EXACTLY AS YOU ARE.
Our Mission
Our mission is to show youth in Pleasantville, Iowa that they matter, give them something to do with their mind and their hands, and point them to God as the definer of their value.
Put simply:
We make sure youth recognize their God-given worth and we give them stuff to do.
Every Person is a gem.
Our Vision
Our vision is to see generations of Pleasantville’s young people grow into happy, healthy, confident adults equipped with the skills they need to thrive on whatever path they walk.
We Believe:
Every person is a gem: unique, beautiful, and full of worth.
Planting seeds for
generations
G.E.M:
Generational Enrichment Ministry
Although our primary focus is youth in middle school and high school, we see ourselves as a Generational Enrichment Ministry (GEM).
This means that we believe: In order to help our youth flourish, we must nurture the soil in which they grow: our entire community.
Our work in the community is to
Help meet needs
Connect people with resources
Offer opportunities to socialize
Enhance the creativity and beauty of our town culture
Encourage collaboration among businesses and organizations
Strengthen Pleasantville’s “livability”
We believe strong rural communities are the key to a strong and robust Iowa.
We’re aiming to do our part to make that happen in Pleasantville.
We Believe:
In order to help our youth flourish, we must nurture the soil in which they grow: our entire community.
JEsus loves
Pleasantville
Jesus loves pleasantville
And so do we!
Youth are constantly being confronted with messages that shatter the way they view themselves. Social media, for example, often fuels them with comparison, jealousy, anxiety, and self-loathing. They are lost in a digital world that wants to tell them how to live, how to think, and what to believe.
We want to confront that with truth.
We want to help bring them back into a reality that they can fully and confidently take part in.
We want them to establish a relationship with Jesus, their community, and each other.
Small towns might be easy to overlook. Especially ones with populations less than 2,000 people. But the coolest thing? God doesn't overlook small towns.
In fact, Jesus Himself was a small town boy. He grew up in a little town called Nazareth; a place nobody thought much about at all. A place nobody really noticed.
But God noticed.
He sees the people here, too. He loves them.
We can see God moving in the hearts of young people in our community. We see Him meeting them in their loneliness, in their joys, in their heartbreaks, and in their celebrations.
They need to know the Good News: that they are incredibly loved by the God who made them.
We take Jesus seriously when He said "love one another as I have loved you."
Jesus didn't overlook the small places. He often focused His ministry in tiny communities scattered across the region in which He lived.
Today, He lives in us. And this is where we live: Pleasantville, Iowa. And so we will love this place and all the people in it as He did.
We want to do that to the best of our ability, and we believe the work we have to do here is to love and serve Pleasantville as He calls us to.
A small town boy named Jesus changed the entire course of history and reconciled humanity to God, living the most beautiful, sacrificial life ever lived. But he started out as Mary and Joseph's boy, doing chores and eating meals. Playing games and learning. Living in a small, insignificant, nobody-knows-where little town.
So shouldn't we conclude, then, that the people in this tiny, “who-has-even-heard-of-it” community can change the world, too? We say YES and AMEN.
