Bishop Julius C. Trimble is the Resident Bishop of the Indiana Area of the United Methodist Church.

Bishop Trimble has the personal mission to encourage all people with the love of Jesus Christ to rise to their highest potential. It is his commitment to his personal mission that led Bishop Trimble to create the “To Be Encouraged” Podcast along with co-host Rev.Dr. Brad Miller.

Bishop Trimble says, “I am compelled by Jesus to share with you an encouraging word or two about Jesus, theology, the Bible, the pandemic, the environment, racism, voting rights, human sexuality, and the state of the United Methodist Church.”

To Be Encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble is to be published weekly and is available at www.tobeencouraged.com and all the podcast directories.

https://www.inumc.org/bishop/office-of-the-bishop/

In Episode 064 of To Be Encouraged Bishop Julius C. Trimble and Rev. Dr. Brad Miller speak with Rev. Angelo Mante from “Alive Community Outreach Fort Wayne” (www.AliveFW.org) about the “Peacemaker Academy”

Bishop Julius C. Trimble, Rev. Dr. Brad Miller and guest Rev. Angelo Mante, discussed the importance of empowering youth to become peacemakers in their schools and communities. Through the incredible work of Alive Fort Wayne's Peacemaker Academy, they highlighted the transformative impact that young people can have when given the opportunity to lead. 

This episode offered valuable insights and three key takeaways for listeners.

Takeaway 1: Engaging with Youth Creates Positive Change

One of the most significant points made in the episode is the power of engaging with youth where they are. The speakers emphasized the importance of meeting young people in their communities, listening to their struggles, and providing support. By connecting with troubled youth, Alive Fort Wayne's program was able to guide them towards positive change and empower them to become advocates for peace. This takeaway reminds us that investing time and attention into young people can create a ripple effect of positive change in their lives and the lives of others.

Takeaway 2: Addressing the Triple Evils

The episode delved into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s concept of the "triple evils": racism, poverty, and militarism. The speakers discussed how violence in Fort Wayne, like many other communities, is concentrated in areas affected by these triple evils. To combat violence effectively, it is crucial to address the root causes and work towards eradicating these systemic issues. The Peacemaker Academy exemplifies this by engaging students in discussions about nonviolence while focusing field trips on each of the triple evils. This takeaway serves as a reminder that peace cannot be achieved without simultaneously addressing the underlying social injustices.

Takeaway 3: Faith, Hope, and Action

A prevalent theme throughout the episode was the powerful role that faith plays in fueling the work of peacemaking. Both Bishop Trimble and Rev. Mante spoke about their faith in Jesus and the transformative power of the Spirit. Their belief in the eschatological present—that their work brings a glimpse of heaven to earth—provides them with hope and motivation, even in challenging times. Moreover, the speakers emphasized the importance of taking action, not just praying, to bring about meaningful change. This takeaway inspires listeners to integrate their faith with action, actively working towards creating a more peaceful and just world.

Conclusion:

Episode 064 of To Be Encouraged shed light on the incredible impact that youth can have when given the platform to lead and make a difference. From engaging troubled youth on a personal level to addressing the root causes of violence, empowering young leaders is key to building peaceful communities. By incorporating faith, hope, and action into their work, the Peacemaker Academy is actively creating space for heaven to touch earth. Ultimately, this episode encourages listeners to engage with youth, confront systemic injustices, and integrate their faith into tangible actions to promote peace. 

Angelo Mante and students from the Peacemaker Academy will be featured in an in-depth interview on a future Episode of To Be Encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble.

Alive Fort Wayne Community Outreach

Timestamped Overview of Episode

00:01:52 Podcast episode about Peacemaker Academy with Rev. Angelo Manti.

00:12:37 Transforming troubled kid into peacemaker through intervention.

00:15:42 Unexpected tragedy led to transformative purpose.

00:20:08 Angelo Mante discusses Peacemaker Academy in Fort Wayne.

00:26:14 Nonviolence leadership program expands, exceeding expectations.

