CITY OF MACON, GEORGIA
Mayor Jim Marshall

Macon Focuses Religious Communities on Needs of At-Risk Youth
Mayor in Unique Position to Bring Together Diverse Groups, Marshall Asserts

There are nearly 350 places of worship in the City of Macon. This is an extraordinarily large number for a city of Macon's size, and Mayor Jim Marshall believes that if the resources of such a large religious community could be focused on the needs of at-risk youth, "there would not be any at-risk youth in Macon or surrounding Bibb County." To this end, Mayor Marshall has reached out to all the local faith communities in the city and county to encourage mentoring and other programs for young people.

"I speak often in Macon before civic groups, the press and others about moral poverty as a disease afflicting our children," Marshall explains. "The symptoms of this disease include teen pregnancy, drug use, poor school performance, criminal activity and gang involvement, among other negative social pathologies. We know that disproportionate numbers of children in urban areas lack loving, responsible adults in their lives. If the disease is moral poverty, who better than adults actively involved in our religious communities to address that problem?"

In late 1996 and early 1997, a series of three Saturday morning breakfasts with ministers was held to launch the effort. The first could be characterized as a role reversal breakfast, in that the more than 100 ministers in attendance heard a sermon delivered by the Mayor on the problems of the area's at-risk youth -- gang members in particular -- and the magnitude of the problem. The Mayor told the ministers and other religious leaders that they would be invited to a second session in which solutions to the youth problems would be discussed, along with ways that their individual communities could be involved in those solutions.

The second breakfast was held about a month later. While the first lasted about an hour-and-a-half, this one went for more than four hours. Attendees -- this time, more than 150 -- were separated into groups having no more than 10 participants; each group had a trained facilitator, and each was asked to "brainstorm" solutions to the problems of at-risk youth and then report to the group as a whole. As the Mayor describes it, "Participants were encouraged to focus on solutions, not problems -- unless reference to problems was needed to explain the proposed solution."

A form asking for specific commitments from the various churches involved was developed by the Mayor's Office and distributed during this session.

Following the second breakfast, the approximately 30 group facilitators met with the Mayor for a half-day to discuss what had been learned from the leaders of the religious communities. A report on this was drafted and, in a third breakfast session, presented to about 100 ministers.

Using the commitment form, follow-ups have been done by the Mayor's Office to determine the extent to which the churches have been meeting their commitments. Where churches have adopted programs that reach out to young people, the City has sought to publicize their efforts.

Mayor Marshall reports that "one of the ministers participating in the meetings said that she considered them to be, in and of themselves, a miracle. Never before in the history of Macon and Bibb County had such a diverse group of ministers come together to address a single community problem."

The result of the Mayor's outreach to ministers has been a significant increase in area churches' youth activities, particularly churches in neighborhoods having high percentages of at-risk children. Mentoring relationships have been developed by many of the churches, many have established themselves as safe places for kids to go after school and on weekends, and many now offer tutoring programs, "safe bridges" for young people, and similar programs.

Role of the Mayor

"Much more so than most individuals in their communities, mayors are aware of where needs exist and also aware of resources that might address those needs," Mayor Marshall says. "In Macon, as in other communities, there are many individuals interested in helping meet needs, but they simply don't know how to do it. The mayor can be a facilitator, bridging the gap between those with needs and those with resources who are interested in meeting those needs."

Marshall believes that the work done with the ministers in Macon offers an especially good example of the role of the mayor as facilitator -- and an example that lends itself to replication in other cities. "Mayors have a unique opportunity to galvanize the resources of faith-based communities," he says. "Often, these religious communities compete with one another for members, for dollars, for publicity, and so on. A faith-based effort led by one minister or a handful of ministers is not likely to reach other ministers who, because of jealousy or competitiveness or other reasons are not willing to follow that individual minister or group of ministers. Unfortunately, the same would be true of efforts begun by one religious denomination; others are not apt to follow. A mayor who is outside these communities is not subject to the same disabilities and can pull the diverse groups and individuals together."

To plan the breakfast meetings, Marshall brought in a few selected ministers along with some members of the Mayor's Youth Violence Task Force which had been formed shortly after he took office. "One important objective of the planning was to clearly define the effort, to avoid an effort that was open ended," Marshall explains. "An even more important objective was to design the program so that ministers and other religious leaders would present their own ideas in a way that would lead to commitments to actually execute those ideas. The concept is simple: If it is my idea and I advance the idea in discussions with others, I am more likely to execute the idea."

Participants in the planning session agreed that they were not aiming for a coordinated church-affiliated program across the city and county. Rather, the ultimate goal was to stimulate additional youth-related activity by the individual churches and their congregations. "Separate efforts of different types within different religious communities were as much as we hoped for," the Mayor says.

So far, it appears that Mayor Marshall and the people of Macon and Bibb County are getting what they hoped for.

Additional information on Macon's initiative is available from Dr. Catherine Meeks in the Office of the Mayor, (912) 751-7170.

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