TOP: Rev. Carrington Morgan, executive director of City Life Ministries (right), guides a discussion at his Water Lane office with young men from the Southside community that he has been mentoring.
BOTTOM: Carrington Morgan and his young mentees walk the streets of that community. -JUNIOR DOWIE photos
Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter
HAVING LEFT the Covenant Community Church group, Bishop C.B. Peter Morgan and his family are keen on securing community transformation of Southside, Central Kingston. Their approach is a bottoms-up one rather than a top-down.
Originally, the Morgans sought to engage the community by doing projects. Then, they explained, the request came from the community to form a church, which now meets as the Kingston City Church at the Jamaica Conference Centre, on Sunday afternoons.
Also, it is by listening to the community that they were able to respond to a request from young men in Southside to be discipled concerning Biblical and societal issues.
IMPORTANT STRATEGY
As it has turned out, the mentoring of this fledgling ministry in Southside, has become perhaps the single most important strategy of the Morgan family.
This is spearheaded by the Rev. Mr. Carrington Morgan, who is son of Dr. Pat Morgan and Bishop Morgan.
Rev. Morgan is the executive director of City Life Ministries, the para-church organisation formed by the Morgan family to channel ministry to Southside initially and later other inner-city communities.
Rev. Morgan, 30, who has had training in project management, was last week consecrated as pastor of Kingston City Church. He is responsible to implement what he dubs the I-61 Project Management Programme.
I-61 derives its theological and philosophical identity from Isaiah chapter 61. Paramount in the implementation of this project, Rev. Morgan said, is the cultivation of trust between City Life Ministries and the Southside community.
He remarked: "I will never be a downtown man, no matter how many times I go on the streets. These guys will never be uptowners. What we have to do is to get to a place where we identify with each other. We realise the negative and positive perceptions on both sides. We are able to see the benefits of the relationship what I can give to them and what they can give to me. I spend a lot of time, basically sitting on the corner just listening."
This initiative targets young men 17-25 years old. The programme is designed to be taught for six-weeks.
The young men will meet at least once weekly with Rev. Morgan. He instructs them in basic project management skills, and trains them in leadership.
FLOW FROM BORDER
LINE TO BORDER LINE
Helping to mentor the young men with Rev. Morgan is André Virtue, former Jamaica College Manning Cup football star and now director of Whole Life Ministries Sports.
"We have chosen this group, 17-25 year olds, because everybody follows them. They affect everything. If you affect this target group, all the kids will follow them and the older 'shottas'," Rev. Morgan said.
He believes the programme will break the back of a lot of the things that have been attempted in Southside but which have not yielded much success.
At this time, he has about 11 young men who are enrolled in the two-week old programme.
"If and when this works, you will have a group of 11 young men who can move through Southside, which is very divided, and be able to flow from border line to border line, and be able to serve. It is a servant-leadership type of mindset (that is being infused), he said.
EXPOSED TO A NEED
The young men, he said, are interested in project management "because they live in an area where there are needs all around them. They are exposed to a need. They are exposed to where the resources are that's a project - i.e. how to get the resources to the place of need. They are interested in it because inside everyman there is a desire to fill the need for self but also for the people around them. That is what the area leaders do."
He spends much time with them just helping them with problem-solving or otherwise deputising on the projects they come up with.
Pastor Morgan acknowledged that local and foreign entities have been expressing an interest in working with him to help the people of Southside.
But he has been urging them to hold strain and allow I-61 to mature. He stressed that this mentoring of young men is crucial as thereafter other projects slated for Southside "will be able to flow".
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