School Partnership Initial and Essential

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Any written history of the New Directions youth ministry must begin with a simple high school assembly, those welcomed breaks in school-day routine, when teachers and students alike get a reprieve from the traditional classroom happenings like lectures, note-taking, reading, worksheets and discussion. When the McClain High School students were introduced to the Christian rock band Prism, a musical outreach of Campus Crusade for Christ, during one such December 1987 school assembly, students were intrigued enough to return that night for a full-blown concert. When the good news of Jesus was shared by band members during the outside-the-school-day concert, more than 50 MHS students expressed interest in what Prism had to say, garnering the attention of Greenfield’s Christian community, which through the response cards students completed during the concert became acutely aware of the spiritual needs expressed by a sizeable student group. More than a month later, on Jan. 31, 1988, the Greenfield Area Christian Center convened a community prayer meeting at Greenfield First Baptist Church, setting in motion what 15 months later would become Greenfield’s community-wide, church-supported youth program. The path to what New Directions became when it first opened its doors on May 1, 1989, was forged through months of prayer, research and diligent discussion. New Directions never actually did open its doors to start with, and that fact alone is part of its rich history.
 

The January 1988 prayer meeting was followed by the creation of a committee, made up of seven adults and four students representing 11 area churches, that was tasked with designing an interdenominational youth program to meet the spiritual needs of the students. The blueprint for what New Directions would become took a number of twists and turns as the committee gained valuable insights from national Christian youth organizations, including Campus Crusade for Christ, Young Life and Tentmakers, and through surveying the McClain High students. The various perspectives of committee members and the churches they represented, plus the insights of the youth both serving on the committee and within the Greenfield School District, helped frame what the youth program would look like. The committee diligently covered each step with prayer. A youth director job description and salary/benefit package were proposed by the committee and it seemed the months of prayer, research and discussion were about to yield a unique community youth program geared specifically to the Greenfield School District. Through prayer and consultation with youth ministry professionals, it was apparent that God was directing the committee to focus not on a building, but, rather, on relationships and programs. Any physical structure would follow the building of the relational ministry. A five-year fundraising goal was established, and it was decided that funds needed to be secured for the first two years of the program, ensuring stability. Involving the youth in a multitude of decisions that included hiring of the first director, ongoing fundraising, and any future building plans was a foreshadowing of sorts of how the ministry would be shaped – intentionally relational, student-centered and student-led. The three-pronged purpose of the ministry would become: 1) accept the youth where they are 2) present the good news of Jesus Christ 3) disciple those who accepted Jesus as their personal Savior. 

 A national search for the youth program’s first director began late in 1988, continuing into the first half of 1989. Again, the youth serving on the committee had an equal voice with the adults in deciding who would be the first director of the yet-to-be-named youth program. Tonia McLanahan of Canadian, Texas, was recommended by the committee on April 23, 1989, to be the program’s first director. Two days later, the Executive Board of the Greenfield Area Christian Center approved the recommendation and McLanahan officially began her work leading the fledgling ministry on May 1, 1989. 

 A highlight of each year was the annual three days spent camping in Wilmore, KY, while attending ICHTHUS.