00:35:58 Youth leadership and support is crucial.

00:41:59 Fear of cutting someone off in society awash with violence; myth that armed society is polite.

00:48:50 Seek positive growth, young leaders are emerging.

00:53:18 Engage young people, put faith into action.

01:01:16 Listen to Be Encouraged, share, follow, and review.

Hello, good people. Rev. Dr. Brad Miller coming to you from the

floor of the Indiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church where

we are on the theme of praying forward, no turning back. We're talking to

people who are here at the conference serving in many different capacities, devoted,

dedicated laypersons and clergy. And it includes

our special guest today. And your name is? Angelo Manti.

Angelo Manti, and where do you live and where do you serve? So I live

in the great city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and

I'm the executive director of Alive Community Outreach. That's my primary appointment. I'm a

deacon. My secondary appointment is at First Wayne UMC in Fort

Wayne downtown. Awesome. Awesome. Well, the first basic question I'd like to

ask our guest is, can you name 1 reason that you're a

Christian? Just 1.

Well, at least. So, yeah,

I mean, there are rational

reasons why I'm a Christian, but the primary

reason is God

saved my life. I was in a really dark place

in my teenage years and had this

sort of Damascus road experience and there were some

people, some followers of Jesus that stepped into my life at

that time. And I've just been on that journey

ever since. And there have been a lot more reasons that have piled on from

that point. But I think initially it's just God really pulled me from a dark,

dark place. And I've been

following Jesus ever since. Well that's awesome.

The transition from a dark place to an illuminated

place. That is awesome. Having shared that part of

your story, Let's take a little deeper and that will lead us eventually to the

ministry that you're doing. Tell me 1 reason why you

are United Methodist. So I was,

when I came out of that dark place, I was in a non-denominational

church. Initially I

had a desire to be a part of something larger

than that isolated church community.

So when I was looking at denominations,

I liked the diversity within the United Methodist Church. There seemed to be a lot

of political diversity, theological diversity that appealed to me

and so that that's what got me to explore the United

Methodist Church in the first place. But then as I dug

deeper the theology of Wesley, Wesley's theology of

grace. I love the dual emphasis on

personal holiness and social holiness,

the love of Scripture, you know, but

also the emphasis on tradition

and reason and experience and all of that just really

resonated with me. But it was the diversity within the church

body that initially drew me to United Methodism in the

first place. That's awesome. The holiness

and the social engagement are really important parts,

I believe, and many people shared here today about why

we're United Methodists. And you are really living out the

holiness and the spiritual aspect and the social engagement in the

ministries that you're involved with in Fort Wayne. So, unpack it for me a

little bit. Tell me a little bit about what you're involved with. What is it?

What do you do and who's it for? Yeah, so we

got started a few years back. What's the name of it?

I'm sorry, Alive Community Outreach. That's the name of the ministry.

My cousin was murdered in Fort Wayne back in 2016

we were living in Atlanta that happened, we

felt th God was calling us back to Fort

Wayne to do something about violence in the community.

So we started out coming alongside families who'd been affected

by violence, by homicide, and we're still very much committed to that work. We

have support groups and connect families with resources, help

with funeral, burial, all that. But the more that we did that, the

more we felt like we really need to do something around prevention and

intervention, something that would lead to less families needing

support in the first place. So we started doing

some peacemaking work in a local high

school. So we're in a school called Southside High School right now in Fort

Wayne. We have a Peacemaker Academy. So it's an intensive academy

where we're coming alongside young people who want to be a part of the

solution. We often talk about young people being the future and all of that,

which is great, but they're the present. They can make a difference right now. So

we're equipping them and empowering them to do something about

violence in their school and community right now. And it's

really taken off so much so that the superintendent of the school system up there

