When Jesus began His earthly ministry, it wasn’t long before He began calling disciples. This was His pipeline of leadership. Though He identified, chose and called them fairly quickly, it took Him three years to prepare them to minister. While He was with them, He had to show them what to do, teach them what to say, position them to trust Him through difficulty, demonstrate how to process and handle adversity, help them wrestle with their own baggage, provide opportunities to apply wisdom, and leave them in order to show how to keep their word.

Why and to whom are these things important? These are essential elements in building leaders. In urban communities, there are many opportunities our young people have to lead. They’re asked to lead gangs, stand as look-outs, and be the instigators or finishers of fights. On the block, kids of color are given front-row seats to watch the leaders of their communities and then provided opportunities to exhibit the leadership they’ve seen. This begins at a young age; hence, as they mature, they are prepared to lead a basketball team, to sell a dime-bag, etc.

There is another entity and life to which they are not exposed—hence the fight for faithfulness. I wonder what baggage the disciples carried when they began to walk with Jesus. What type of family situations had they encountered, what abuse had they survived or trauma had they endured? We know that whatever their lot, Jesus called them.

As a body of believers, we’ve allowed the streets to dictate a type of leader for our urban youth. What changes the life of an inner city kid? It’s your faithfulness. I believe consistency through time yields transformation. Walking with kids through court proceedings, tutoring them, validating their self-worth, walking through the valley of the shadow of death, and being consistent models of how life can be lived through Christ changes their lives. It may not happen quickly, and you may not receive spiritual feathers in your cap, but in time, these students will be changed.

The fight for faith was not that of the disciples. Their growth and development relied on the faithfulness of Jesus. Their lives were in response to His faithfulness.

Quick story: There was a young man who was like many others in the hood: single mom, not much money, disconnected from his dad by age 4. As he grew, he loved one thing: basketball. A couple of Christian college students recognized his passion and took this young man under their wings. They took him to play basketball, to help them move furniture, to paint garages, to read Scripture, to sit in men’s Bible studies. They praised him when he was doing well, corrected him when he was wrong and challenged him when he refused to change. That young man was me. Six men took an interest in one young man and helped him grow up. They walked with me for eight years and stand with me to this day. We’ve been in relationship for 29 years.

Are you in for the long haul? That’s the cost of faithfulness!