Gangs of the City and Beyondby Efrem Smith
It seems I've had to deal with the issue of gangs my whole life. When I was a middle school student, my cousin Cory (who was a gang member at the time) protected me from the pressures from other gang members to join. Many urban kids get involved in gangs because they have family members in them. They grow up watching brothers, uncles, or even sisters involved in gang activity, so they end up becoming gang members because it's a family thing.
Other urban young people join gangs, not because of family ties, but because of a lack of family. Many current and former gang members point to growing up without a father in the home as the reason they initially got involved. They were looking for men to look up to, and gang leaders became those father figures.
There are stories of mothers strung out on drugs and their sons having to become men before their time. The gang becomes the alternative family for young people searching for identity and purpose in life. The gang can also serve as the primary place to search for some meaning of what it means to be a man—connected again to the issue of looking for a father.
In other cases, young people join gangs as a way to make money. Gangs become the primary—or only—cash flow system. This system often breeds violence as the primary means to solve conflict when another gang (or even an innocent bystander) gets in the way of the cash flow— usually involving drug dealing. The drug dealing is not only a cash issue, but also becomes a territory issue. Many gangs are connected to a neighborhood or a side of town—identity is found not just in having money in your pocket, but also in a sense of territory ownership.
There are those who grow up in gang culture, find another way of living, and want out of the gang. My cousin Corey became a Christian, left the Bloods gang, and now runs a mentoring program for atrisk youth. He grew up in a community that included national gangs such as the Bloods and the Vice Lords. Now in the city where he was once a gangbanger, there are local, smaller gangs such as the Trey-Treys (because they live on 33rd Avenue) and D Block (because they live on Dupont Avenue). For many urban youth today, growing up around gangs is as natural as growing up around buildings or trees.
As I'm connected to an ever-more multicultural generation, I'm more aware of the broad ethnic diversity of gangs, too. Today in many urban areas you see various ethnic gangs which represent secondgeneration immigrant groups. In cities you can find gangs that are Hmong, Somali, Samoan, Russian, and Central American. The urban church must continue to wrestle with what draws this ever-more multicultural emerging generation into gang life. Is it assimilation, the global influence of gangsta rap, poverty, a rebellion against first-generation elders, or a mix of all?
It's clear that the church outside the inner city must wrestle with this issue as well. I was recently talking with a youth minister from Huntsville, Texas, who told me that one of the biggest issues his church and community faces is that of gangs. Both the inner city and the rural community share a lack of resources and poverty to a certain degree, which may be why they share the issue of youth and gangs. Whatever the case, the church—regardless of denomination, ethnicity, or location— must deal with an issue that's no longer just confined to the inner city.
The church everywhere must wrestle with why today's young people are finding family and purpose in gangs instead of in church, biological family, and healthy friendships. We must allow our youth ministries to become an alternative to the gang community so prevalent in our communities and so glamorized through popular gangsta rap; we must develop ministry models that not only minister to the whole family but also help build those families, as well.
EFREM SMITH is pastor of The Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minn., an Itinerant Speaker with Kingdom Building Ministries, a member of the YS Core training team, the author of Raising Up Young Heroes, and a contributing editor for YOUTHWORKER JOURNAL.
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