wants to expand what we're doing into all the high schools in Fort Wayne,

which is mind blowing because we were not setting out to do

that. We've only been doing it for 2 years, but the fruit that we've seen

already has just been incredible. Far beyond

what we expected. Well, that's awesome. Tell me 1 story out of that. Tell me

a story. Give me a testimony about a life

changed. Yeah, so we started

out in the school focusing mainly on leaders kids who are

ready and willing to lead

To build peace in their school But as we got in the school, we said

we want to start Something else we start working with some kids

who are struggling, really acting out in violence and

something more along the lines of intervention. So we went to the

assistant principal and we said, hey, we'd like to do this, do you have any

kids that we might be able to work with. And he said, well, I got

1 kid that you can start with because this kid is, you know, he tried

to fight me, you know, the other day at a football game and this kid

was on house arrest and just all kinds of issues, getting into

fights. And so we were doing this Bible study at the

church with a group of folks, mainly retirees,

and we said, hey, can you start praying for this kid for

us? We told him about all these issues that he was having at school. And

so they started praying for him. That week that they were praying for

him, Our staff person who's in the school connected with this kid

on a deep level and learned about all this trauma in his life. His mom

had OD'd and died in front of him when he was 7. His brother was

murdered in front of him. Just all kinds of, just terrible trauma.

And so this kid ended up saying that, you

know, he knew that he was on a wrong path and he

wanted to know what it would take for him to be a peacemaker. So that

was last October. That statement in and of itself is pretty awesome

isn't it? Oh my gosh. And actually that day, so our

staff person who's in the school, he said, well, don't you have some beef

with so and so, some kid in the school? He said, well, let's start right

now. So he ended up getting those 2 guys in the same room

and deescalated that, squashed that situation that they

had. And this kid has been faithfully coming to our

after school peace club and all of that. And so he is going

to be in our peacemaker Academy this summer, which is

not an intervention program, but we feel like he's far along

on the journey that enough to where he's ready to

really step up and and lead and so that's 1

example. That's amazing because that you could take that story there

Angelo and hopefully I'm sure that's what you're doing see it multiplied

over and over again. Not only the 1 high school, but now the potential in

the other schools in the school system. And who knows where it goes from

there. And that'd be cool. And that group of folks who

were praying for him. So after that happened, they

said, well, what else can we do to get involved? So that's like that's a

whole other thing. Now you know this group of folks, mainly retirees,

are now coming into the school during lunch, giving out candy, talking

to kids, eating lunch with them, and that's a whole other movement. We

call it the peace granny and grampy movement.

I love that. It's a little bit that's called it's much better than like

mentor or whatever. Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah so it's

it's that's there's just so many cool things that are happening with this it's really.

How's all this changed you?

Gosh that's a good question I mean

I think I just all of this that's happening

right now, we're looking into Expanding this program into the

largest school district in the state of Indiana and all these things have happened so

rapidly and the impact is way beyond

What I ever anticipated and all of this happened

None of this would be happening if my cousin weren't murdered. Sure. And so, like,

it's... Out of tragedy came, hopefully, something that's productive. Yeah. So, I mean,

it's taught me a lot on a personal level about

turning, transforming pain and tragedy into purpose.

Yeah. And making meaning out of something. And really, this is a story of

resurrection. Sure. And this is what I've been preaching forever, but

now it's like, this is- Come to fruition. Come to fruition,

personally. How's this changed your church for yourself? Well,

I mean, they are- They're on board, I assume.

They're on board. So our relationship with them started with them

offering us space, which was great because we needed space for our

office and some programming. But they have really

embraced this as their own. I mean, the whole Peace Granny and Grampy thing, I

mean this is like that's their baby, huh? This is their baby, you know, they've

adopted this school and they're getting involved in hands-on

ways. That's awesome. In addition to the financial

support they've provided. It's just, it's been awesome.

