Danny decided to kick the ball his hardest to impress Mr. Sam. When he did, something silly happened.
“Look Mr. Sam, my shoe went further than the ball!” Danny said. The two laughed and tried a few more kicks. Same result every time.
“That’s why I don’t play soccer at recess,” Danny admitted.
“It wouldn’t happen if you tied your shoes,” said Sam. “Make them tighter before we try again.”
“I don’t know how,” Danny said, his voice trailing off with embarrassment.
With a big smile Sam said, “That’s okay, let’s figure it out together.”
Tie a boy’s shoes and he’ll kick a ball with you. Teach a boy to tie his own shoes and he’ll play soccer every day.
But that’s not the important point. To see what’s at stake, focus on what will happen in the moments to follow between young Danny and Sam: two hearts will knit together. Over shoe laces? Yes.
Sam volunteers as a mentor through his local church and shows up at school to meet with Danny for an hour every Monday afternoon. Danny lives with his grandmother, and has experienced little to no parental involvement in his eight years—as evidenced by his inability to tie his shoes. Imagine what else he doesn’t know. Whatever he lacks materially matters much less than his relational deficit.
In every community throughout this country there are millions of boys and girls just like Danny: young people whose greatest needs are not things but people. Specifically, people willing to step into someone else’s life and figure out together how to tie a shoe. Shake hands. Share wisdom. Read words. Or dream.
Even more millions of adults like Sam attend church in every community throughout this country. And those communities have schools with plenty of students like Danny, just waiting for someone.
In fact, our country’s 300,000+ churches outnumber the 60,000+ elementary schools. An amazing solution for at-risk kids clearly exists.
That’s right; churches represent an “amazing” solution. How?
A recent two-year study analyzed hundreds of mentor-student relationships from church-school programs and compared the quality of those one-to-one matches with those from a highly regarded and well-established national secular organization. At a fraction of the cost needed by the other approach, the church-school programs scored higher.
The cost differential is no surprise. After all, churches mobilize, energize, and utilize volunteers better than any entity (my opinion, a broad generalization I stand by every day to anyone willing to listen). The match quality comparison is the amazing element; apparently those volunteers do tremendous work—as measured by how well they develop relationships and keep them going year after year.
Which is exactly what so many kids lack.
In this season characterized by giving, when many folks genuinely seek to understand what other people want and need, consider this truth: The best gift any church can offer to its community is found in the pews, not the collection plate. Fortunately, the greatest resource a church possesses is the capacity of its members to love—to show up and be someone like Sam. That’s what Danny really needs.
It’s as simple as tying shoes.
David Staal, senior editor for Building Church Leaders and a mentor to a first grader, serves as the president of Kids Hope USA, a national non-profit organization that partners local churches with elementary schools to provide mentors for at-risk students. David is the author of Lessons Kids Need to Learn (Zondervan, 2012) and Words Kids Need to Hear (Zondervan, 2008). He lives in Grand Haven, MI, with his wife Becky, son Scott, and daughter Erin.
