What is an Impacter?

by Todd Bowman
Program Director

If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:16-17)

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. (I Corinthians 13:1)

At the Impact Learning Center, both youth and adults wear nametags which say “I am an impacter”. But what does this really mean?

Recently, I’ve been struggling with how best to help youth make the transition between the idea of being an impacter and practically turning the idea into a daily reality in their lives. At the Impact Learning Center, we talk with youth a great deal about making an impact and even ask them to write journal entries and set goals around this idea. But when pen meets paper, everything starts to get a little fuzzy. The question is how, specifically, can one make an impact?

I may have found an answer to this question on May 8^th & 9^th at the Hours Of Opportunity Conference in Kearney, Nebraska. About two hundred adults involved in after school programming were in attendance. During one of his sessions, the main speaker, Michael Brandwein, offered a question which he suggested if adults and youth answered every day would make the world a much better place. The question is “What is one thing I did today, that I didn’t have to do, which helped or showed sacrificial love to others?” After copying this question, in the margin of my notes I wrote “THAT is an IMPACTER!”

Impacters are others focused. They desire to serve. They love sacrificially. They make a positive mark on the world around them.

The most recent development at the ILC is for youth to write journal entries and set goals around this very question. This question will be prominently located on the forms they use to craft their journals and shape their goals.

Questions are powerful. When confronted with a question, our mind immediately begins searching for an answer. And what a great question for urban youth to be asking and answering on a daily basis.

At this point, I know some of you are feeling a tad uncomfortable. You might be asking - Where is God? Where is Scripture? You might be saying – This sounds legalistic. You can’t serve under your own power apart from Christ.

No worries. We have thought a great deal about how to ground our work in the truth of God’s Word and I will address this issue in my next post.