Angela, today you're among the many people at the conference who's wearing an orange

t-shirt dedicated about awareness, about violence. None of this, what

you're sharing here, would be necessary if we didn't have so much

violence in schools and communities. What's important,

and what are some transferable principles about awareness, about

violence that you're learning and what you've been sharing

here that maybe can be applied to that urban

center someplace else or that rural community or that

suburban community? What can they learn about awareness that

maybe you've learned that can be shared there? I

think that what I've learned is that we

can all do something. So I think when it

comes to violence, school shootings, community violence, the

conversation immediately goes to the political and to the legislative

thing. And that just seems to be this thing that just goes in circles, never

ending. And I think that we need to continue having the fight, that

fight on the legislative level. There are things that should happen

and need to happen, but while we're having that fight,

there are things that can be done and that we need to

do on the ground level, relationally, Like the work that we're

doing in the schools, you know, there are kids that need

connection, right? And so that's something

that every single church, every single community can

get involved, rather than just being frustrated that

these things aren't happening, nothing's moving at the level. Do something, get

engaged. Absolutely. And maybe there are some lessons learned from what you've experienced,

and maybe even possibly some resources, things like that can be

made available to help people. Sure. That'd be great. Absolutely.

So, I want to bring us around to this area. The

name of this podcast is to be encouraged. Having given all we've been

talking about here, Angelo, give me something that

you are encouraged about. Talk right into that camera there so people can see you

and understand what you're what's something you're encouraged about. Something that I'm

encouraged about? Yeah. Gosh, you know, I think

going back to that idea of transforming

pain into purpose, I think that I'm encouraged

to be affirmed and reaffirmed that I serve

a God of resurrection. A God that can

turn, can flip any tragedy,

anything painful that we've experienced, can flip that around

and make something good, turn it into good.

Awesome. You know, and so that continues to encourage me and I think that's the

case for all of us. Yeah. As you said earlier, that's

basically the story of resurrection. Yeah, yeah. Well, tell us again

your name and where you're from and what you're all about. Angelo Manti from

Fort Wayne, Indiana, was executive director of Alive Community Outreach.

And I'm about making peace in the world and in my

community. And you've been, and Angelo's been our guest today on the 2B

Encourage podcast, coming to you live from the floor of the

Indiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Thank you, Angelo.

Peace.

And our special guest today is Angelo Manti. Am I saying that right,

Angelo, your last name? Yeah, Manti. Manti. I'm going

to start all over again. Hey, This is the to be encouraged podcast with Bishop

Julius C. Tremble and our guest today from the streets of Fort

Wayne is Angela Mantia Angelo, welcome to to be encouraged

Thank you Can you help us welcome Angela to

our podcast here today in a special circumstance.

Yeah, thank you, Reverend Angelo, for the work and witness that

you're doing in Fort Wayne that is having positive

ripple effects. And hopefully you'll let us know what's actually

happening today. I know you're very much committed to peacemaking

and training others. So what's happening today?

So this is the second day of our Peacemaker

Academy summer program. And we spent the

first half of the day in the classroom talking

about a couple of the principles of nonviolence,

Dr. King's principles, 6 principles of nonviolence. But this

afternoon, we are out on the streets in Fort Wayne

and taking our learning, doing a little field

trip here. If I could turn the camera so you can see our group kind

of walking in front of me. All right, yeah, awesome. So we

got 19, or 16 rather, just

awesome young high school leaders

from Fort Wayne that are ready and willing

and in the process of being equipped to be peacemakers.

So it's been a pretty cool journey for us. So That's what we're doing right

now. What's the goal

of today? I mean, you're walking the streets, but

what's the destination? So we

are right now, And I'll

flip this around again. So this is

called the Old Fort.

So this is near downtown, just north of

downtown. And It's

an old historic fort. It's a replica of the fort that was established

when Fort Wayne was founded

here in the late 1700s. We

are here to tell a

little bit of a different story. Because when they open

up the fort for the summer, of course, you know, they have folks here

dressed in old-time clothes and everything, you

know, have caramel apples and tell the good

old story and history of Fort Wayne,

but there's another side to that story that we

believe needs to be told. And so we spent this

morning, not just talking about a couple of the principles of

nonviolence, but also looking at violence in

Fort Wayne and starting to unpack,

you know, why there's violence in Fort Wayne and why it's

concentrated in certain areas. And we went a little bit

into Dr. King, what he called the triple evils and

racism, poverty and militarism. And so we have field

trips that are tied to each 1 of those evils.

