Beginning with grace is the cornerstone of ministry. And it’s especially needed “when we are engaging people who have not grown up in the church.”
That’s what Rev. Brittany Mingo, the international youth development leader of Lott Carey Foreign Missions Organization — a Black Baptist organization that aids ministries focused on spreading the gospel and spiritual empowerment — says she’s learned over the years.
Grace is also needed for youth who haven’t been raised in the church and are unlearning old habits and adopting new ones.
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“You don’t just throw Jesus at people immediately,” Mingo explains.
Indeed, Lott Carey’s approach, according to Mingo, is to meet people’s needs first and connect them to Jesus through love and service.
“You meet their needs. You show them the love of Christ, and they’re going to try to figure out what this is. What is this? Why do you love me so much? Why are you taking care of us with no expectation of reciprocity? And then you introduce them to Jesus,” she says.
She says this matters because the church can sometimes be heavy on law, “and not necessarily understanding that while we have to live a certain lifestyle, the law is not what God is requiring because you can live by the law and still not have the heart of Christ.”
She knows what this looks like first-hand because Mingo’s journey with Lott Carey began when she was 14. Her family joined a Lott Carey-affiliated church — Enon Tabernacle in Philadelphia — where she is now the Minister of Young People.
“I was blown away. I had never seen anything like it. It was like, this is for kids by kids,” she recalls of the first few days she spent being involved with the church.”
Lott Carey is also special to Mingo because it involves Black people reaching out to improve the quality of life for other Black people, including their spiritual lives.
The experience of seeing other Black children — children who looked like her and loved God — energized and transformed her. She went home full of conviction, thinking, “OK, this is how I live life.”
Mingo’s experiences as a youth helped shape the techniques she currently uses in her youth ministry at Enon Tabernacle.
The church provides numerous extracurricular activities, creating a safe space for children in Philadelphia. Its athletics department has football, basketball, soccer, and track teams, plus tennis, and church membership is not a requirement for participation.
“We offer subsidized pricing. We have a high-quality coaching staff and athletic director,” Mingo explains. “We do require that if you join our athletic department, you must participate in Bible study, and parents know this upfront. There are going to be times when you need to come to the church, and that’s kind of our way to introduce Christ,” Mingo says.
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As a result, “whole families come into the life of the church. They give their lives to Christ as a family,” she says. “I think it’s because we didn’t require you to become a member before we showed you the love of Christ or met whatever need that you had. And we really wanted to pour into your children’s life, but in your life as well.”
One of Mingo’s favorite stories involves a young man who stole her heart. He was a rough, tough, bad boy — always trying to show he was too cool for school — and he was initially resistant to the church.
Mingo says it turned out he was frustrated and resentful “because his grandfather, a church deacon, punished him when he got in trouble in school. His punishment was to read the Bible.”
At first, Mingo didn’t believe someone would actually make reading the Bible a punishment, but the youth’s friends told her it was true. But Mingo met him where he was, so despite his initial resistance, he experienced a change of heart during a five-day program.
On the final night before an altar call with the kids, this youth “asked if we could walk him down,” she says. He told Mingo that now he liked the Bible.
“I just was blown away because I didn’t think that in a few days, we were going to change his mind about it,” she says.
Mingo kept in touch with the young man, sending him a brand-new Bible, which he didn’t have a negative history of punishment with. She says each time she saw him, it was evident his love for the Bible and his relationship with the Lord had grown.
So Lott Carey’s mission to equip churches to gather and retain community youth through grace, relationship-building, and meeting tangible needs creates environments where young people feel safe, loved, and valued.
This is why “We say we’re a place where people encounter God,” Mingo says.
