Agora Christian Fellowship and Agora Christian Ministries serve children and youth in Columbus.

bout 70 children and youth eat a family-style meal together after Bible club every Wednesday night at Agora Christian Ministries in Columbus, Ohio.

Pastor Richard Bartholomew says these children rarely eat with their families at home, so this model is “by design.”
Eight-minute sermons: Rich Bartholomew speaks at kids’ church at Agora Christian Ministries in Columbus, Ohio. Photo provided.

This evening program and meal is one aspect of Agora Christian Ministries, which offers encouragement and opportunities to more than 100 underserved children and youth in Columbus. Agora Ministries frames its work with three goals for the youth it serves: service, education and work. A variety of programs and activities, fueled by volunteers, carries out the mission and goals.

The Mennonite Church USA congregation behind the ministry, Agora Christian Fellowship, began in 1994. Pastors Rich and Becky Bartholomew met with the original group and have been the pastors since the inception. While the ministry needs continue to grow, the congregation itself is small; about 50 attend on a Sunday morning.

“Sunday reflects the core church that’s there,” says Rich, “but it’s hard to understand that fully without knowing about Wednesday and Sunday nights.”

In addition to the Wednesday evening “kids club” or Bible club, Agora hosts a Saturday evening kids’ church—a lively church service designed specifically for kids, Rich says.

Infants through young adults attend regularly, and most of them did not grown up in church environments.

“The worship is best when visiting youth groups can be mentors,” Rich says “The kids take their cues.”

The worship service includes a concise eight-minute message. “You can accomplish more in eight minutes if you focus and require attention,” Rich says.

After the service, the attendees eat a café-style meal—pizza or cheeseburgers, for example. Rich says he instructs volunteers to make an overabundance of food, avoiding the tendency to provide only an appropriate amount for each individual.

“Our goal is to have leftovers to give them to take home,” Rich says, adding that children often ask for extras to take home with them.

During the meal, children practice serving food to one another, which is one of the ministry’s goals—service.

“When children want to help and serve the food, we feel like we’re getting somewhere,” says Rich. “When one child is looking out for the interest of another, they are beginning to look beyond themselves.”

Agora Ministries addresses the second goal, education, through an electronic school program that offers 10 computers and volunteers available to tutor the children.

According to Rich, the west side of Columbus struggles with a 59 percent high school-dropout rate.

“We don’t have the funds or we would start a school,” he says quickly. However, they hope to open a full-service child-care and learning center facility that cares for infants and up.

“The younger we start with children, the more influence we have with them,” Rich says. “The longer the hours invested … the further we get. When children are about 14 years old, you begin to see them slip into the values of their parents.”

Agora tackles the work or job-training goal through an on-site kitchen in which children help prepare baked goods for three local coffee shops, a construction program to rehab houses, and opportunities for children to help with chores at the church.

The children and youth receive compensation for their work. Some youth started saving their earnings, as volunteers encourage them to keep money in envelopes at the church.

“These children don’t get an allowance at home,” Rich says. The construction program encourages young men not to deal drugs by offering another source of income, he says.

While anything goes on Saturday, Sunday is “family church,” says Rich.

Children who want to come must agree to have a parental figure or older sibling to sit with. About 20 children attend.

Six households and a dozen young adults comprise the rest of the congregation.

Volunteers at Agora: More than 70 youth groups have visited Agora Ministries for four-day service-ministry experiences.

“They do a tremendous job with us, even if they don’t feel like they do,” Rich says. “They are also challenged themselves.”

Some youth group members maintain ongoing relationships with the youth from Agora through emails and cards, which mean a lot to the youth, Rich says.

Another group of volunteers is about 25 Beachy Amish from Plain City, Ohio, who come to work with the children during the evenings. “They are a genuine piece of what Agora is doing in the inner city,” Rich says.

A group of high school students and at-risk youth joined a group of Beachy Amish and traveled to Pass Christian, Miss., through Mennonite Disaster Service in February 2008.
“We had a great week down there,” he says.

Additionally, eight full-time volunteers (four Americans and four Germans) also contribute to Agora Ministries’ work. The German volunteers are through Agora Ministries’ direct relationship with Christliche Dienste, a Christian service program of the German Mennonite Church.

A future goal for Agora is to further encourage adult Sunday school classes to visit and serve over a weekend. This fits the denominational goal to be a missional church, says Rich.
During Convention 2009, Agora Ministries is a service site for Servant Projects and will host 120 people per day.

For more information, go to www.agoraministries.org/ or email Josh@agoraministries.org or Rich@agoraministries.org.

Anna Groff is assistant editor of The Mennonite.