About Us.
Mission Statement.
Meeting the needs of inner city organizations that meet the needs
of urban teenagers
Matt Hankinson
Executive Director
For 10 years, Matt Hankinson has been ministering to Oklahoma City youth. Matt spent 4 years in urban OKC, and 6 years as the Life Church youth minister where he ministered to over 800 youth a week. Matt has a personal passion for developing effective youth pastors and teaching youth workers how to build intentional relationships with lost youth.
Vernon Deas
Urban Initiative Pastor
Vernon has been effectively ministering to urban youth for 10 years. Vernon worked with a youth ministry of 500 urban youth in his hometown of Kansa City before he moved to OKC in 2000. He has helped develop two strong OKC urban youth ministries before joining the YFC staff. With a unique understanding of urban culture, Vernon effectively reaches youth through video, music, graphic art, and campus ministries.
YFC/OKC
At Youth For Christ, we have a code red with the urban youth culture of our OKC school district! Only 10% of the students attend a local church. STD’s are on the rise and our youth are becoming sexually active at ages as young as 11 and 12 years of age. One in three girls and one in four boys will be sexually abused by the time they reach their 19th birthday. Drugs and gangs invade their lives daily as a cultural norm. Almost every urban teenager will experience losing a peer to the violence of his or her streets. Most youth in our urban communities do not see a positive future in their lives, and have lost hope when it comes to the reality of reaching their full potential.
At Youth For Christ, the board, the staff, and the volunteers believe that God can change this hurting teen culture. We have seen that this urban youth culture desires a real relationship with Jesus Christ, and can be reached through intentional relationships and the reality that they can reach their full potential despite their negative surroundings. Youth For Christ’s action plan is to reach these at risk teens by:
- Partnering with local churches and empowering them to meet the needs of the youth in their neighborhoods.
- Initiating aggressive campus clubs and building relationships with youth on their turf.
- Creating culturally relevant youth facilities for urban youth to come enjoy a safe and fun atmosphere where they are known by name and loved unconditionally.
- Inviting them to a youth service that they can relate to and addressing real life issues that they face everyday.
- Including urban youth with the church community through small groups and Bible studies.
- Supplying urban youth ministries with current and effective ministry training.
- Igniting their passion for their future through leadership programs where they can grow emotionally, spiritually, physically, and relationally.
- Providing a high quality youth camp for urban teens to attend in the summer.
- Partnering with churches to get full-time youth pastors on staff in the OKC school district.
- Facilitating an urban intern program where future urban youth pastors can be developed.
If we are to take the city back for Christ, we must invade the lives of its youth, reach them through relationships and connect them with the local church where true healing and transformation can take place. It is a monumental task to take our city back, starting with our youth, but it is a calling from God that our hearts will not let us ignore.
Youth ministry needs / limited resources
- Training
- Curriculum
- Leadership training
- Peer fellowship
- Accountability
- Monetary
- Transportation
- Camp
Strategic Plan
1) Campus Ministries
- Train youth pastors how to build relationships with local schools
- Teach them how to do a successful club.
- Provide them with pizza and curriculum for their club.
- Educate pastors in contact work.
- Help schools with sports, substitute teaching, after school programs, and facilities.
2) Intern Program
3) Training
- Teach youth ministers effective ministry through developing the Loop.
- Consult with youth ministers concerning their specific needs.
- Supply leadership tools.
- Help with recruitment and placement of volunteers.
4) Youth Atmosphere
- Youth room
- Cultural understanding