And today is kind of focused on the militarism

part of that with this trip to the old fort. So we're just about

getting ready to walk in right now, if you can see.

Are you providing the leadership? Are there others that are gonna be speaking or

are you providing the leadership?

Yeah, right now, so for this particular trip,

that's why this worked out because I was just on a cameraman duty

for this particular 1. So 1 of

our staff members, Chris,

he's the 1 who's leading this field trip.

But we have a team of folks, me and my

wife and Chris, and we have a couple other volunteers from the

community that are working with us, helping us to teach, helping

to lead different parts of the field trip. And then when

we, so it's like tomorrow, we're going to go, We're

focused on poverty and we're going to go

to the rescue mission. We're going to spend a couple of

hours with them and they have some of their staff that's going to

be teaching, talking about the homeless population

that they work with and some of the root causes of

homelessness and housing issues here in

the city. So we're looking forward to learning from them tomorrow.

Angel, tell us a little bit about the people who are coming to the program.

The program is called the Peacemaker Academy. It's teenagers. Where are they

coming from and how do they get connected to the Academy and

are they wanting to be there? What's their attitude towards being a part of this?

Oh yeah, so this is our third cohort

And we started this really wanting to focus

on 1 school. So Dr.

King, he articulated this the last

day that he was alive, right before he was assassinated, talked about

he wanted to focus the movement

on internationalizing and institutionalizing nonviolence. And

so this whole vision

came about initially saying, you know, how can we institutionalize

nonviolence in 1 school? And

Southside High School here in Fort Wayne was the school that we

started with. But we're having conversations

now with the district about expanding this across all

the high schools here in Fort Wayne. But this Fort the first year that

we've from a few other schools,

predominantly Southside Hi have a

really extensive p work with the

school admi counselors to help us

ide this program. So it's, th a process of recruitment, work with the school administrators,

with the counselors to help us identify students for this program. So this is a

leadership program. It's for kids who are already

leading in some way, kids who wanna be a

part of the solution in their school, in

their community. And so we take them through a process of recruitment and

they apply and we interview them. And we have

12 to 15 spots, But this

year we have 16 students because we had a few students

from other schools. But yeah, I mean when we first set

out on this journey, we were

amazed at just how ready and willing the

students were to learn and to lead when they when they showed up.

They all interviewed well and you know so we we

knew that we were getting good kids but you just never know until the rubber

meets the road how they're going to respond not just to the summer

portion of it, but the whole goal of the academy is

to equip them and empower them over

the summer to equip them with the skills,

learning about nonviolence, learning about de-escalation, learning about root

causes of violence and all of that, and then how to mobilize

and organize for change. So that's what the

summer is about. But then we walk with them after the summer

throughout the course of the year and throughout the entire course of their time

as students until they graduate to help them

implement to apply those those skills that they learn

in the school. And so there's some really cool things that

they've initiated in the school and some real changes are

happening. And this is just our third year, just

starting our third year doing it. And it's been enough for the superintendent here in

Fort Wayne to say, hey, I

want this in every school. So, but yeah, the

kids, the students, they continue to

exceed all of our expectations and we had high expectations to begin with.

So that's saying a lot.

Reverend Angelo, I'm intentionally calling you Reverend

because I know Dr. King was a Christian minister. People often

try to describe him as a social activist or human rights

advocate, but He was a gospel preacher. He was a

Baptist minister and he was his theology

and his philosophy was inspired not

just by Christian teaching, obviously. With

Gandhi and others, but How do you incorporate

that? Because you know, I've been working in public schools. You know

you're not proselytizing per se, but my assumption

is that part of your motivation is the Gospel of

Jesus Christ who said bless it out of peacemakers and And

obviously teaching the nonviolence that King

taught was also deeply rooted in a healthy, what I call

a healthy Christian theology as well.

