The Franklin Center

The Franklin Center was built in 1897 as the elementary school in Argentine Kansas, which at that time had not yet been consolidated as part of Kansas City. For years Franklin Elementary School did well in the neighborhood; however, after the silver smelter closed leaving hundreds in the neighborhood unemployed, things began to change. The community began to change from a middle/upper class neighborhood to a rundown neighborhood. However, years later after becoming part of the Kansas City Kansas school district, the school was renovated and enlarged. The school flourished once again for decades until the neighborhood slowly decreased in size and wealth and the district was forced to close the school in 1972. After being vandalized and broken into, the school district sought to sell the building. A number of neighborhood organizations began to discuss the idea of making the building a community center but were unable to pay the $52,000 that the district was asking. After discussions the school district agreed to sell the building to the newly formed Franklin Center Inc. for only $5,000. The sole requirement was that the building be only used by non-profit organizations and if it was not it would be sold back to the school district.

The Franklin Center quickly became a thriving community center that housed a coffee shop, day care, Spanish speaking office, adult education classes, food coop and a General Store. We recently met a kid named Max who grew up around the Franklin Center who said that all the kids hung out there and that it was the place where they all had their first job. However the leadership of the center began to slowly decline and finally about a year and a half ago all of the non-profits in the center left and abandoned the building. Because of the contract it cannot be sold to a business but the school district does not want to deal with it either. As a result it was left sitting empty, which led to thorough vandalism. This then is the current state of this beautiful and historic building.

YSF has began the conversation with other groups in the neighborhood to ask the question of what could we do to revive this building to once again be a community center. As this conversation is in process, we have begun by thinking of tangible ways of bringing life and excitement back to the building so that this can be a project that the community embraces and makes their own. We have for the last two weeks been projecting movies on the outside of the building on Friday nights and have had as many as 30 kids and parents show up. There is a “Vive Franklin Center” float in this weekend’s annual city celebration. These are just small things but they are beginning to get the neighborhood excited about owning this as their own.

You may wonder why is YSF involved in this? It is not going to be a church or a ministry center, but just a community center. It has been said that the worst part of poverty is not the loss of money but the loss of hope. I believe that this is true in this neighborhood. The people here are not the poorest of the poor but many just have the idea that there is no hope of progress in their lives or in the community. So I see this not just as a community center but a place that can begin to bring hope and opportunity back into this community. True, this may not be a church. But this could be a place that kids can experience love and acceptance and be given an opportunity to succeed. If this becomes true, then I believe that the Franklin Center could become a place where people in this neighborhood see a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.

Conflict

I don’t naturally seek conflict. I think that most of us generally don’t. We try to stay where it is comfortable and not get into disagreements with one another. But you have probably realized that conflict is natural. If we spend any significant amount of time with someone or with a group of people there will inevitably be conflict. We often think of this as a bad thing, as something that we should try to avoid. I think that this is more because of what conflict mishandled often leads to. Emotions like anger, frustration, betrayal, or resentment may come to mind as we think of conflict. Does this have to be so?

A central part of the formation process of YSF is to begin to learn to see conflict in a new way, to get beyond superficial relationships and frustration that we experience with one another and learn to lean into the tension of conflict instead of shying away.

At the very beginning of YSF we talked about how once the newness and excitement wore off there would inevitably be conflict. Now about six weeks into the program this is true. As we live together we realize we have different expectations, desires, preferences, and personalities. If we choose to bottle up the frustrations that come from those differences or let them explode then our relationships are hurt because of it. Instead when we approach the conflict in a healthy way we are able to understand and learn from each other even when we disagree. This week we sat down together for a few hours and put these tensions out on the table. It was not an easy time listening and sharing on a very honest level about what frustrates and confuses us about one another, but it is the beginning of something beautiful. In Ephesians 2 Paul says:

For he [Jesus] himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of
hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself
one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the
cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those
who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Paul states that in Christ a new humanity has been born, one that is defined by peace and reconciliation with and among one other. He has created a humanity that embraces Jew and Gentile; African American, Asian, Hispanic, and Caucasian. This is good news for us, and good news for our neighborhood. But it has to start in our house. If we cannot be reconciled from disagreements that we have over small things that stem from living together, then how can we possibly preach a message of reconciliation to our neighborhood? If we are not willing to sit down and do the hard work of talking through our differences, of growing deeper in our love for one another then how can we possibly ask our neighbors to? And so that is why I believe that the time we spent this week learning to see conflict in a new way is as formational to each of us as anything we will do; because as we are able to understand that we are a new humanity created in Christ to be at peace with one another then and only then are we are able to authentically live this message out in our neighborhood.

