A Word From Amachi Pastors

More than 1,000 congregations across the country have joined forces with Amachi in the nationwide effort to reduce the chances of children of prisoners following their parents into prison. In Philadelphia, where the first Amachi match was made more than four years ago and is still active, more than 70% of Amachi matches extend beyond a year. This is substantially higher than the 46% average of general Big Brothers Big Sisters matches that last more than a year.

So why are pastors eager to have their congregations partner with Amachi sites? According to Rev. Earl E. Nance, Jr., pastor of Greater Mount Carmel Baptist Church in St. Louis, Amachi “really helps the church fulfill its mission and I think the church should take the lead in encouraging and mentoring these young people because what you’re doing is you are building and helping new productive members of society,” says Rev. Nance. Amachi “has the opportunity to have a long reach.”

The Amachi program at Greater Mount Carmel benefits more than just the mentees. Over the years, mentees and their parents have joined the church, with some of the new members signing up for the Amachi program and becoming mentors also, according to Rev. Nance. “Not only are the mentees being helped, but the mentors are being helped as well,” he said. “Mentors feel like they are really giving something back to society.”

Members of Greater Mount Carmel have been volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri for three years, and the congregation has partnered with the agency’s Amachi program since its inception a year and a half ago. After accompanying the St. Louis delegation to the Amachi Training Institute in Philadelphia to see firsthand how the program was implemented in churches, Rev. Nance says he realized how many young people in his church’s neighborhood were children of incarcerated parents and became dedicated to helping them.

Rev. Cean James, former minister of Bright Hope Baptist Church in Philadelphia was similarly affected when Rev. Dr. W. Wilson Goode, Sr. approached him four and a half years ago about partnering with Amachi. “Amachi is absolutely great,” says Rev. James. “I think it’s one of the most beneficial ministries that we have here at our church. I think we can really change a generation of young people with this program.”

However, according to Rev. James, it is more than just the call to help “the least of these” that makes the Amachi program so desirable. “What attracted me to Amachi was that the administrative part was being done by an outside entity,” he says. “Dr. Goode had really done his homework and he had put together a program where all he was asking the church to do was provide what they do best, which is to produce people, to get them motivated, to get them fired up and then to turn them over in a way to an organization who will do the real hard administrative work that just no church has the manpower to really be able to handle.”

The compelling need to serve an invisible population of children who are in their situation through no fault of their own, and the limited administrative duties necessary to carry out Amachi, are persuasive reasons for faith leaders to partner with the program. However, Rev. James warns that program operators must ensure that the “right” person approaches the leaders.

“They need to be somehow affiliated to the community,” says Rev. James. “You don’t have to be a minister, but you need to know how the church is run. There’s a certain politic. And you simply need somebody who knows that atmosphere. Pastors have to be able to differentiate between this onslaught of programs that are sent to us. I mean literally daily you get programs that are sent that somebody has put together and really what they are looking for is trying to get some federal or state funding and they need sites, and they really just want you to be a site. To me Amachi is not a site. We are partnering with a nationwide effort to make change.”

Summer 2005