Shining a light in the darkness

APS Reality APS serves more than 88,000 students in 142 schools APS is the second largest employer in Albuquerque, providing 14,000 jobs including 6300 teachers They are considered a minority majority district: two-thirds of students are Hispanic. Two out of ten students are English language learners.

APS Reality An estimated 29% of children in New Mexico live in poverty. 42% of single parent families live in poverty. APS has 142 schools, of which 105, or 74%, are Title I schools 68% of 88,000+ students are eligible for free or reduced priced lunch

“A childhood spent in poverty often sets the stage for a lifetime of setbacks. Secure attachments and stable environments, so vitally important to the social and emotional development of young children, are often denied to our neediest kids. These children experience more stress due to loneliness, aggression, isolation, and deviance in their peer relationships, and they are more likely to describe feeling deprived, embarrassed, picked on, or bullied. As a result they more often face future struggles in marital and other relationships.” (Teaching with Poverty in Mind, Eric Jensen)

“However, research (Hill, Bromell, Tyson, & Flint, 2007) suggests that although the first five years of a child’s life are very important, there is tremendous opportunity during the school years for significant transformation. Low socioeconomic student’s behavior is an adaptive response to a chronic condition of poverty, but a brain that is susceptible to adverse environmental effects is equally susceptible to positive, enriching effects. (Teaching with Poverty in Mind, Eric Jensen)

Matthew 6:10 “Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” “If God’s will was done in our schools, what would be different?”

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Shine (Mentor) Club

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“Service is what you do TO people, mission is what you do WITH them.” Nate Bush

Gospel-Implicit We respect the separation of church and state. Although we do not explicitly speak the gospel, we implicitly demonstrate the free gift of love given to us by Jesus.

When we become the good news to the city, the city is open to hearing the good news about Jesus. However, we are never to be good news just so that we can share the good news, in so doing we deny the good news of free grace we are espousing.

Shine believes that HOW we demonstrate compassion has everything to do with whether or not people actually feel valued.

“We must come to deeply believe that every person, no matter how destitute or broken, has something of worth to bring to the table.” “Perhaps the deepest poverty of all is to have nothing of value to offer in exchange.” Compassion Justice and the Christian Life, Robert Lupton

Betterment does for others Development enables others to do for themselves

“As co-creators with our Father, we have the high privilege and sober responsibility of recreating systems that have fallen to self- interest, expediency and apathy. Ours is the task of modeling the highest forms of charity that include even the most vulnerable among us as valued participants.” (Lupton, Compassion Justice and the Christian life)