Engage - Our Origin Story
Over a decade ago, the first Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America called on a priest in his diocese with substantial experience in youth ministry and asked a favor. “Could you gather some youth ministry leaders to devise a strategy to help smaller churches minister to their teens?” So, five of us met in an office in Ambridge, PA, for several days to dream up a plan. Each of us had more than two decades of youth ministry experience. Our experience came from Arizona, Australia, Canada, England, Illinois, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas. We sought to create a plan that churches could implement that would be simple and sustainable. The plan needed to meet a few requirements. It had to be easily replicated in many different settings and not require extensive resources such as budget and staffing.
The reality in the ACNA, like most denominations in America, is that it is common to find many congregations numbering between 50 and 75 persons on a Sunday. While more than half of Americans attend large churches, the vast majority of churches are small. This is true in the ACNA and many denominations. It is uncommon to find a thriving youth program in a church of less than 250 members, much less a salaried youth minister. So, most churches need a simple, sustainable way to minister to the handful of teens in their midst.
“Engage” emerged in Ambridge that week. We decided to refer to it as an “initiative” rather than a program. This was an important distinction because our aim from the beginning was to train people to engage teens in scripture. This was and is about relationships, not programs or events. We created a strategy to take it to dioceses and offer training with the full support and advocacy of the bishop. We began in Pittsburgh, where we already had the backing of Archbishop Duncan.
As we dreamed up Engage, we asked ourselves: What is the core of good ministry to teens? What do we see in scripture? What is central to the Great Commission? The answer is relational discipleship. We built Engage’s discipleship model around three words: Talk, Study, and Pray. Then, we crafted training segments to equip people to implement the strategy in their contexts. Engage training would be a one-day process that included instruction, practice, and prayer. We concluded with the bishop’s commissioning of the trainees to go and do ministry with students.
Engage training was offered in many dioceses around the country, each enthusiastically received. Whether we were training 25 or 75 people, we knew that each person trained would potentially minister to multiple teens in the coming months and years. The excitement at the end of a training day has always included many saying, “I can do this!”
In the years since, Engage training has been led across the USA, as well as in Canada, Mexico, and even Australia. Since the original team that created this strategy were all involved with the non-profit “Young Anglicans Project,” we decided that the non-profit would own the rights to the Engage initiative. Engage is the only remaining ministry of Young Anglicans Project and we are now doing business as Engage Discipleship. The new name will be explained in a near future post.