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Greetings!
This is the second issue of our Global Teen Challenge
E-newsletter. We are calling it Leadership Link--the same name used for a similar newsletter published in the past by Europe Teen Challenge. (Tom Bremer encouraged us to use this name.)
If there are other staff at your ministry, or other leaders of similar ministries, we are happy to have you add them to this mailing list. Please click on the link below and add their email addresses here, or forward this newsletter to them using the link at the bottom of this email. and invite them to subscribe. Each person must have their own email address to receive this newsletter. | |
Building a Ministry, by Dr. Jerry Nance  Building a ministry from the ground up is a lot harder than it looks. Some students graduate Teen Challenge and instantly want to be directors of a TC center. Other times we have believers who come from churches with a burden to help drug addicts. They somehow believe that it is easy to raise the funds to open the center, train the staff and develop an effective program.
I don't know how some graduates or others arrive at this idea. I often see people launch out with no idea what they will experience. I never want to discourage someone who feels called, yet I do not want to give them the idea that opening a Teen Challenge center is easy.
Last month I mentioned Jim Collins book, Good To Great. Jim suggests that we get the right people on the bus, or the right people working with us if we hope to be successful. He also suggests getting the right people in the right place on the team which is also very important. One of the first principles in opening a new center is developing those who will come along side you to work with your vision.
You will never regret investing in leadership training. In 1991 I was asked to serve as the director of the Teen Challenge program in Florida. I was there just a month when I realized our need for staff training. I had a few leadership tools that I had learned and a few books on leadership. We started with staff training one day a month. It took time, but gradually we built a strong team of leaders.
Now 19 years later we continue to focus on staff training. My daughter Deneé asked me one day, "Daddy, how did you know to focus on staff training?" I told her, "I trained staff out of desperation." When I first started in Florida, two staff were using crack cocaine, one was a former Elvis impersonator, another was committing adultery and one was raising chickens in the back of his car. I did not have any choice but to make staff training a top priority. We had a desperate bunch of people working for TC and none of them were adequately trained for their job description. My book, From Dream to Reality, tells you the entire story of our beginning years and the lessons learned in building a ministry from the ground up.
Check out www.iTeenChallenge.org for some of the latest updates on staff training-we have over 50 courses now available for you to download. And until next time, may you have Favor with God and man.
Jerry Nance PhD
President
Global Teen Challenge
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Global TC Directory Update This week we are beginning to send out emails to verify the address information on TC Centers around the world. It will take us the next couple weeks to contact all TC centers, because we are sending separate emails to each center. Thanks for your help in responding so we can have an accurate listing of your ministry on our website. |
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Funding Solutions for Teen Challenge, by Brent Collins  Near bare cupboards, bills to pay, lack of money to pay staff this week and 3 new students waiting to enter the program... Does this scenario sound familiar to you? These are issues that most Teen Challenge Directors have faced at some point-hopefully not all in the same day! Often as a Director I had the feeling of not being able to stay above water. More than once I felt like I could drown in the sea of financial problems. I became well aware of the hard truth that my calling to this ministry didn't guarantee financial well being...in fact, "my calling" didn't pay any of the bills.
I love doing ministry. Money is the part of our ministry that we often would rather not focus on. But appropriately managing Teen Challenge money can be one of the most important tasks in our work. As Directors and senior staff, we must realize and activate wisdom and creativity in our investments of time and resources so as to provide for the long-term sustainability of our ministries. Often this means diversifying our streams of income rather than depending solely on donor gifts, or any other single source for our sustenance. Although we may all understand this concept, having a clear vision and then putting it into action in our own circumstances can often be quite challenging.
God has burdened Global Teen Challenge to include in its priorities the area of Sustainable Funding Solutions. We want to provide you with training on how you can develop funding to sustain your ministry. We also want to share with you examples of how others are supporting their ministries. I am currently in the process of preparing a manual that will include basic information on funding for Teen Challenge.
 That's where I need your help. We are gathering information on what small business projects are being used at TC centers. We want to put these into this manual. Please click here to go to the link which shows the beginnings of what we want to include in these profiles. Please note the two samples are incomplete-but you should be able to get an idea of what we are looking to do. One more example is the pallet making business (see picture at right) used in TC Czech Republic. There are lots of possibilities.
In the next few days I will be sending you an email with a series of questions to answer related to how you are supporting your ministry. So please be watching for my email, and then take just a few minutes to fill it out.
