‘Loud mouth’ preacher discusses church’s work in Jamaican school

Young people attend a training session at the Mona Church of Christ. (Photo via www.jamaicaobserver.com)

Suppose your church hosted an after-school homework program and, after a while, the students stopped coming.
Would you give up the program?
Members of the Mona Church of Christ in Kingston, Jamaica, took a different approach. Instead of giving up their homework program, they took it to school. And the principal couldn’t be happier, the Jamaica Observer reports:

When students of Mona High stopped attending homework sessions at Mona Church of Christ, (minister) Michael Dunbar turned things around and decided to take the programme to them instead.
The initiative couldn’t have come at a more opportune time for principal Antia Steer.
“We are happy for the church’s involvement because there is definitely a need for it,” she said.

Church members mentor youths at the school, and the congregation sponsors several other benevolence programs for at-risk teens in Kingston. The church collects funds to send to church members in need — including victims of the Haiti earthquake.
In the Observer report, Dunbar also explains how helping children with their secular education is good for the church:

“You are helping them (children) to obtain a secular knowledge, but at the same time, you are hoping that you can reach them. You want them to get familiar with the church, so that if there is any problem in their life they (would have) already formed a relationship with members of the church that they can come and share their issues, instead of going elsewhere,” he said.

Read the full story.
The Observer also has a brief Q&A with Dunbar, who ministers for the 100-member Mona church and has preached for 28 years.

Michael Dunbar and his wife, Sonia, in the office of the Mona Church of Christ in Jamaica. (Photo via www.jamaicaobserver.com)

In the interview, he describes himself as a “loud mouth.”

“I talk loud because of the fact that I have to preach all the time. Almost everywhere I go and I open my mouth, the first thing people ask me is ‘are you a preacher?’ I would say, ‘how do you know that?’ and they would say, ‘I heard it in your voice’.”