Recognizing the “Mighty 42”
By Rev. Dr. W. Wilson Goode, Sr.

As the Amachi program prepares to celebrate its fifth anniversary, it is appropriate to salute the people who are not only unique, but who have been the prime reason for its amazing success. I refer to the pastors of the original churches who were trailblazers in this work. I call them the “Mighty 42.” These were the 42 congregations that joined forces with Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) and Big Brothers Big Sisters to create this awesome national model.

As we celebrate the many achievements of this program, it’s important to reflect on some of the reasons for the involvement of the churches. Some saw it as a call to arms. “It was like a wake-up call for us,” one pastor said. “It made the church aware of what we need to do as a church.” And, they believed, it could help awaken congregation members to turn their faith into action. By making the commitment to mentor a child, one pastor said, “The people in the church get to practice what is preached, what they testify about. The sermon is okay. But the practical side, forgive me Lord, it is a powerful teacher.”

This statement was support by another pastor who immediately grasped the mission of the program and said, “We had prison outreach and youth study groups. But when Rev. Goode came to see me, I immediately recognized that in our mission we had totally overlooked one group and their particular needs. Sometimes you don’t see the innocent victims.”

But there was a deeper reason for some pastors and congregations to come forward— some suggest that it was really to extend and expand their neighborhood ministries. One pastor put it in perspective this way: “It was a program that brought its own support. It gave us resources, manpower, to extend what we were doing. Amachi did the organizing for us.” Or, in the words of another pastor, it provided the church with “the ability to go into the community in a systematic form and reach children that need support and guidance.”

This program enabled this congregation to extend its ministry to a population that was described by another pastor as “a faceless, voiceless group that nobody has been speaking up for.”

The program also had [a built-in] accountability. Every month, each volunteer was expected to turn in a report on [his or her] match experiences. After the receipt of the monthly reports by Amachi staff, each pastor was sent a report on all the volunteers in the congregations. The pastor also received a report indicating how the congregations compared to other congregations. These reports, especially the comparison ones, had their own built-in accountability. As one pastor explained, “There was one month when I got the report and the numbers were very low. I actually stood up on the pulpit [during his Sunday sermon] and said I was [a]shamed.” When he got his report the next month, he said, “The numbers were better.”

So as we now celebrate 108 Amachi programs in 85 cities and 35 states, with about 20,000 children served, this is a tip of the hat to those brave and passionate pastors, the “Mighty 42,” who made it all possible.