, bring them along! After last year's rave reviews, we are again offering GenNext camp for children between the ages of 3 and 18. Beach fun, powerful praise and worship, and plenty of surprises are being planned by the energetic, college-aged staff of Pine Cove Christian Camps. GenNext Camp is a great way for everyone in the family to really enjoy the conference! The cost of $500 per child covers all food and activities. Hurry though, the registration deadline is August 1, 2008! For more details, or to register for GenNext Camp, contact Melea Edwards at 903-509-9911 or meleaedwards@thegathering.com.

What? More than half of Evangelical Christians believe there's more than one way to God? Over 20 percent of those who call themselves atheists believe God exists? These are some of the findings of a poll of more than 35,000 American adults conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Below is a sampling of articles written about the survey, as well as a link to Pew Forum's website.

Americans Religious in Unpredictable Ways, CT

A Tactical Leap of Faith - Washington Post

Christians: No One Path to Salvation, Time

U.S. Atheists Seem to Be Confused, Reuters

Link to Pew Forum's Website for summary of key findings

Last August, the Christian community lost a great leader and mentor in Fred Smith, Sr., but his wisdom can still be accessed today through his books and the website, BreakfastWithFred.com. In this article, his daughter, Brenda, recounts a 4,000-mile road trip that was fueled by memories of her father and his wisdom.

Click to read article

TG - How was The Belmont Foundation born?

Don: A few years ago I was working on a book called To Own a Dragon - a book about kids who were growing up without fathers. While writing the book, I had a lot of reflections on people who had mentored me as a kid - so that was my realization that mentoring is very important. I saw an opportunity to create something more than a book for kids who are growing up without a dad. As I brainstormed with others about this idea, we realized that the infrastructure to do this already exists within the evangelical church. This meant we wouldn't need to build a building. Also, the men who would be able to do the mentoring are already there - their hearts already want to mentor, but what was missing was an equipping organization to help churches start a mentoring program and to guide them as that program grows. So, Belmont Foundation became that - that's the heart of it, that's what started it and that has remained the heart of it.

TG - So you would say the heart of the Belmont Foundation is to equip the church to mentor young boys without dads?

Don: Exactly - that would be a sort of big umbrella. More specifically we come into a church with a menu of options of how they should tackle the mentoring issue within their church, and then really guide them personally with a Belmont staff member in starting that mentoring program and running it and seeing it grow. So it's a lot of one on one, hands on time as opposed to us just sending the church a booklet.

TG: How many churches are you currently partnering with?

Wade: We are just a year into this model. We hope to have a 1000 churches partnering with us in the next ten years. Right now we're in three churches and will add a few more this summer, but we have over 100 churches nationally that have signed up online, expressing an interest in our training and starting a mentoring program. Our real goal is to start with a pod of ten churches in key cities like Atlanta, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Portland that would be "gatekeeper" churches. Those churches would then have the ability and influence to bring in other churches in their area and train them in the Belmont mentoring program.

TG: How are you offering training to churches that want to partner with Belmont?

Wade: Our initial contact is usually by phone, and then we visit the church to meet with key leaders in their men's ministry. Eventually, we plan to use technology to help with training, whether it is online streaming, podcasts or things of that nature. As we grow, we hope to have a larger staff to build relationships with churches around the country and then offer them a resource library to build and sustain their Belmont mentoring program.

TG: Don, you mentioned that you had key mentors in your life. Was your dad absent in your growing up years?

Don: Yea h - my dad left before I was three years old. I really never interacted with him until last year. One of the persons who stepped in for me was a youth pastor named David Gentiles - Blue Like Jazz was dedicated to him. And then there have also been several other guys - probably six or seven - that have spoken into my life and still to this day continue to do so. I write about all of that in To Own a Dragon. Some of those stories are pretty funny.

I was breaking into houses in junior high - really getting into some bad stuff, when David Gentiles stepped in and pulled me into church, introduced me to literature, and gave me a chance to start writing. It really redirected the course of my life.

TG: Don you're known mainly as an author and speaker, are people surprised when they discover you're also a philanthropist?

Don: I've never had anybody surprised. I think people who've read To Own a Dragon see it as an obvious next step. That was a great book to introduce people to my heart to mentor. In the early stages of starting the Belmont foundation, I've had to be very careful as I speak about it around the country. The demand in churches and from single moms for this type of training is so enormous that when I do mention that we are starting a mentoring foundation we are just flooded with requests for it. We've had to be careful not to put the cart before the horse and we're just now at a stage where we're ready to multiply the program. I'll be able to speak about it more and more and draw more attention to it and the need that it exists to meet.

TG: While the demand for mentors is great, what about the supply? Is it difficult to find men who are willing to engage in mentoring?

Wade: It is difficult, but some of the things that make it difficult are very easy to remedy. One of those is that while we cast a vision for "life-long mentoring", what that really means is that we want men to spend an hour a week with a kid. It can be a challenge to engage men in this because it's kind of an emotional engagement. Also, the thought of spending time with a kid when both of you begin as strangers to one another can be intimidating. That's why our training is so fundamental - we want men to feel equipped to do this. What we often find is that the mentors realize it's not intimidating, but it's fun because the boys they mentor end up teaching them how to be a kid again. We think as our mentors share their positive stories, other men will want to engage in mentoring as well. The stories, not the program, will attract other mentors.

TG: Can you share a story of how you've seen God using this program in a boy's life?

Wade: I've been mentoring an eleven year old for less than a year. We spend an hour a week together. He hasn't made a commitment to Christ, but I'm starting to see some changes in him. One thing I've helped him do is identify one of his strengths - teaching. He had never seen that before. His big plan was to become a basketball star and the kid will never be tall enough to do that. But now, he's thinking about becoming a teacher.