September!

Hello friends and family!

I am excited to say that we have students moved in to our house and we have officially begun our semester. The first few weeks of this semester have been busy but exciting as we got started. The students moved in the last weekend in August and the next day we left for a week long camping and hiking trip in the mountains of Colorado. This was an important trip for us as we attempted to remove ourselves from our normal day-to-day life in order to begin to form relationships have discussion about living together in community this semester. We have a great group of five students that are committed to this program but more importantly committed to each other for this semester. Our trip to Colorado was a great opportunity to talk through some of and the issues that come as a part of living with others; not just in the physical sense but in a sense of honesty and vulnerability to one another.

Following this trip we went to Chicago for the annual convention of the Christian Community Development Association. It was a great time listening to stories of people who have been doing community development out of a Christian framework for decades. It was exciting to see the way that the students were challenged and stretched as we listened and learned together. These first two weeks were a great opportunity for us to build relationships one another and think theologically about what it looks like for us to live as a community and also what it looks like for that community to live in our neighborhood and amongst our neighbors. I really enjoyed these times of traveling and learning together but now we are back in our home in the Argentine neighborhood of Kansas City to put the thoughts and dreams that we have discussed into action. Having now been home couple weeks it has been amazing to watch the students grow together as we read and discuss books like Dietrich
Bonheoffer’s Life Together and spend times in spiritual formation reading scripture together and asking how that will take shape in our community and in our neighborhood. I would ask that you would continue to pray for us and specifically as we plant ourselves in this neighborhood and begin to build deeper relationships with our neighbors. Pray for the interaction between all of us living in the house that we would be able to love and forgive one another as we have seven people living together in one house.

Thanks you again for all of your supportand prayers, I am blessed to
have all of you as partners in this ministry.

Nate Howard

August

July has been a crazy but exciting month for me. I got engaged!! Amanda and I got engaged on July 16th after dating for about nine months. We are really excited about our future life together and being involved in the ministry of Youthfront. Also this month I finished my time as the interim youth director at Community Covenant Church and moved into the Youthfront school of Formation (YSF) house on Aug 1. I have been excited to start this position since I committed to this back in April. It is almost surreal that it is

actually now happening.

Getting this house was an adventure in itself. We have been looking for a good house to have YSF in since May and found this house only about two weeks ago. We have been trusting God to provide a place that would be right for this ministry and for housing the students. This house is exactly that. It is a five bedroom meaning that myself and Jessica (the other director of community life) can each have our own bedroom and then have three still for students. The other priority for the house was that it is in the Argentine neighborhood where we have chosen to place this community. This house is right in the heart of the neighborhood, just a couple blocks from the community center. We are so excited and thankful to be in such a great house.

In the few days now that I have been living here in the Argentine there is one thing that I have noticed specifically is the hospitality of the people here. As I was moving in Amanda and I saw a garage sale sign in the neighborhood and went to check it out. Amanda and I were in separate cars and she arrived first. I went to YSF to drop off a few things and then go to the garage sale. While Amanda was waiting in the heat for me to show up the family gave her a cold bottle of water and began talking to her. Once I arrived we realized that we did not have cash and the lady offered to not sell the stuff that we wanted while she waited for us to return with money.

Also everyone in this neighborhood sits on their front porch, or for those houses that don’t have a front porch they sit on a chairs in the front yard. Then as you come and go everyone greets each other. The kind of hospitality and community that is evident in this neighborhood is foreign to many of us that live in the suburbs. We sit on our back porches and rarely speak to those in our neighborhood. Although we often think of low- income neighborhoods lacking in life, needing to be restored, I believe that it is here that life is really happening. It is here where there is community amongst the neighbors. I am coming to realize that i have just as much to learn from my new neighbors as I could ever hope to teach them.

