Ministry Spotlight - Steve Seaton

Steve Seaton is the Executive Director of I Am 4 Kids, a faith-based program that provides one-on-one mentoring for teenagers. He joined The Matt Friedeman Show to talk about his ministry. Below are the "CliffsNotes" of his interview.

Tell us about I Am 4 Kids.

It's so unique. Basically it's just going out and meeting the needs of the community.

We want to go in to these kids who are hurting and bring them wholeness all across the board.

The school system explained to us that they had 50 homeless kids in the high school; they had drugs in the homes, abusive parents.

We went in and just started eating lunch with the kids. After a while, when they found out I was a pastor, they ended up coming to church and giving their lives to Christ.

In 2007, we started to recruit other mentors to help us. Adults will leave work at lunch and go eat with a child in school.

The difference is amazing. The first thing that changes is the self-image. As their insecurity disappears, so do other problems. The truancy goes down.

Do schools not have a problem with your being faith-based?

The reason they don't have a problem is that we just establish relationships, without trying to push anything.

They don't have a problem because we're respecting their boundaries.

We just don't go in and hand them a tract. If we did that, that's proselyting. After several months of mentoring, a light will come on, and the child will ask, "Why are you doing this?"

If they ask, we get to share it. A lot of times, they'll say something and I can share a story about how God changed my life.

Is this something that can work in other places?

Definitely. I'm hoping and praying that once we have this established, we can help this start in other communities.

It's so simple, because all you have to do is find out where there is need, and how you can meet it.

 Your core values are unashamedly Christian. How does sharing your faith work in this situation?

When these kids truly see love, they're going to ask where the source is, and that's when you can share your faith.

Mentoring is imparting character. I want to make sure my mentors are Christians, so they're imparting the right values.