You know there are other things we see that are hard to measure. One of the pressures a boy who is being raised by a single mom feels is that he needs to become a man very early. So, one of the things we teach our kids is just to be silly - to just be a kid. We want to help take that pressure off and help them enjoy life. What we find is that the time we spend with these kids really is the highlight of their week.

TG: What about the moms of these boys? Does the Belmont Foundation offer any support for them?

Wade: We have a few things in the works. A lot of churches we've spoken with already have a ministry for single moms. What we've found is that the biggest ministry we can offer is trying to help fill the biggest void they have. Most single moms will say the hardest thing for them is seeing their boy grow up without a father.

One of the things we are doing in addition to that is working on some curriculum for single mom support groups. We're doing this in conjunction with researchers at George Fox University. Part of that curriculum is helping single moms change the paradigm they have about God as father. There's a lot of concentrated prayer that goes along with that. Really, the goal of the group is to help these moms hold onto God as their father and as their kid's father as well.

TG: Your website refers to the "crisis of fatherlessness" in our country. Is part of your mission to expose this crisis?

Wade: We definitely want to bring aware ness to it. People need to look at the statistics of kids growing up without dads. There are about 25 million kids in the U.S. growing up without a dad. Eighty-five percent of the male prison population grew up without a father. The majority of kids in gangs in America's inner cities are kids who are growing up without dads. In fact, there's a gang in New Mexico that's called the Fatherless Boys - the common thing they share is that all of their dads are incarcerated.

We feel that the core of these issues revolves around the breakdown of the family. Fatherless boys don't just need a dad around, but a dad who's engaged and a healthy male role model. What we believe, and what research shows, is that mentoring is one of the most profound ways to deal with a lot of these social problems. Having somebody reach out to a young man to help develop him saves him from a lot things, like dropping out of school or even suicide. Sixty-three percent of teen suicides are fatherless kids.

Don: The cause of the breakdown of the family really goes back to the industrial revolution. When the father left the home to go somewhere else to work, that is when everything fell apart. So, we don't have a plan to reverse the industrial revolution, but what we've noticed in the evangelical church is that there's a strong emphasis on the existing family. There's not a strong emphasis on dealing with the heart of the problem - which is young men growing up without a model of what the family even looks like in the first place. When these kids grow up, get married and have their own kids, it's like putting them in the cockpit of a plane and they've never been in a plane before. What the church is doing is helping existing pilots stay in the cockpit. We want to help the church go farther back than that with these kids and teach them how to fly.

I know in my life, having that model of what a man looks like, what a man does, how to find identity as a man apart from a life of crime, all of that was really important. It's not that these are bad kids; it's just that they have no clue as to what path they're supposed to go down. So, when their aggression comes out or their need for identity or importance comes out, it manifests itself in ways that aren't healthy. They just need a good role model, and when I say that to pastors I find that their hearts are already there and they want to help.

TG: Tell us about the upcoming possibility of a camp experience for kids and their mentors.

Wade: Young Life here in Oregon has offered us the use of their camp, Wildhorse Canyon, for kids who are being mentored by the Belmont Foundation. That will happen at the end of this summer. We're excited about that because a lot of changes can happen in seven days when you're at camp, especially when it comes to relational breakthroughs. As more mentoring programs spring up around the country, we would love to see our camp relationship with Young Life grow as well.

TG: Don, ten or twenty years from now, what would success for the Belmont Foundation look like as far as you're concerned?

Don: I met with the Bush administration last year, and Laura Bush's big emphasis during her time as First Lady has been mentoring. Meeting with her gave me a vision similar to hers and that would be that within twenty years we would actually be able to see a statistical drop in crime based on the fact that thousands of churches would be mentoring potentially hundreds of thousands of kids who would otherwise be growing up without fathers.

TG: What are your biggest needs?

Wade: The greatest need we have as far as expansion is concerned is financial. We could really benefit by adding some additional staff. Beyond that, it would be for churches to catch a vision for what we can offer and for men within those churches to rise to the challenge of mentoring.

Visit the Belmont Foundation's website

Purchase Don's book, To Own a Dragon

Here are details about the trip:

When: September 22 - October 4, 2008

What: Join us as we travel to Kenya and Mozambique! In Kenya, we will visit the community where Children of Hope is launching their first children's home. We will also be visiting existing Circle of Light communities and families that have been transformed by this program. Then continue with us to Mozambique and help us as we celebrate with the villagers in the launching of our first two community Energy Centers in Xai Xai (Shy Shy).

It is our hope that you will be motivated and inspired by the visions, goals, and impacts of the Circle of Light and Children of Hope programs. This trip is an excellent opportunity to prayerfully consider how you can join in the work God has commissioned us to do in Africa. Space is limited, so reserve your spot today!

For more information or to reserve your place contact:

Jeff Loving, Circle of Light

303-423-1357 ext.1

jeff.loving@2uplift.org

Elaine Storck, Children of Hope

303-423-1357 ext.2

elaine.storck@2uplift.org

Read an interview with John Coors about Circle of Light

Visit the Circle of Light website

There's a new movement of Evangelicals who don't have a name or a leader, but they're zealous about making a difference in the world based on Jesus' teachings on the poor, the outcast and peacemakers. They're theologically conservative, but don't like the angry intolerance of the religious right and cringe when they're associated with it. How will this movement affect national politics and the upcoming election? These two articles offer some insight...

The New Evangelicals, The New Yorker

Obama Works to Close Faith Gap, Real Clear Politics