Right, so for me,

I would, if it weren't for my faith in

Jesus and the in the the hope that I have

And and even in our mission statement United Methodist Church and make disciples of

Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Like I believe that

that's possible because of Jesus, because the power

of Jesus through the Spirit.

If it weren't for my faith in Jesus, I wouldn't be doing this. I'd be

out somewhere making a whole lot more

money, just taking care of me and my family. And

that would be it. But I believe in

The sixth principle of nonviolence

is the universe is on the side of justice. You know,

that's a sort of a paraphrase of what Dr. King said

several times in different writings, you know, that the moral arc of the

universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

You know, I think about the story arc of

scripture where, you know, in the beginning,

God created the heavens and the earth and there's this beautiful paradise and

then all goes sideways

and all the way from Genesis, all the way to the end,

it's all kinds of ups and downs and all of that, but then we know

the end of the story, right? That it comes full circle. It comes back

to the garden, back to

what God intended for humanity. And so

we're, but then there's this idea of,

use a big theological word, I've been thinking a lot about this lately,

as it relates to that principle, the eschatological present,

you know, that the work that we do

here and now is in a very real sense

participating with God in giving us a

glimpse of heaven, you know, right here on earth.

It's part of our prayer every Sunday, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on

earth as it is in heaven. And I think that the work that

we're doing, even though we're not proselytizing and all of

that, working in the schools, but the work

that we're doing every single day, we're getting a glimpse

of that in the schools and in the work that we're doing with young

people. So it's very, very, very much a part

of inspired me to keep the f look

bleak because with t our community and

communi state and our country.

Um when when it would be eas

hope if we didn't have th to.

Well, I want you to know that you're being covered by

prayers, many people who don't live in Fort Wayne, but

know of the work that you and others are doing. And

you, I'm the secretary for your fan club. So I can

tell you, I tell you that,

so keep up the good work. 1 of the quotes, Brad, that I

like to use, and I know Angelo's familiar with this because he's

living it out. I think this is a King

quote, and I'm not sure where Dr. King got it from.

It might be an original King quote, but he says, I think

I may be paraphrasing, change does not roll in

on the wheels of inevitability. So change and

progress doesn't happen. You have to be doing the

thing, have a peacemaking academy. Somebody's got to learn

these principles in order to practice the principles. Right.

So we can pray. And I'm all for our

annual conference theme, praying our way forward. But

after we get through praying, we got to get up off our knees

and to help bend that arc. So, you know, bend that moral

arc, Angelo. So I think you're training

arc benders, if that's such a word.

I like that. I like it. Training arc benders.

I think you got a cool new phrase there Bishop.

Well, Angel, we want to let you go pretty soon back to what you need

to be doing, but is there any just theme or

message you want to say to share with our To Be

Encouraged audience that is an encouraging word.

We talked a little bit about how you're looking for solutions

to the situation at hand, the violence and so on. So

maybe a word of encouragement about the evidence of the solutions

that you've seen.

Yeah, so the

encouragement

is... I'm sorry, I got the first part

of the question. Can you say the second part of the question 1 more time?

I was distracted. About being in, the theme of our whole podcast is to be

encouraged. So I want to hear from you something that is encouraging

to you, maybe the fruits, the solutions that you've seen

come out of the Peacemaker Academy, something you're

encouraged by? So,

you know, we embarked on this journey

a couple of years ago, and to see

where it is now has been absolutely

incredible. And it has everything to do with,

well, God, The spirit is up to something, right? The

spirit is up to something and we feel like we're just part of

it. But the kids,

the kids, like this generation,

they are ready to lead. They are making a difference. And I don't think that

this is something that's unique to Southside High School or

Fort Wayne, Indiana. We have students

in schools all across our conference.

And the word I would wanna encourage for

our churches all across the conference is get

involved. Get involved. I know there are some churches that

maybe they don't have as many youth as they once had.