If you have questions or ideas about this whole area of Sustainable funding for your ministry, you are welcome to contact me any time.
Peace of Christ,
Brent Collins
Director of Sustainable Funding Solutions
Global Teen Challenge
Email: Brent.Collins@teenchallenge.cc
Skype: brentandjade |
GSNC Teacher Training now online at iTeenChallenge.org
The iTeenChallenge.org website now has the basic training courses online for teaching the Group Studies for New Christians (GSNC). These 6 courses provide a basic introduction to teaching the GSNC classes in the Teen Challenge setting-or other ministry settings. In addition to the participant notesheets, there is also an audio track of the training sessions. A video version of the training sessions will soon be available.
To download these GSNC teacher training courses, go to www.iTeenChallenge.org and select the "Staff Training" button. Then select Track T5 "The Teen Challenge Program." From the new pop-up list, select T506 "Group Studies Teacher Training." You will then see in the right hand column all the courses available for download. Click on each course for the available downloads.
If you have not been to the www.iTeenChallenge.org website, we encourage you to check it out. We have over 50 staff training courses ready for you to download, and we are loading more every month. We also will be offering student curriculum in a variety of languages in the next few weeks. We welcome your feedback on what you would like to see added to this website.
Click here to visit the website at www.iTeenChallenge.org
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Argentina Construction Project, by Frank Bonazzo
 For over 35 years I've been in the construction business in Canada. I got involved with Teen Challenge when I was working on the TC building in Thunder Bay, Canada. Through Steve Paulson, the director of Teen Challenge of Central Canada, I met Duane Henders, the Global Teen Challenge Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean. I was invited to come work with Global Teen Challenge on construction projects all over the world.
My first project working with Global Teen Challenge was to go to Cucullu, Argentina in late 2008. The existing Teen Challenge center building had been started 20 years ago, but never completed. Much of the first floor was in use, but not completed properly.
 In my first meeting with the Teen Challenge director, we decided to have the Teen Challenge students participate as much as possible in this work project so they could learn
construction skills that would help them get a job after graduating from Teen Challenge.
Our first task was to complete the exterior of the first floor and also to reinforce the first floor so it could carry the weight of the second floor. We decided to use a metal framing for the second floor, which is a new construction method being used in Argentina. The company providing the  metal framing told me they would hire any of the TC students I trained to work with this construction process. So at least two of the TC students have great potential to get good construction jobs when they graduate from TC.
A key part of being able to do this project was getting the funds needed for the construction materials. The Board members of Global Teen Challenge generously gave to this project so that we could do this work. We also had a team of 4 volunteers from a church in Thunder Bay, Canada come and spend two weeks on the project. They also  brought much needed money to help with the project. It would have greatly helped us to have more teams come to work on this project.
The building is not fully complete yet, but the staff and students have the skills to finish the interior work that remains to be done. I am sure that they can have this completed in 4 or 5 months. Part of the second floor will serve as their chapel. They will also have room to expand their student population from 18 students to 45 students. With this increase in capacity, they are interested in starting additional TC induction centers in  Argentina who will then send students to this TC training center.
My part of the project in Argentina ended in late May 2009. As I look back on my time in Argentina, one of greatest blessings was the time I spent with the students. This project was a real challenge because I did not speak Spanish and none of the students spoke English. But in spite of that we built strong friendships, and I knew it would be hard to leave.
 The night before I left Argentina they had a barbeque meal in my honor. Through an interpreter the students shared what a blessing it was to have me there. One student asked, "You have come here and worked so hard, even though we have not paid you. Why do you do that?" I explained that God had called me to do this, and that he has a plan for each of our lives. For the rest of my life I will treasure the relationships I built during my six months in Argentina.
My next project is currently in the planning stages. I will be going to either Asia or Europe in the very near future. I would love to have you join me in this project. You can contact me at fbon7@yahoo.ca or gtc@globaltc.org |
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Global Teen Challenge is a service agency that exists to serve the more than 1000 Teen Challenge programs in more than 80 countries of the world. It is our desire to provide the best and latest tools available in helping individuals with life controlling addictions. According to the United Nations, more than 200 million people worldwide struggle with drug abuse. Drug users are getting younger and their use is becoming more frequent. Alcohol and drug addictions are plaguing our nations, our cities and invading our homes. We are committed to doing everything we can to reach people around the globe with life controlling problems. For more information on Global Teen Challenge, visit our website at www.GlobalTC.org |
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