Pastor receives Community Service Award
“Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
We are to be “friends” to all, at all times.
Christ did not ask us to be available part time,
he wants all of us, all the time!”
These words define the mission of Twentyfour-Seven, an outreach ministry of Hayden Lake Evangelical Friends Church.
“Twentyfour-Seven symbolizes God’s people working in the community all the time,” said Gar Mickelson, community outreach pastor with HLEFC.
“It’s time to respond to the challenge, for those in the church, to move beyond the Sunday morning meeting mentality, and begin to live as Christ’s tools in this community 24/7,” Mickelson said. “Instead of going to church, we need to become the church that God created us to be.”
Mickelson recently received a Community Service Award from the statewide Regional Advisory Committees on Substance Abuse, for his efforts to prevent or treat substance abuse.
One of the programs of the Twentyfour-Seven ministry assists men, women and women with children, who are in recovery and struggling to turn their lives around after prison.
“Our program includes a safe and sober housing situation combined with a mentoring program that surrounds each client with a ‘wrap around’ team of people who assist them in everything from spiritual mentoring, to financial management, to finding employment and/or a new career,” Mickelson said.
The award also recognized Mickelson’s work and leadership to “collaborate with other faith-based organizations, social service providers, and state agencies about substance abuse and the need for recovery support services including mentor homes for people leaving the prison system.”
Mickelson started Twentyfour-Seven in 2004 with 25 church volunteers. Twentyfour-Seven currently operates three faith-based transitional homes, two apartments and two mentor homes that assist 16 clients/parolees.
Twentyfour-Seven is one of the region’s first faith-based recovery support service providers under the state’s Access to Recovery Grant, a federal grant awarded to Idaho for recovery support services and treatment. Idaho was one of 16 states to receive this $20 million, three-year grant. Funding also comes from private financing through the donations of the members of the Hayden Lake Evangelical Friends Church.
Mickelson grew up in the Coeur d’Alene area, and says he left a negative impact during his adolescent years. A self-professed former drug user, he served time in the state penitentiary when he was 19.
Once he got out of jail, and married his wife, Vicki, he worked various jobs around the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. He eventually returned to Coeur d’Alene in the late-1980s after some personal soul searching.
“Upon returning to the area, I accepted the Lord as my savior and went into the ministry,” Mickelson said.
He started at HLEFC as a youth volunteer in 1993, then accepted a part-time position in 1994, while still running a landscaping business. In 1996, after a two-year internship, Mickelson accepted a full-time position as youth pastor. He was ordained as a Recorded Friends Pastor in 1993.
After 11 years of working with the youth at HLEFC, Mickelson asked church elders to create a full-time community outreach position, where since July 2004, he has been working developing community outreach.
“I felt a calling to do outreach full time and serve drug-addicted individuals,” Mickelson said.
One of his first cases involved helping a former meth addict adjust to life outside of prison.
“Despite the church’s help, she wound up relapsing two months later,” Mickelson said. “We realized then that there was a huge need for safe and sober transitional houses and mentoring support for adult and juvenile offenders.”
Twentyfour-Seven has been working with a faith-based group, “Living Water Ministries” on the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation, according to Mickelson. “Plans for this program include transitional housing and mentor programming similar to what Twentyfour-Seven is currently doing in Kootenai County,” he said.
This program will offer various in-patient and out-patient substance abuse treatment programs, life-skill training, employment training, family mediation, financial training and career guidance. It will also have a youth track, offering alternatives to jail for youths who have gotten into trouble.
Mickelson also started Christian Community Coalition, which has grown into a coalition of 60 faith-based organizations and more than 200 individuals who are organizing into a strong, active social force in the community.
An innovative strategy for helping at-risk youth – Youth Intervention Programming – which is being geared particularly for kids placed in foster care because of their parents’ drug addictions, is currently being initiated by the CCC.
“The statistics are alarming,” Mickelson says. “Juvenile crime is on the rise; the number of students in poverty is rising; the number of kids being placed in foster care is rising; we see the need for children’s and youth services in extreme high demand.”
For more information about Twentyfour-Seven, contact Gar Mickelson, community outreach pastor with Hayden Lake Evangelical Friends Church, at 755-5440, or e-mail him at garmickelson@yahoo.com.
For more information on how you or your church can be a strong, active social force in the community, contact the Christian Community Coalition at 762-8939 or e-mail christiancommunitycoalition @yahoo.com.