Mission Year Married
Mission Year was originally designed as a program for single adults with the goal of impacting poor, urban neighborhoods through meaningful relationships, church involvement, and community service. Almost immediately we had requests from married couples who wished to serve with this type of program as well. Having added Mission Year Married to our existing program in Atlanta and Chicago, we have learned during that, although the single and married programs share the same basic model, Mission Year Married requires the following distinct elements.
How Mission Year Married Works
Community Living
In order to provide a sense of community, while also maintaining a relative amount of privacy, Mission Year will place two to three couples in a house or apartment together. Each couple will have their own bedroom, but will share common living space, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning and general household responsibilities.
Church
Each household of two to three couples will attend the same neighborhood church and become involved as active members.
Community Service
In Atlanta, you will have the option of picking from several service sites that have been pre-arranged for married couples. These sites offer a higher level of responsibility and are with organizations that we feel are great places to work. These organizations contribute to Mission Year for your time there to help offset the costs of your year. You will be matched to one of these organizations according to your desires and willingness to serve in the roles needed, as well as, the service sites desire.
In Chicago, each person will choose a community service site, either individually or as a couple. As with all Team Members, you will work about 25-30 hours per week at your site.
Community Outreach
Weekends will be reserved for community outreach. In Chicago, Mondays will be taken as a Sabbath. In Atlanta, Fridays will be taken as a Sabbath.
Training
Couples will arrive with everyone in their city, with the exception of the team captain couple. They will arrive with the other team captains.
Throughout the year, couples will participate in the Trainings and City Wide gatherings every two weeks with all Mission Year Team Members. On occasion, couples with have trainings separate from the rest of the Team Members.
Marriage Enrichment
Couples will meet twice a month as a small group led by their Mission Year Married City Director. This small group time will provide an opportunity for couples to talk through marriage issues using a marriage-based curriculum.
In addition to these regular meetings, each couple will attend a marriage retreat one time during their year of service.
Each couple will be given the opportunity to meet with an urban ministry couple outside of Mission Year. Such opportunities will be provided on an “as needed” basis and should not be seen as a requirement.
Discipleship
Discipleship will take into account the specific needs of married couples during their year of service. Couples can expect the same type of discipleship resources and support offered to our single team members, along with a few key additions.
- MY Married team members will follow the regular MY curriculum and meet weekly as a household for curriculum discussions.
- Each Individual will meet monthly with their city director to discuss the job (their community service, neighborhood outreach, church involvement, personal issues and ministry issues).
FAQs
How much does Mission Year Cost?
Mission Year truly has no price tag, because how much someone can or can’t raise has absolutely no bearing on our selection of Team Members. Still, if you must know it costs us approximately $24,000 a year to recruit, train, house, feed, manage and insure a Married Couple.
What If I Can’t Raise That Much?
While we expect you to raise as much of that amount as possible and we expect your newsletters to friends and family to go out each month, we recognize that how much you can raise largely depends on the resources of your church, family, and friends. Because we want anyone willing and able to serve, we are always fundraising to subsidize Team Members with limited resources. We turn no one away because of money. We trust God to meet our needs. Our only requirement is that you put forth your best effort to help sustain the program. Let us make one thing perfectly clear. You absolutely should not let worries about raising financial support keep you from applying to Mission Year.
Birth Control
The reasons may seem obvious to you, but we want to emphasize that birth control is extremely important during your Mission Year. Our insurance would only cover about 80% of prenatal and hospital costs which would make for a deductible that neither you nor we can afford. (However, oral contraceptives are covered under our prescription drug plan!) Also, there is the possibility that some couples may find pregnancy and childbirth distracting. Go figure.
Getting Ready To Leave Mission Year
MY Married will have their closing retreat at the end of July.
We understand the challenges that face our married couples when they are leaving Mission Year. Therefore, we are very open to creative ways of helping our couples transition out of the program. At times, this has meant someone has started a job before Mission Year is over to help with transition costs (anytime after July 1st is generally acceptable, but we would prefer for you to wait until your year is over if feasible). Your city director will work with you to figure out the best plan for you, your service site, team, and city.
Please note that if you and your City Director determined it is OK for you to work before your year is over, and you have not raised all of your support, you may be asked to help offset some of your living costs while you work.
Staying On After Mission Year
In the past, some of our couples have entered Mission Year with the intention of staying in their communities longer than a year. While we cannot provide programmatic support beyond the period of a year, we will be as helpful as possible in assisting couples with this transition.
This may change when someone gets a job near the end of their Mission Year (see Getting Ready to Leave Mission Year)
