I’m former CSPC ministry intern Christian Hardin, and here’s more of the story I began sharing last week of how I’m living deeply. 

“During my third year leading youth at KICKO (Knoxville Inner City Kids Outreach), the ministry began to expand rapidly. We hired additional part-time staff, including a rising senior named Blake, who helped drive the growing number of kids we served to program activities. My team also grew with the addition of a full-time resident from the Thrive Lonsdale program. With these new hands on deck, I found the freedom to go deeper with the students, which I had really wanted to do since the start. I wasn’t quite as tied down with tasks like cooking, cleaning, and fueling vans, so I could focus more on building relationships and mentoring our kids. During this time Tion, one of our most vibrant and talented students, really began to shine. I had known him since he was in sixth grade, and even back then, I saw his potential. He was always the loudest in the room, with a performer’s spirit and a deep curiosity about life. As he got older, our conversations began to shift from the basics –‘What do you want to do after high school?’- to deeper questions about his future and his walk with God. Around the same time, I was reading a book called Building Cathedrals by Ted Travis. The book outlines a ministry model where the goal is to empower the very people you serve to eventually run the ministry themselves. That concept resonated deeply with me- it lined up perfectly with the heart of KICKO’s mission. As I thought about Tion and the other students, I saw the potential for something new: a program where these emerging leaders could take on significant roles, not just in their own lives, but in the ministry as well.

I remember one night when Tion and I were doing our usual drop-offs (taking students home). I asked him, ‘Would you ever consider working for KICKO?’ His silence surprised me. After a long pause, he admitted, ‘I never thought it was even an opportunity.’ He was genuinely taken aback by the idea. I told him my goal was for him to eventually take over my job- I believed in him that much. But more importantly, I knew that as someone who had grown up in the same neighborhood as the kids we served, he had an insight and a connection with them that I could never have. That conversation was the beginning of the Emerging Leaders program. Over the next year, Tion stepped into a leadership role that went beyond anything we had imagined. He not only took on the responsibility, he thrived in it. He became a mentor to the younger students, leading by example and showing them there was a different path they could take: a path rooted in faith and service instead of the damaging options so easily available in their environment. Tion is now a college freshman and has his own club to help elementary youth in Western Heights. Kids get there around 3:30 in the afternoon, and Tion might be there for two hours just spending time with them, painting rocks or whatever. The next time he arrives, the kids are running up to him. They painted him cards and sang Happy Birthday to him on his 18th birthday- it’s beautiful. I’m discovering as I get older, our world is difficult, but you have to look for these pieces of Eden, of original creation. Tion is touching these kids’ hearts and has them wrapped around his finger. He’s getting to experience with them what I got to experience with him. These kids are going to grow up, and who knows what their lives will look like because someone decided to sit for two hours, paint rocks or do crafts with them, and then share the gospel two days later?

But just as this new program was taking off, we were hit by an unimaginable tragedy. One of our students, a bright, promising young woman who was part of Emerging Leaders, took her own life. I remember getting the call from one of our students at 11:30 on a Friday night, then scrambling to get our team over to where it had happened to learn more and offer comfort. It was entering one of the heaviest, darkest places I’ll ever experience. Hearing a mother cry for her daughter is something that will forever stay in my head. From that night on, October until Christmas, we were weighed down with sadness, feelings of defeat. We went ahead with a planned beach trip for the students that week, but it wasn’t a fun trip. It was more like everyone was trying to have fun, but the student we lost had been scheduled to go on the trip, and we all felt like she should’ve been there. We left a day early to come back for the funeral. It was a reminder that no matter how strong our faith or how much we try to help others, we live in a broken world where pain and suffering are all too real. For the next year, we walked through a season of deep hurt and confusion. We weren’t just mentors or leaders during that time: we were fellow mourners, sharing in the grief and bewilderment of our students. It became clear that while our mission was to empower and equip these young leaders, we also needed to address the profound emotional and mental health challenges they faced. In the wake of this tragedy, the Emerging Leaders program took on a new dimension. It wasn’t just about leadership anymore; it was about healing and creating a safe space where students could be vulnerable, ask for help, and get to a place where God could heal them. Tion, along with the other emerging leaders, became instrumental in this process. They weren’t just leading programs- they were walking alongside their peers, sharing in their struggles and pointing them to the hope that we have in Christ, even in the darkest times. As I look back, I see how God used that year to shape the Emerging Leaders program into something truly transformative. 

chrisThis new approach involves so many components. For instance, my students get free access to counseling because of where they live, so it’s making sure that’s known. But it’s also thinking through with them: ‘How do you posture yourself to receive healing?’ Where we’ve gone with that is teaching them how to hear, see, and taste God’s love through silence, through meditation, through guided prayer. If it’s in an old book by Henri Nouwen or something similar, we’ve probably tried it or are doing it. We identify emotions and all the layers beneath our emotions. It is such a wild thing to go through this spiritual direction with inner city students: getting high schoolers and middle schoolers to just pause, close their eyes, sit through a guided prayer, or listen to Scripture read and see what sticks out. We explain to them that whatever sticks out during that time, that’s the Holy Spirit trying to tell you something. And they get it. This summer our Emerging Leaders led a mission trip to minister to kids in Puerto Rico, and as one of the girls led devotions, she said, ‘I’m going to read Scripture. See what sticks out. Know there’s power to it.’ In my head, I’m like, ‘This girl who I never thought paid attention or got anything out of it reads Scripture this way. She may not know the name of the practice, but she’s leading us in the Lection Divina. That just makes the most sense for her.’ Taking this sort of direction with Emerging Leaders had been something we were talking about, but the tragic loss of a student was the catalyst that persuaded us to act on it. It was forcing our kids to meet Jesus where they were. And a lot of them would say that they just sat there and didn’t feel anything, which was fine, because God’s presence was in the room regardless. Our thought was, and is: ‘We’re going to introduce them to these things now and not later, because where else can they go for true healing? There’s no going back.’ What a reminder that we may not always understand God’s ways, but He’s always at work, bringing beauty out of ashes and light into darkness. And through it all, He’s preparing us, step by step, for the work He’s called us to do.”