Empowerment

Last night I was watching a PBS Frontline special on a group of kids at West Philadelphia High School that built a hybrid sports cars.  The students biggest praise of their teacher is that he believes in them and treats them like people who can do this job and win a car competition.  He doesn’t treat them as if they need to be saved.  This is just one program for urban students that I have learned about in the last few months.

Another program begins training urban students at 8 or 9 years old, teaching them how to care for horses and to play polo.  This program has produced the best high school polo team in the country.

What both these programs do is empower students to believe in themselves do things they were always capable of but never dreamed they could do.  In many cities you can find similar programs for students.  How would our cities change if the same focus was placed on the adults as well?  Do I view the adults that I work with as capable of amazing things, things God has already set out for them to do, or do I simply see them as people who need to be saved?  I hope that most times it is the former, but there are times that I become complacent and forget to look at people as God sees them.