Our Vision

Cleveland is a beautiful and gritty place, marked by significant challenges. The same realities of other rustbelt cities are ours as well -- an urban core that is declining in residents and resources, diverse populations largely segregated geographically, and forty-one suburbs and exurbs which have grown up over the decades as people moved out and up and left the city behind.

In this beautifully gritty place, with all of her challenges, there’s a rich, diverse culture rooted in a number of historic African-American and immigrant migrations, all seeking safety and opportunity, and finding themselves here. So beyond every corner you encounter a different neighborhood with its own distinct flavor and character, surprisingly void of much of the gentrified homogeneous pop-up culture that’s overtaken so many other places. Locals know all of this. Transplants especially relish it. It’s unique and different and bursting with potential. 

This is what we want students to encounter as they make Cleveland home -- that they too would feel the weight of the problems, but that they would love this place, and that some might choose to stay. Our ministry is to college students. But not just to college students. There’s a bigger picture.

We see no dichotomy between material and spiritual problems. They are problems that affect people, so they matter. And they are problems built up over decades with no easy solutions.

So when we speak of the potential of college students who become alive with the heart of Jesus to change Cleveland and the world, we don’t do so naively, as if it were a promise we could fulfill. It’s a hope we work for.

Jesus spoke of a Kingdom. We work to see His “upside-down” kingdom -- with upside-down values and priorities and downwardly-mobile means -- expand among college students and beyond.

Eugene Peterson, paraphrasing John 1:14, wrote: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” What happens when Jesus unobtrusively takes up more space through a beautifully-formed, cross-centered people? 

Our vision is that smaller lights bearing the light of Jesus will brighten the shadows of our city. That we will bring light to bear on darkness, truth to falsehoods, righteousness and mercy on injustice, and healing to pain. We want to empower and release these lights, with hearts of strength and hope, to every corner of the city, every sector of society, for the common good and human flourishing. We want them to bring and share the gospel, the good news in all it's word and deed fullness. How many of us will it take? At least one more. Let’s do it together. In Jesus’s name. This is human connection, faith that matters, and hope for the world.