Second Year Service - Service in Miami

- Lifetime of sustainable urban ministry

This is an opportunity to use what you've learned in Mission Year, YAV or other year long mission service programs to discern God's call on your life to urban ministry as your vocation and transition into a servant leader. DOOR (Discovering Opportunities for Outreach and Reflection) is a program designed to help inform, educate, challenge, and motivate individuals to respond to the issues and concerns facing urban America. DOOR exists to challenge individuals to consider ministry and service of a daily part of their life. DOOR, Mission Year and YAV are partnering together to provide a second year service opportunity in Miami, Florida.

Goal of the Dwell

To dwell among the people of Miami as Christ lived among us.
To know and make known and God's presence in the city of Miami by connecting to the community and being a part of the urban renewal movement.
To meet a critical need of the local churches and faith-based agencies.
To raise up Christian leaders committed to urban ministry and the strengthening of our cities.

Program Description

The Second Year program is for individuals who have completed a year with a partnered program. It has the same community components and expectations for work.

Responsibilities include a higher level of leadership, at placement and potentially in the community house
Assigned mentors will focus on refining the call to urban ministry/leadership
Curriculum is geared towards an “independent study” model

Individuals will develop leadership skills while working in a community agency/church. All placements are positions of leadership, whether it is being an associate pastor, leading a youth group, directing an after-school program, or running the mail program at the homeless shelter. These are positions for candidates that are self starters with initiative. Leadership will mean, identifying the needs, planning the solution and implementing the plan.

DWELL will connect candidates to the social service network in the city, to serve the community, to assist the ministries of the local church and social service network, and in the process form communities of young adults across the city, who are dedicated to growing as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Candidates will be interviewed and placed with agencies and ministries based on the need of the local ministry and the gifts and talents of the candidate. After arriving Sept. 1, the first two weeks are set aside for orientation, tours, reading, settling in. Interns will serve in their ministry placement an average of 32 hours a week. They will meet together as a team one day a week for directed study, prayer, training, or living issues. Twice a month they will meet together with the other teams for worship and fellowship. Four retreats are taken throughout the year. The program has four major components:

SERVICE - To the ministry placement, to the other interns, to the neighbors.
COMMUNITY - Dwell participants will live in a common household with 4-6 other young adults, relate to other volunteer intern houses, worship with local young adults and churches, relate to the neighborhood and the surrounding area.
RELATIONAL IMPACT - Relationships will be developed with people from the community in which they live. Dwell participants will experience the joys and difficulties of cross-cultural friendships. They will observe and experience how lives are transformed through relationships.
SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES - In addition to personal disciplines, Dwell participants will regularly study the Bible, worship and take part in guided reflection as a household. Each Dwell participant will be matched with a community leader as a personal mentor and friend.

Candidates will be interviewed and placed with Miami agencies and ministries based on the need of the local ministry as well as the gifts and talents of the candidate. After arriving in late August, the first two weeks are set aside for orientation, tours, reading, settling in. Dwell participants will serve in their ministry placement an average of 32 hours a week. They will meet together as a team one day a week for directed study, prayer, training, or living issues. Twice a month they will meet together with the other teams serving in Miami for worship and fellowship. They will learn about and better understand the diversity of Miami while meeting and working with a variety of people and ministries. Retreats are taken mid-year and at the end of the term of service.

Period of Service

One year (August 26, 2008 to August 15, 2009)

Miami 2nd Year Registration

If you prefer to fill out a hard copy, please print the PDF version of this registration, fill it out, and send it in.

Ministry Opportunities

Work in an after school program, with their youth group, or community outreach affiliated with a downtown homeless congregation and a traditional African American congregation.
Learn grass roots organizing and work to empower leaders within their own communities to solve large civic problems. Prefer someone with a second language, Spanish, French or Creole.
Assist a bi-vocational pastor in all aspects of a predominantly Hispanic church. The intern will work to reactivate and inspire the youth of the church and the families around them and to out reach into the surrounding community.
Assist in all aspects of the after-school program as well as youth group, young adult programs and soccer play. Spanish is a plus as many of the families encountered work as migrant farm workers from Mexico and Central America.
Instigate and lead athletic clubs/teams for children and youth in the migrant farm worker housing centers as an outreach into the families. The mission intern must speak Spanish.
Train leaders, lead Bible studies, direct a community music school and work on a new church plant. Twenty five years or older a plus. The volunteer will work and worship with a group of peers.
Develop a youth program and to reach a neighborhood. The youth program includes a step dance team, a hand bell choir, a basketball team, children's church and youth fellowship night.
Write grants and work on development for an organization that provides high quality education to low income families or 'at risk' students or teens struggling with substance abuse and meeting many other areas of urban needs.
Assist in every aspect of the many outreach ministries of an ethnically diverse church and develop age level programming.
Work with families in parenting skills, developmental education and aversion strategies. Work across the county to identify, target and include families within the programs offered.
Invigorate the youth program of Anglo, Carribean and Afro-American youth group. The Dwell participant will also assist the Pastor in many other aspects of church life, worship, children, adult programs and community outreach.
Organize neighbors into neighborhoods in an agency that assists individuals with lending assistance, budgeting, and neighborhood organizing.
Train and empower local congregations to teach low income workers of their rights and resources. The Dwell participant will organize and train individuals within each church to reach their community of low wage earners by way of food banks or shelter programs.

Register now for your Miami 2nd Year.

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