Last year we had a great turn out and had about 70 people come for a great time of connection and community growth. This year promises to be even BIGGER and more developmental than last. We are excited! Since last year we have been able to form the Carter Street Block Club which has become the center piece for our Ujima Initiative. As part of the CSBC we have organized our street around a community garden project, hurricane preparedness, several community gatherings like our Father’s Day BBQ and are now ready to come full circle to our Main Event the Thanksgiving Bash. 

    

     This event is designed to get people WHO LIVE ON CARTER STREET to connect and grow together as we learn what it means to develop and love each other as neighbors and friends. Some of the results from last year was an increase in connection and friendly relations between people who wouldn’t talk to each other before, an empowerment to see that they as residents can take initiative and start something new and real like the Carter Street Block Club, and that we can really learn to be good neighbors and it is attainable. This year we hope to grow the Carter Street Block Club membership significantly as a result of the event and to get more people involved on the good neighboring process of the Ujima Initiative. 

     

  

       God has been working overtime in our lives preparing us for what it just over the horizon in Miami. There are many things in the works here that God might use to bring new life to many and we are excited about it. We will just highlight a few of the recent happenings and share how they are steps in the development of much to come!

• Urban Resurrection’s New Home!!! - As we highlighted in our last update we were able to find a great office with adequate space and a great location! We are directly across from the city basketball courts and the space allows us to have a office space, large meeting room for small groups of discipleship, a guest quarters and it even has a small kitchen for cooking classes and a bathroom with shower for guests. We have been putting the office to good use already and it has improved our working environment tremendously. It allows for more visibility to the broader neighborhood and a new level of legitimacy to our work.

• The U Rez Board of Directors! - We officially have a board now and we had our first meeting on August 2nd. It was a very full day with all of the members getting to know each other, hearing about Urban Resurrection in detail and getting down to the nitty gritty of how to make Urban Rez a better more solid organization. We now have 5 board members but are looking to expand that number to at least 7 with more community representation in the remaining slots. This step was huge for our team and really significant as it was basically the new birth of our organization! 

• U Rez Volunteers in da House!!! - We started our first annual volunteer orientation on August 5th! This six week orientation is designed for us to get to know our potential volunteers and for them to get to know the ethos of U Rez and if/how they fit into that flow. We are really excited to have 13 people coming as it will expand our ability to reach more youth for Christ and develop our organizations capability tremendously with the right mix of talents, gifts and character! At the end of the six weeks the volunteers will know if we are a good fit and so will we so please pray for this time of orientation that God would connect our hearts to the people He wants involved with U Rez and only those people. 

• VOICE & UJIMA Initiative - The VOICE aspect of our ministry has continued to move forward and our core group of community leaders on Carter Street recently decided to officially call our group the Carter Street Block Club. Our first order of business as CSBC was to start the Ujima Initiative. Ujima, meaning collective work and responsibility, is our way for empowering neighbors to help neighbors in practical ways. The first event was held last Friday night and we called it our Hurricane Preparedness Party!!! We got the whole street involved and had a BBQ at which we talked about how we can organize as street to be ready for the hurricanes when they come our way. As a result we developed a Special Needs committee who will find out who needs extra help in case of a hurricane such a those who are elderly , have small children, are home bound by physical restrictions or health, and so on. We also developed the Asset Committee whose job it is to find out what we have already in case of a hurricane like: who has generators, who has a chain saw (for cutting up fallen trees), who has safe storage places for equipment or supplies, etc. and finally we are developing a phone tree so we can make sure we connect to each other before, during and after (cell phones only) a hurricane. We are excited to see some people step up into leadership roles on this one and even more excited to see neighbors helping neighbors! That is part of  what Christian community development is about! Please pray for deeper commitment and broader reach among our neighbors and for the opportunities it will give us to share Christ with them verbally as well as showing them. It is show and tell time! 

• BEATS Kickoff!! - We are getting ready to officially Bring Eternal Arts to the Streets of the Grove on Sept 5th when BEATS has its first official open mic event! We are pumped for this and have a great line up of artists who will keep the flow going with our graffiti wall, break dancing, hip hop, and spoken word artists coming along to help get the youth excited about this event and what is to follow! Of course, the best thing about BEATS is that it will be the youth themselves who will headline and perform. They will showcase their talents as they express themselves in creative but safe ways and we in turn will be able to communicate the Gospel through the same medium of urban art! Please pray for this event, we are still in need of the funds to purchase the needed insurance and it ain’t cheap! Also pray for the youth that 1) they will come out to the event and 2) that many of them will like it and get more deeply involved and 3) that some might be shown the missing link in their lives and connect to a meaningful life with Christ!

