Over the past few months I have seen a recurring theme in conversations with leaders across the state, country, and now even the rest of the world. Leaders I have spoken with are seeing a trend that I myself have seen. The cycle of poverty is leading teens away from Christ. The pull of “taking the easy way out” of poverty, albeit a temporary solution, and as most of us know a fleeting and dangerous solution has largely become taking the moral low road. Perhaps this means a life of crime, or perhaps it just means making dubious moral decisions that provide temporary financial rewards, but lead to long-term regret.
In working with teens over the past few years I have seen this play out time and time again. Teens I have worked with, gotten to know, and spent time with transition to adulthood and inevitably fumble, lacking some important life skills as well as vocational skills that would help them enter the workforce. Instead, they seek to find ways to end their poverty cycle by joining the wrong crowd, engaging in illicit sales, or “making content” that exploits themselves.
Talking to other youth leaders across the State of Colorado, Arizona, and California many are seeing the same things. We are losing our teens from the Kingdom because they are not prepared to be adults and engage in the lifestyle that represents following Christ. Instead, they feel the desire to leave poverty behind and seek the easiest ways out.
To this end, to help break this cycle of poverty and the sometimes desperate decisions that come along with it, Grace Journey Ministries (youthpastorbrian.com) is starting the Technology for Teens program. The goal of this program is give these teens access to free educational resources that simultaneously brings them closer to Christ, and offers them real vocational skills that will allow them to enter the technology industry and break through the ceiling of opportunity. Our aim is to create a generation of Christ centric youth that is equipped to enter into careers in three spaces:
- Digital Marketing – This includes everything from website development to search engine optimization and content development. Educating teens in this space, which has been declared one of the top fields for 2023 will help give vocational skills to those students that want to move into a promising career in this area and will help drive change in both their families and neighborhoods.
- Artificial Intelligence and Data Science – This emerging career field has been suggested to have the most impact on our society for the next decade and education our students in this field allows us as Christians to have an impact on this field and to allow this field to have an impact on the financial lives and futures of our youth.
- Web3 – This rocky field (think cryptocurrency and NFTs) has floundered and grown rapidly over the past few years. It has produced an amazing amount of advancement, investment, and has been rampant with fraud and frivolity. Allowing our students to move into this field allows us as Christians to have a profound affect on increasing the trust, durability, and focus of this field, and one the highest potentials for transition and the escape from poverty for the families we work with that has the opportunity to affect not just those in the field but the people it comes into contact with.
Our aim initially will be provide training for up to 3 students (one in each area of focus) per quarter. Our 90-day program will equip each of the students with the basics required for a paid internship in one of the three fields. The first cohort will spend the 90-day period with the following basic curriculum:
- Monday Night – A 30-Minute Life Skills Course that teaches several important skills we believe that each of our students should be equipped with before beginning their internship. These include 12 important areas of study – which we have deemed the 12 Pillars of Personal Improvement. These are physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, psychological, material, professional, financial, creative, adventure, legacy, and character. Each one of the 12 weeks will be spend focusing on one of these important areas.
- Wednesday Night – A 30-Minute Christ-Like Walk class that will teach what it means to be a Christian adult, and how continuing their walk with a Kingdom mindset will help their life, but that things will always be easy. These 12 courses will focus on an ever deepening relationship with Christ, a greater understanding of God’s word and promises, and pathway to a solid foundation as a Christian with a focus on prayer and relationship with Christ.
- Thursday Night – A 30-Minute vocational class that focuses on one of the 3 areas of study (Digital Marketing, Artificial Intelligence, or Web3). This 12-week course will focus on providing the basic foundations necessary to perform as an intern in one of these fields.
At the conclusion of this training program the student will have the option to engage in a 3-month long paid internship alongside a Christian mentor that will allow them to further build their relationship with Christ as well as advance their vocational skills and continue down the path of breaking the cycle of poverty and the potential social impact that may come along with that.
Initially some of our goals include creating connected neighborhoods, offering resources, benefits, and connection to local churches to those neighborhoods and helping extend our outreach naturally. We will seek to provide in place occupational growth for teens that allow them to stay connected to their communities and families, and to help benefit them both as they grow vocationally.
Ultimately, after our first successful cohort we intend to expand the access to additional students via automation, additional engagement with mentors, and companies that can support an intern position in one of these career fields. We believe the cost of supporting a student through this somewhat intensive six month program will be around $500 USD for the first cohort for the training and support, and roughly $2,500 for the 90-day internship portion. Our hope is that the companies we identify can support some portion of the training, and most if not all of the expenses for the internship.
If however you are interested in sponsoring one of the first three internship candidates please get in touch with us. Any amount you are able to sponsor would help us improve the program for a student.
For more information inquire on our contact page.