Community Caring Resource Network
Research Interviews, Reflection, and Analysis
How we set ourselves up ... for disappointment!
In this Peer-Review presentation, John shares his socio-cultural research on apartment ministry, and how answering one question about any ministry can help avoid setting ourselves up for disappointment, and steps a ministry team can take to sustain and thrive over time.
Presented for peer review to Kairos University in May 2024 as part of John's Doctor of Ministry program.
From Sustainable Youth Ministry, by Mark Devrise.
Reflection and Analysis
Two years. That was the timeframe that came up again and again during my interviews with those directly involved in apartment ministry. In one of my first interviews, on August 31, 2022, Dave Snyder mentioned that many who serve as Cares Coordinators (Apartment Life), often serve in this capacity for only about two years. Jesse Mendoza mentioned that he and his wife served for about two years in a complex in Edgewood, and indicated that the demands on their time were much more than anticipated. Andrew Kruse stated that because of violence in the complex they were serving in, the ministry was discontinued. Pat Willey explained that they had been at Stone Point for two years when new management decided to end the program there.
Although these individuals served in different contexts, Edgewood (Jesse) and University Place (Pat and Chris) being more affluent/suburban/professional, while Tacoma (Andrew) being more urban/inner city/low-income, and each moved on for a different reason, and each had a different experience and evaluation of their time in apartment ministry, they all ended up leaving after two years.
I have since spoken with several others who serve in some capacity with Apartment Life, and have met other Cares Coordinators that move on after about two years, sometimes moving to a different location, sometimes moving to a different job in their organization, sometimes moving on to a different career. In fact, I have yet to meet anyone who has served more than two years in the same apartment complex.
These observations prompted the question: knowing that those who serve in multi-family housing ministry often stay only two years, is there a model for apartment ministry that would be more sustainable? Are there principles or practices that can be established as part of the philosophy of ministry that would lead to greater longevity for those who serve? Are there values that can be woven into the fabric of the ministry that would result in resilience and a chance that it might stand up to the multiform forces that seem to work against sustaining this kind of work?
It was wrestling with this very question that became the impetus for creating the Community Caring Resource Network.