As teams like these serve, they also multiply 2nd Mile in the neighborhood, thus increasing our credibility and visibility and setting the table for us the pick up where they left off in the other 49 weeks of the year.

Like no other time of the year, March visibly shows the neighborhood who 2nd Mile is. Like no other time of the year, March actively demonstrates the the presence of the church in our neighborhood. It has become an annual tradition for me to collect the mission team's compliments from community members each April.

Further, as these teams serve and seek to bless our community they are in turn served and blessed by our neighbors. Tangibly, our community offers encouragement, a helping hand, and bottles of water. Intangibly, our community challenges the team's perceptions and stereotypes, offering them the chance to grow in their faith. 

But, beyond the outward impact on our specific neighborhood, these trips are important for our mission of seeing the Gospel transform communities in every way.

As we give the church a chance to serve in Jacksonville we also seek to expose the church to the full counsel of God. We hope that they would become disciples of Christ, who know the heart of God and see their cares, passions, and affections become aligned to His. We do this through active ministry opportunities as well as teaching times that focus on God's heart for justice and compassion for the vulnerable.

Each week the team dives into the Word to see what God does have to say about these issues. Further we examine the existence of both global and local justice and injustice and challenge them to discern what may be holding them back from pursuing God's priorities in their life. They finish by hearing a couple of real world examples of other's journeys with the Lord and towards the reconciliation of all things (Colossians 1:20).

Our hope is that this experience would not just change Brentwood, but that they would change Orange City, Clemson, and Madison. That it would not just change Jacksonville, but entire career fields and futures. That 2nd Mile Urban Exchange would be a catalyst that sends Christ-centered, whole gospel students and individuals back to their campuses, cities, and workplaces as agents of reconciliation themselves.

Check out more photos from the mission teams here!

“Come and see,” said Philip.

“Pearl Street! Can anything good come from there?” Jacksonville asked.

Just as Nathanael was shocked by his Philip’s claim he’s found the Messiah and that he was from Nazareth, an unheralded, backwater village, many people are shocked too when I tell them where I live and work.

It makes me ask, “To what level do you and I really believe that Jesus is present and at work in places like Pearl Street? To what level do we limit and doubt his presence?”

Because if Jesus is really on Pearl Street and Jesus really is the hope of the world, of course good things will come from here!

At 2nd Mile Ministries, one of our primary strategies is indigenous leadership development.  At a base level we all know that a church, a business, or an organization can’t survive on a singularity of leadership. Eventually that leader will retire, move, or die. A single person can only accomplish a limited amount. However, if influence and leadership is multiplied and mobilized, the transformation possibilities are astounding.  As a result we believe that leadership development must be a focus of anything we hope to build that will last.

But, this challenge is all the more pronounced in communities like Brentwood, where 2nd Mile ministers.  Without getting too historically in depth, the American inner city developed as the result of a number of interconnected and spiraling causes: historical, systematic, cultural, and individual causes.  There are economic explanations.  There are discriminatory explanations.  There are educational explanations.  There are family explanations.  There are lifestyle explanations.  All of them and none of them are true.

None exist in a vacuum and none of them are independent of the effects of all the others.

One key way the inner city has developed is through the destruction of leadership and role modeling patterns.  This is complex, but I’ll try to do it quick.  Basically, with the onset of suburbanization, first white business owners (and their businesses) fled the city, then black business owners fled the city, and the overall goal became to “get out” of the city.  The sign that you had “made it”, the sign that you were “upwardly mobile”, the sign that you had “succeeded” was that you got out of the ‘hood.

The result is that, in general,

1. Anyone with a college education left the neighborhood.
2. Overall pride and value of one’s neighborhood is diminished and in fact, the neighborhood often becomes vilified.
3. Potential community leaders and role models are not as present as they once were.

We deeply desire to cast a vision to the future leaders of our community that they can be change agents in their community for God’s glory and for every person’s good.  So, in our approach, we are seeking to develop leaders from Pearl Street, for Pearl Street.  We believe that not only can “something good can come out of Pearl Street” we believe multitudes of good will come from Pearl Street, stay on Pearl Street, and transform Pearl Street!