• CCDA Annual Conference! - It is almost here! Yes, the Christian Community Development Association will be having it annual conference right here in Miami and we are stoked to have them! We pray that this will be a much needed boost to our local ministries in Miami and that a new awareness for what God is doing here will be exploded onto the scene. Our team is involved in making it happen as part of the host committee and we would love to see you here! Check out the details at www.CCDAMIAMI08.org for more information. If you, want to be involved but you cannot afford the conference fees you can volunteer a min of 10 hours during the conference and get in for only $25!!!! Just check out the VOLUNTEERS tab for more info on that. Hope to see you there!!

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We hope this email finds you all well! It has been a while since we have written a traditional email update and if you are wondering why there are a plethora of reasons, but the main one is that we have launched our website www.urbanresurrection.org and have been putting our updates on the main page via blog. So if you have internet (which obviously you do since you are reading this update) you can now keep up with our main happenings on our website. This does not mean we will not be sending these email updates it simply means that we will be sending less of them. SO enjoy this one

There has been a lot going on in Miami lately and we feel like we are right in the middle of so many things! We want to give you some short glimpses of what has been happening and some updates on some of our last emails.

Urban Resurrection is getting more organized on so many levels and preparing for a time of breakthrough into the next level of growth. We are really looking forward to the day when we can make some key additions to our team such as moving into a new office, having a new team member join us who is good at creative administration, and obtaining our 501c3 status!

New Office

We have found a great office that will serve our needs for expansion and much needed boundaries for our family and team. Right now the team office is in our house and that has become a difficult place to schedule around naps, play time and such with the kids in full tilt so we have begun raising the needed funds for the rental of an office. This will allow for us to have private office space that is conducive for our volunteers and our staff to accomplish the inner workings of our organization, it will create a room set aside for counseling and mentoring, and it will give us a larger meeting area for us to begin holding Bible studies, teen groups, and having fun events for the youth. We are aiming to raise the rest of the needed funds for this above and beyond our normal support by the end of June. We have been able to find an office with two office rooms, a meeting area a bathroom and a small kitchen. It is located right across from the basketball courts fondly called the “Incinerator” and the landlord has come down $350 to $1000 a month!! We have already been able to raise $5000 and would like to have the first year covered. This means we need $7,000 more. If you would like to help with this need specifically please make sure you signify that the funds are for the “Urban Resurrection Team office” when you send them in to Faith and Learning International. We are looking forward to this expansion of the ministry.

Creative Administrator

We are looking for a new team member to join us in the next few months but we don’t know who it might be yet. We are in need of a “creative administrator” who is able to grasp the over all vision of the ministry, is skilled in office management and organizational development and is competent in creating and running systems such as accounting and basic detail organization. It would also be great if they brought some grant writing experience to the team as we are beginning to develop our resources in that way as well. If you are this person or you know this person please have them contact us so we can start dialogue about their imminent joining of our team. (I am not joking! My number is 305-562-7714…)

501c3 Status

As many of you know our ministry through Faith & Learning International (FLI) was started back in March 2006 as we transitioned into the US out of Uganda. FLI’s stated aim is to empower teams like ourselves who have a vision for unique ministry to develop and grow into their own organizations or to join others. In other words FLI is a short term developmental process. Urban Resurrection (the name of our team) has been working toward the goal of doing just that and becoming a full fledge 501c3 non-profit ministry. We are happy to announce that on May 5, 2008, Urban Resurrection Corporation was officially incorporated as an organization. We have formed a board and are in the process of applying for our own 501c3 status. This will mean that once we have this status we will be able to receive tax exempt donations as Urban Resurrection instead of through Faith and Learning International. This has not occurred yet so please keep sending your donations through FLI until further notice. We just wanted to give you a progress report on what has been happening “behind the scenes” here in Miami. We are excited for this development as it will allow for us to grow our resources development base through foundation giving and grants. It will also allow for us to obtain much needed liability insurance and other needed things to allow our ministry plans to progress which would not otherwise be attainable. Please pray for us in this process as we grow and develop as an organization and get used to the higher levels of accountability from our board and on other levels that it brings. We welcome these challenges and see them for the benefits they will bring to those we minister among and to our personal growth and development as a team. Please feel free to write us to learn more on this process we desire to be fully transparent in all of our dealings with you our supporters and with those we are in connections with across Miami, the country and the world.

