CHICAGO, IL (November 6, 2003) – Agape Community Covenant Church near downtown Chicago has made the most of limited facilities during the past two decades, reaching about 1,000 children and teens per month with its youth programs.
If all goes well, Agape Community Covenant will have a lot more room to do community ministry in the near future. The church, which was recently adopted by the Evangelical Covenant Church, is hoping that recent land acquisition will lead to an expansive building project in its neighborhood. National Covenant Properties assisted the church in buying the land and designs for a two-phase project are complete, according to founding pastor Steve Stultz.
Phase one, which will cost $1.5 million to complete, incorporates 11 city lots. An arcade, classrooms and meeting space, as well as a Brown’s Chicken and Pasta franchise operation, are part of the overall plans, as is a new gymnasium. The land for phase two of the project (estimated at $2 million) also involves 11 city lots and will include a skating rink, swimming pool and bowling alley, among other things.
The church’s youth organization, Agape Youth Development and Family Support Services (AYDFSS), likely will benefit most from the project. It was established in 1994 to help better serve the community and currently provides ministry services to more than 1,000 youth and their families – their efforts produced more than 70,000 service hours to the area.
“We’re the next neighborhood west of the downtown area that’s beginning to develop so there’s a lot happening here,” said Stultz. “Part of why we feel the Lord’s putting us here for such a time as this is that the neighborhood has to be developed with justice in mind. We believe this Center, which would be done in two phases, is going to be a center both for evangelism and community organizing. And the amenities will be a great calling card for kids. I think the Lord is bringing about a turn of events where the real church of Jesus can step up here. It can become a beacon for children and teens in this area.”
Agape Community Covenant averages around 100 for Sunday worship, based on recent statistics from the Central Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church. However, the ministry possibilities are endless in the neighborhood around the church and its support services building next door. An empty lot is within 50 yards just south of the church and to the north and east are a few other non-developed lots. A Chicago Transit Authority bus depot is located across the street from the church and was previously used as a Christian Reformed Church, accommodating 100 for worship.
Stultz has been a constant at Agape Community Covenant for nearly three decades after growing up in Chicago and attending Chicago Bible College (now known as Christian Life College). He began doing youth ministry at that time, using a converted laundromat and local homes, among other venues. Later on, Stultz worked with the parents of the students he ministered to and he and other core group leaders decided to start holding worship services in 1983 as an independent congregation.
In December 1983, Stultz met his wife, Brenita, through ministry and they were married in 1984. Both Steve and Brenita, along with other family members, have been vital in the evolution of the church’s ministry.
In the summer of 1988, Stultz and his church hosted an off-site youth camp. It took one day of that camp for Stultz to realize that youth ministry would be critical to the church’s future. “We had factions from the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples and I had to break up a fight the first day,” Stultz said. “But my wife was the speaker and her message hit home – the rest of the week was like the difference between hell and heaven. By the end of the week, the leaders of the two factions were teaming up for a camp Olympics.”
Following the camp, Stultz and company began praying for a youth center. In the meantime, the church began a bible study at the home of a neighbor. An acquaintance of the neighbor, Mary Giles, attended the bible study, liked what she saw and began to help the church of 50 find a building. It happened to be the Reformed Church building where she had been worshiping. Agape Community bought the Reformed Church facility (furniture and all) for $9,100 and moved into that site in February 1989.
Shortly thereafter, Agape Community expanded its ministries, which included a Sunday evening Victory Club for K-9 children. Church members became neighborhood captains, the church spent a week praying for the ministry and attendance eventually increased to 250 kids within two years. It was clear that the church couldn’t fit its ministry into one small building, but Stultz said it became even clearer that God had a plan to alleviate that problem.
In February 1991, Stultz was coming to the church and met the owners of the building two doors away. They offered to sell the building to the church and five months later, Agape Community had bought the building, thanks to an unexpected gift of $36,000 by a friend of the ministry. A year after that, a gift of more than $40,000 helped bolster the ministry and in 1994, the community service center was incorporated, thanks to the help of Steve’s brother, John, and sister-in-law, Linda. They sold their janitorial business and became unpaid full-time staff. Steve’s wife now serves as its program director.
Two years later, the Center received a grant from the Chicago Area Project, a state-funded organization, along with a grant from a federal financial source called The Empowerment Zone. The funding has helped strengthen the Center’s resources and the church has helped more kids get involved with Sunday worship services by altering its worship style, something for which Stultz is especially grateful. Many of the teens have become young adult leaders at the church and with the community center’s youth programming. Their examples are visible to the children. “To have young adults standing in the midst – with backgrounds similar to the kids – is important,” Stultz said.
Gangs are an integral part of the fabric of the neighborhood around Agape Community Covenant and kids are recruited ambitiously, said Stultz. The church has countered with an ambitious program of its own, and it seems to be working.
Stultz was invited to a marketing event and took some of the marketing concepts to form The Chosen Generation Leadership Corps. The youth ministry has multi-level leader groups, leadership training and an award system to encourage growth in discipleship. Some even earn a weekly stipend for community service. Local police authorities have taken notice. Between 30 and 50 kids that are first-time offenders are sent to the church to do community service and are part of the youth programming. One of the first-time offenders has become an audio/visual assistant in the center’s program and graduated from high school He is now in college studying criminal justice.
“We believe in what God is doing here,” Steve said. “There is an expectation of God’s moving into the lives of the kids.”
For more information about Agape Community Covenant Church, its youth organization and other ministries, call Stultz at 773-638-6718.
Copyright © 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.
