The School of the Prophets was pleased to welcome Bob Muzikowski to its gathering on February 4, 2006. What the Lord is doing through him in his work on the West side of Chicago and beyond is significant.
In 1991, Bob founded the Near North Little League in the Cabrini Green Housing Projects. He also founded the East Harlem Little league in 1993 and the Near West Little League (the largest inner-city league in the United States) in 1995. Bob is the founder of Chicago Hope Academy (===>Click headline to access )), a Protestant Christian High School beginning in 2005, and he is also the founder of a drug and alcohol rehab program on a 342 acre farm in Southern Illinois.
He has written a book of his life story called Safe at Home (Zondervan-2001) to rebut how he was portrayed in the movie Hardball with Keanu Reaves. He and his wife Tina have 7 children and live on Chicago’s west side where they have been living since the late 80’s. In 1991, while jogging through the neighborhood on his way to work in downtown Chicago, Bob was haunted by the shortage of places for young people to play, especially those living in Cabrini Green, and that’s when the Little League began.
Bob spoke to our group with an edge meant to make Christians of the dominant culture uncomfortable with how we are living our lives. He quotes the more difficult passages from Isaiah 58 and Matthew 25 and asks questions like, “if this is God’s word, and these are commands, why is it OK that we don’t obey them?” He sees himself simply as a Christian that is trying to live out what it means to be “in the world but not of the world.”
Bob believes that as Christians we don’t do more to impact our world because we are overwhelmed with the size of problems in our society and then end up doing nothing, when in fact it is the small and vital things that make a community stable that are needed most. Things like, “girl scouts and boy scouts, little league or other community sports activities, good schools, and of course healthy and active churches.”
Our discussion time was limited today, but we did begin to tackle a challenging question. Why is it that someone like Bob Muzikowski is held up as a hero in Christian circles as though what he is doing is somehow “super Christian?” Don’t the commands to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God apply to all of us that call on the name of the Lord?
We also began to discuss why the work and ministry being done by Reverend Eugene Flowers, West Englewood Christian Community School, the ACBC little league, and others are known by so few, and are so severely under sourced.
Next Month (March) Arloa Sutter, who founded Breakthrough Urban Ministries (breakthroughministries.com) in 1992 as a response to homeless persons in the Edgewater and Uptown neighborhoods has tentatively agreed to be our presenter/discussion leader.
In Christ, Bob Marsh
323 West Chicago Ave.
Hinsdale, IL 60521
630-290-2388
bob@marshdesign.biz
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