Urban Resurrection exists to encourage Christ centered community transformation by empowering community residents to organize, plan for, create and sustain a vibrant, high quality and diverse neighborhood in collaboration with community partners.

We thought with that announcement we should revisit our main focuses so that you have a clearer view of what occurs in the Grove on an ongoing basis. We accomplish the above strategy using 4 main focuses: VOICE, Community Youth Development (BEATS), the Good Neighbor Initiative, and Collaboration. You can see a good run down of what these components do on our website   www.urbanresurrection.org along with more pics and creative flair but I wanted to give you some snapshots along with a short story that encompasses these elements.

VOICE is our attempt to create safe space for residents of our neighborhood to share their dreams for the neighborhood, create a plan and move into action as they are empowered to bring the transformation they desire to see. Throughout this process we are consistently pointing toward Christ as the true transforming power and seek to lead others with Christ centered principles and values. One out come of this process has been the development of the Carter Street Action Committee (named after our street). CSAC serves not only a pilot for this process it is truly the area we seek to develop the most fully. Because we actually live on Carter St. it opens up multiple doors for us to influence people toward Christ and to directly speak into the real life situations we all face together. We have lead our neighbors through a collaborative process called Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) which allows us to listen to each other and to “mine” out the gems or assets that are intrinsic to our neighbors and to our community. It is an exciting process to see neighbors begin to realize that not only can things change but that THEY will be the ones who take part in the transformation process and make or break its success. Out of these meetings a kids group has been naturally formed and the youth have used art to draw their dreams and map out their plan for action. Isaac of course loves this process and is learning first hand what it means to put his faith into action. Carter Street Action Committee is at a crucial stage in its development! Please pray for us to have wisdom and creative discernment as to how to lead our neighbors in this process. It has definitely had its ups and downs but God is at work and we must trust His timing.

Good Neighbor Initiative is simply helping neighbors help each other in practical ways. This usually occurs when there is an evident need that arises in our community and more specifically on our street. For example, you may recall how we helped to paint and fix the bathroom of our wheelchair bound neighbor or helped out when our neighbor across the street had a fire and we found him a place to live and to clean up and move his belongings to his new apartment. These are just a couple of ways we are seeking to be Christ’s physical representatives to our neighbors.

Community Youth Development (CYD) is the process by which youth are engaged, and developed by taking part in the process of community transformation themselves. In CYD, youth development and community development come together to create a synergistic style of experiential learning and growth. There are many ways to accomplish this goal but our way of doing so will be through BEATS (Bringing Eternal Arts To the Streets). We use various urban art forms in order to attract, engage and develop youth and their skills in order to empower them to be be a part of the transformation process in our community.

Collaboration

The title speaks for itself but we mainly strive to do things on all levels via collaboration. Meaning we don’t do things alone. We always seek to make sure that if someone else is already doing something well we connect with them and build into their process so that we do not spend time and resource recreating things that are already functioning well otherwise. Another example of this is helping to equip local churches by either providing specialized training in Asset Based Community Development principles or connecting them to other resources in order to help them develop more effective and holistic means of bringing new life to their church body and to the community the are seeking to engage. We do this in our neighborhood of West Grove but we also do so on broader networks throughout Miami-Dade county and South Florida. An example of this would be the newly developing Learning Communities which are going to be lead by my DeVos Urban Leadership Initiative colleagues in four strategic locations around the city. These groups will focus on building into young leaders the skills and values that we have learned through the DeVos training program we just completed in May.

Thank you!!

As you can see there is a lot happening and we are excited for the development of these areas of ministry. Please pray with us as we seek after God together with our community. Pray that others will come to Christ and that others will grow and develop in their walk with Him. Pray also for the fabric of the community on all levels to be strengthened and that this will result in a greater movement of God throughout West Coconut Grove and move out into the farther reaches of Miami. We are deeply grateful for all of the support and prayers we have received from many of you over the years and we hope that you will continue along with us as partners and co-laborers in this ministry that God has given each of us to do. We also hope that if you are not yet a part of our prayer or financial support teams that you will either respond to this email and let us know how you would like to be involved or that you would check out our website. There is a new improved process for giving online via our website (just go to the “Give” tab and click on it). You can even use credit cards or set it up for direct deposit giving! If you still have any questions in regard to how to give or get involved in volunteering with Urban Resurrection please do not hesitate to give us a call (305) 562-7714 or write us an email (especially if you are called to be a creative administrative missionary type;) !!! Finally, we would really like to keep up with you all and be able to pray for you as well, so if you would like us to do so please send us an email to let us know.