From the Word

Sarah James felt a call to urban ministry as a student at an inner city high school. “I saw kids [at my high school] that had a lot of potential,” she says, “but because of so many barriers in their lives, they didn’t have a chance to make it.” Now, Sarah works to remove barriers for more than 600 children in the inner city.

Sarah first sought to follow God’s call by earning a degree in elementary education from the University of Indianapolis and teaching in the city. She came to feel, however, that there was more that she could do for her students. “During my first year of teaching, I realized these inner city kids needed someone to come alongside them in a holistic manner,” she says. “I decided to go back to school and get my master’s degree in urban ministry.”

At just that time, the Moody Graduate School was launching its own Urban Studies program. Eager to see if Chicago was where God was leading her, Sarah visited the city and, during a prayer walk, offered her life to His service in any city anywhere in the world, no matter how tough. She happened to be speaking that prayer on a corner in Cabrini-Green, one of Chicago’s most dangerous, most impoverished housing projects.

During her time at Moody, Sarah participated in overseas missions trips and completed an internship with a ministry in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. But God intended to honor her earlier prayer quite literally, leading her to Cabrini-Green as director of Chicago’s By The Hand Club for Kids. 

To Life

By The Hand Club for Kids is an after-school program that emphasizes academics and provides a nurturing environment for at-risk kids in the city. The ministry currently serves 638 kids in four sites throughout the city and has plans to expand its services to 1000 kids by 2012. Sarah’s prayer is that God will continue to bless the ministry, allowing staff to reach kids in Chicago and lead them to abundant and eternal lives.

Sarah considers her time and training at Moody pivotal to her work. “Moody has helped me to be grounded in God’s Word,” she says. “As I plan our chapel and Bible study curriculum, Moody has helped me to make sure we teach our kids the Word of God in a doctrinally sound way.”

“The Urban [Ministry] Degree has helped give me a passion for our inner city kids and their families,” Sarah says. That passion has extended to include guardianship of two brothers, Keewuan (14) and Trayvon (10), who lost their mother. Now Sarah faces the challenge of balancing full-time parenthood with full-time ministry, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. “My boys are my heroes, and I am blessed to be a part of their lives.”