Neighborhood Ministries

 Children’s activities  My wife and I have lived in Trailer parks (now called Mobile Home parks) throughout our marriage. Previously, trailers were usually small and easily moved and many residents moved frequently. People rarely bother to get to know their neighbors because they would move soon although more trailers are becoming bigger and harder to move. There is rarely anything for the kids to do. Many parents let their children roam the neighborhood without any supervision and they often get into trouble trying to create their own activities. The same goes for large apartment complexes where there are a lot of families. Parents and managers of mobile home parks and apartment complexes are often happy to see someone organize supervised activities for children to keep them out of trouble. Managers may be reluctant if an outside group wants to start it but are more willing if it is headed by a family in the park. Other managers may just be glad someone wants to start it. Many mobile home parks and apartment complexes now have community rooms for activities but they are seldom used because there is no one to organize activities. Such activities draw kids and provide contacts with their parents that open the door to developing a relationship with the parents. People in general are becoming more isolated from those around them, even in  neighborhoods o permanent houses. Many neighborhoods have become more dangerous and parents don’t want their kids running the neighborhood without supervision and keep them cooped up in the house. As a result, many people in permanent housing neighborhoods are becoming as isolated as mobile home parks and apartment complexes and need children’s activities as well. Such activities should be out of concern for the lost, not just to keep the kids out of trouble. When I first went to work with the Salvation Army, I saw a lot of clients from a low-income housing project. I knew from experience that there was little for the children to do and little contact between mothers and so I organized an after-school program for the kids during the summer. I enlisted a church nearby to run it and enlisted a woman from the church to assist me in visiting the mothers to organize a mother’s club. The after-school program attracted a lot of kids who eventually started attending the church’s Wednesday night children’s program. Unfortunately, the church did not support the work to reach the mothers in the complex. It also dropped the after-school program once they got a good number of kids from the project attending their Wednesday night program. Unfortunately, while having active children’s programs make churches look good, the programs are expensive and not very effective if they don’t work to reach the parents as well. It has often been difficult getting churches to support the trailer park ministries. Many churches don’t do outside ministries because they don’t want “THOSE” kind of people (the unchurched) in their church and unchurched kids are often unruly since they weren’t raised by Christian parents.