Just over a year ago, Paul Knapp found himself and his team from Southwest Michigan Young Life spinning their wheels with trying to reach youth in the Benton Harbor community. Something needed to change.
As he shared about his struggle, he quickly discovered that he wasn’t alone. A local church was experiencing much of the same thing.
Paul Knapp (top middle) & SWM Young Life at Timber Wolf Lake
Brian Bennett, the founding pastor of Overflow Church (a ten-year-old Benton Harbor church plant), was also spinning his wheels along with his members in regards to reaching the youth in their community.
Overflow had been experiencing chronic turnover with their youth pastors and had struggled to build momentum. And while Benton Harbor Young Life had been doing solid work with teenagers, thanks to the leadership of former YL Staff Associate Kateesha Adams, they were struggling to find others to join in the mission.
So when Kateesha moved on from her work with Young Life a big void was left which needed to be filled.
About that time, Young Life Regional Director Chris Theule-VanDam reached out to Paul about adding an additional Benton Harbor staff person.
“I had no idea what God had in store for Southwest Michigan,” recalled Paul.
As Paul Knapp and Brian Bennett continued talking, eventually adding Overflow’s youth pastor Paul Campbell into the conversation, what sprouted was the beginnings of a partnership, with the goal of bringing consistency and stability to both ministries.
Paul Campbell (center) & Overflow Young Life
After three months of discussion, Overflow Church and SWM Young Life agreed on a collaboration that would widen and deepen the impact that each was having in Benton Harbor. Their solution was to stop seeing themselves as separate initiatives but to join forces under one mission.
“Our plan was to combine our resources, leaders, training programs, and camping initiatives to create one unified program to reach kids with the Gospel in Benton Harbor,” shared Paul Knapp. “Both Overflow and Young Life had hired fantastic staff in the past who did great ministry but were unable to find the missing pieces to have sustainable success. We hope that this collaboration will be that missing piece.”
Since the collaboration began in May of 2017, they have watched their leadership team grow from 4 adults to now 12 (7 high school leaders and 5 middle school leaders).
Baptism of an Overflow WyldLife student
Overflow Church now holds Young Life and WyldLife as their main high school and middle school initiatives. For the past year, the youth ministry has been led by Paul Campbell and his assistant Jesse Ludema who have both been trained in the Young Life leadership model. As of April 1, Ron King has taken over for Paul Campbell who will be transitioning out of his role.
The partnership has provided Overflow Church with opportunities to contribute towards scholarships that send kids to a life-changing week at summer camp. Last summer, they were able to send 15 high school students to Young Life camp at Timber Wolf Lake and 7 middle school students to WyldLife camp at Michindoh.
They are currently dreaming and praying about starting YoungLives—a ministry for teen moms—in Benton Harbor and have motivated adults who want to see a YoungLives Coordinator hired in 2019.
“This is a new space for us, and there will be some growing pains,” commented Paul Knapp about the partnership. “However, we have felt some incredible affirmation in the growth we’ve seen already.”
Overflow Young Life’s vision is to see youth come to know Jesus Christ and to see this next generation rise up and become the current and future leaders of the godly transformation in the city.
Through this partnership, the net to reach more youth in Benton Harbor has been cast even wider!
(L-R) Andrew Collins, Will Flaherty, Mike Bredeweg, Paul Knapp, Jesse Ludema, Ron King from SWM Young Life
> GET IN TOUCH with Paul Knapp and the Southwest Michigan Young Life Staff here.
> CONNECT with Overflow Young Life on Facebook and Instagram.
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