Nate Howard

July Newsletter

Thank you for choosing to get involved with my ministry here at YouthFront. You have no idea how much your support and prayers mean to me. This is my first experience in the Blogging world. I can admit now that I will probably not be a huge blogger but I do commit to putting my monthly newsletter that I am sending out to my supporters on here. Hope you enjoy, and would love to hear any thoughts or feedback. I am going to be moving in to the Youthfront house on Aug 1, coming up soon!

Below is from my July Newsletter.




Washington DC

Since graduation in early May I have been working full time at Community Covenant Church helping lead the youth in an interim period while they are searching for a new youth pastor. This has been an amazing opportunity but has been a bit draining as well as I try to balance that position with raising support for YouthFront. I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to lead 18 high school students on a mission trip to inner-city Washington DC. This was such a great trip in exposing the students to ways of life and cultures that were completely foreign to them. However it was not just the students who grew on this trip. I was challenged daily by the situations that we experienced. While in DC we were faced with many challenges. While we were there we had a rental van stolen, witnessed a mugging, and numerous other tense situations. Through these situations we were able to witness God show up in a real and tangible way as God provided for us. It was amazing to see how when we intentionally placed ourselves in situations where we were fully relying on God that He showed up and provided for us. In the end we were able to get a new van at no extra charge the same day it was stolen in a location that was closer to us than where we had originally rented. Shane Claiborne in his book Irresistible Revolution talks about how we often don’t see miracles because we leave no room for God to work. We experienced the truth behind that this week. I am challenged to think about what it would look like in my life if I was more willing to consistently place myself in situations that I am not in control and that I am relying on God to see my through the situation. Living this way daily is foreign to us because we are so used to being self sufficient, yet Christians living in poverty all over the world need to have this kind of faith in order to survive. I have often wondered why we hear amazing stories of God doing miracles in obscure places throughout the world but yet here we often don’t see God work in that way.I wonder if it is because in those places people are in situations where all they have is their faith, while we generally have a backup plan to bail us out if God doesn’t come through. Maybe that is why in Luke 6 Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God...But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.”

In Christ,
Nate Howard

Click here to see a video i put together from this trip. hope you enjoy.

Working for Youthfront!

Hello Friends,

I am now graduated from college! I recently finished my BA in Ministry from MidAmerica Nazarene University. The last four years here in Kansas City have been a beautiful journey of coming to understand what God has for my life. During my time in Kansas City God has grown a passion in me for urban ministry. He has given me a desire to live among the poor and experience life with them. I am excited because I have been given an exciting opportunity to be an urban missionary here in Kansas City. I will be working with an organization called Youthfront. Youthfront is most well known for their Christian Summer camps for Kids around Kansas City. These camps are amazing but I am going to be a part of a relatively new ministry called the Youthfront School of Formation (YSF). YSF is a community for post high school students to live and learn together in the neglected urban neighborhood of Argentine in the heart of Kansas City. Students will spend a semester living in a house together and learning what it is like to live in community and be involved in urban ministry. The students will be taking 5 classes together in the house, which will be accredited through MidAmerica Nazarene University (where I just graduated from). These classes will be focused around understanding Christian mission, scripture, Sociology/Anthropology of urban life, and practical-hands on experience working in the community.

I will be the Director of Community Life for YSF. I will be living in the house with the students and leading the day-to-day activities such as organizing the meals and corporate prayer times. My role will also focus on the neighborhood outreach and development that the students will be involved in. I am excited about this opportunity because it fits my passions so well as I will be living in community, doing urban ministry, and taking part in theological learning with the students.

Youthfront is able to have amazing opportunities like this for students to be shaped as the followers of Christ by having a staff of full time missionaries. So in order for me to be able to be a part of this exciting opportunity I need to raise support.

I would ask that you would begin to think and pray about the opportunity to join me in this ministry through a monthly donation and through prayer.

Thank you for all your support,
In Christ,
Nate Howard

If you have any more questions or feel that God is leading you to support me financially please email me at howard_nate@yahoo.com