Steven and Amy Shoop’s Mission Statement (Declaración del Propósito) is to Reach, Train, and Motivate students. To be consistent with their Mission Statement (Declaración del Propósito), Steve and Amy believe that a student can do, and need to do, more than sing, do a drama, talk with friends, listen to a sermon or eat pizza. As a result of that conviction, EARN THE RIGHT TO BE HEARD/GANATE EL DERECHO DE SER ESCUCHADO (ERBH/GDSE) came into existence. With a strong belief that Jesus first Earned the Right to Be Heard ERBH/GDSE by doing miracles, serving those He came in contact with, and through other acts of kindness, Steve and Amy try to emulate Jesus Christ. This means students who work with the Shoops, whether they are Mexican students, students on a short term mission trip or students working in a long term commitment, will be involved in reaching students by first ERBH/GDSE. That might mean a medical clinic where the student may learn to take blood pressure, check someone’s eyes, or whatever else the doctors may need. Or, they may put on rubber gloves and spread fluoride on a child’s teeth, teach someone to play soccer, or clean up a neighborhood park, whatever can be done to ERBH/GDSE.  The Shoop’s experience has been that students are more than willing to rise to the occasion, if given the opportunity and the training.

So many students have had this challenge put before them, and have been successful. Their success is due to the fact that these students, some for the first time in their lives, see that God WILL do something great in their lives. Students that have worked with ERBH/GDSE find it hard to leave when their time is over.  Eight out of every ten members of short term teams experience an incredible spiritual impact, evidenced by their spending the last few days crying out in prayer, asking God to do more with their lives.

A great challenge for anyone doing Evangelism is to make Disciples of those who accept Jesus as their Savior. Repeatedly, we are haunted by the thought of the scores of people who have prayed the sinner’s prayer, but have never received adequate discipleship. In short, their new spiritual life has been aborted due to a lack of follow-up. How many churches have hosted or worked with a short-term mission team year after year, and have seen literally hundreds of people confess a new found faith in Jesus, yet, a year later, few of these people are to be found in church. It is the belief of Steve and Amy that the host church does not benefit from this kind of experience. Although the short-term team members are touched by what they experience, the host church is left to disciple the new believers.  For a congregation, unprepared to handle all the new believers, this can be an overwhelming task. It is the Shoop’s desire to utilize their abilities and experiences in order to help organize both visiting short-term mission teams, and the national host congregations, in order that these challenges are met. We believe the KEY to managing this challenge is a PEOPLE issue…not money, not resources, and not even location, but, TRAINED PEOPLE.

Dream with us for a moment, what would happen if every team that entered Mexico worked with a Pastor, church and location which had 50 small group leaders, trained and ready to handle every person that declares a new found belief in Jesus Christ? And again, what would happen if every team coming into Mexico had a location that was identified by the General Council of the Assemblies of God of Mexico, as a worthy location? And, what would happen if in the process we trained 50 or 100 new Pastors/Missionaries each year?

If we are going to help develop Youth Ministry in Mexico, and also address the challenges of discipleship, management, and training of short term mission teams, Steve & Amy believe that we will need a system of training students to reach students. The Shoops believe one answer can be a National Apprenticeship program. Steve and Amy are calling this program ENGAGE.

ENGAGE is a program designed to meet the needs and address opportunities listed in the above paragraphs. The idea is to invite students (Mexican, North Americans, or whoever wants to serve) to serve two, one year terms in Mexico.

A normal day in the life of a student would begin with schooling in the morning, Monday through Friday. The type of schooling will depend upon the desires, abilities and qualifications of each individual student.. All students will be involved in the learning process. After classes, students will be assigned to a location where they will be helping to prepare the harvest field. This location could be associated with a local church, or it may be working to develop university campus ministry, or still others working in site preparation for an upcoming outreach. The Students will know the pastors working in their assigned area. They will know where a short term mission team will work. The ENGAGE student will know what type of ministry/service projects that will need to be made available. Whether there is a need for a medical clinic, a dental clinic, a feeding program, university level Bible studies, or whatever is necessary to Earn the Right to Be Heard/Ganate el Derecho de Ser Escuchado.

One night a week, the ENGAGE student will attend a small group. Then, on another night of that same week the ENGAGE student will teach this same class to 25 or 50 small group leaders from the local churches where they will be leading an ERBH/GDSE outreach in the future. This system, then, establishes the discipleship net that will meet the needs of those reached through local outreaches. 

One other important part of this program is the opportunity to establish mentor relationships in the lives of the ENGAGE students. These Mentors will be drawn from Mexican pastors and the Missionary body in Mexico.

You may be asking yourself, “Where will we find the students for this program?”  The answer is: From Mexico and around the world. The students will make application to the ENGAGE program. Applications will help direct the student in their choice of educational opportunities, and help establish a budget for each individual student, according to their educational goals and living arrangements.

Each student would be required to make a commitment to the program. The commitment will be full-time, and could be done in as little as one month, to as long as three years. Each student would be evaluated regularly. The evaluation will work both ways, giving the student the same opportunity as ENGAGE, to say that the program is not working for them, thus being able to return to their regular lives.

As you can see this is a very aggressive plan. But we are living in days that demand we challenge ourselves to greater goals. Steve and Amy truly believe they have been called to accomplish this task. They believe that they have been given some unique skills that will afford them opportunities that have not been made available in the past. The Shoops believe that they bring years of Youth Ministry experience, Youth Missions, and a belief in Students, which God will use to see HIS plan come to fruition.