The church that we're at downtown at First Wing Street. There

used to be more youth there, but the way that we look at it is

that we have 1, 500 kids in our youth group down at Southside High

School, you know? And sometimes we

gotta just, you gotta get out of the church and we have to

go meet youth where they are because they are

In our backyards they are in our community and they need so much

support There's so many things that young people are dealing with

We start every day of the Peacemaker Academy with a peace circle

and the things that come out in that space, the trauma that students have

experienced, it's incredible and they need us and we

need them. So that would be

my word of encouragement for our folks. A great,

great word of encouragement to enter a segment here with Angela

Manti. Bishop, why don't you lift up a prayer for Angela and for

the young people and for the Peacemaker Academy. We'll close this, our

segment here. Sure, certainly. And Angela, I want you to extend an

invitation to some of the student leaders you're working

with. We'd love to have some of them

on the podcast, maybe come on with you and to

talk about what they're learning, what's preparing them to be

leaders. When I was about 16, I had a pastor who

I expressed interest in doing some things and he just

made it possible for me to do things that now I look back

at it, I had no experience of speaking before people or being on a

radio broadcast. So I want you to extend that

invitation. We'd be glad to have you

and have you and, or both some of

your students, if you think if that's permissible.

Absolutely, Let's make it happen. All right, let's pray. Lord God will give

you thanks and praise. We just ask that you go on the streets

of Fort Wayne as they are now at the Fort preparing for

their time of learning about militarism. Lord,

continue to allow fruit to come out of the peacemaking Academy.

Bless Angelo and his leadership team and the

volunteers surround them with a hedge of protection. Given

the authority and the and the and the to

master the Lord and the veracity to do things

that others may say can't be done oh God we

just ask that you open doors that have not been open

close those doors that need to be closed bind the work of

the evil 1 Lord and allow truth to be born out of this

Peacemaker Academy. And we'll give you all the praise and all the

glory in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. And we thank Reverend Angelo Manti for being our guest

on this segment of the To Be Encouraged podcast. You can find

him, the organization's called Alive Fort Wayne, and they're at

AliveFW.org, Peacemaker Academy. Angelo,

thanks for being with us. Thanks, peace y'all, Thanks

Bishop. Thank you so much. And as Angelo said,

be a part of the solution. Be a part of the solution. There you

go. Thanks Angelo. We're going to say goodbye to you. Well Bishop,

give me some of your reaction to what we heard from

Angelo Manti, Reverend Angelo Manti, from Fort Wayne to the

Peacemaker Academy. Just react with me a little bit of what you heard and what

kind of some of the emotion do you want to be feeling? Well, I'm inspired

because he's just not about a motivation. He's

about something my wife likes to talk about a lot, transformation.

He's not just about invitation, inviting young

people to participate. He's inviting young people to go through a

prolonged process along with other young people

to engage in being peacemakers in their schools

and in their homes. This is not

a task for the squeamish. This is not a task for

those who think that there's a push,

easy button you can push and all problems will be solved. So I

think that Angelo and the folks who are in the Alive

ministry deserve our prayers and our support.

And I Just pray that God will continue to open up doors

for that ministry. That's 1 of those things I think that can be

replicated in other places. Yes, definitely. Yeah,

and it may be areas where, Bishop, where folks such as

yourself, Bishop, and myself, and through podcasting

and certainly through conference and

congregational denominational structures, this is an area where we

can do some really practical and pragmatic things to help be

transformative in an area which is pervasive

in every community. And that's violence and wanting to

support leadership development among young people. Don't you agree?

Absolutely. I mean, our society is awash

with violence. You're afraid to cut somebody

off by accident. And I was

in a parking lot the other day and it was my poor driving. And

I recognized, I kind of held up my hand, basically confessional saying,

I pulled out too soon. But now, you gotta be cautious because

you never know people can go off quickly. And we

see that in the last several months with people

first shooting first and thinking second. Yeah,

just crazy. I wanna share something. I've been reading this book

called American Carnage. And this is the only thing I'm

going to say relative about this on this podcast about

the truth about guns and public safety. It's

from the book American Carnage. There's a myth, 1 of the

myths about guns in America is that an armed society

is a polite society. Can you believe that, Brad?

I hear something similar to that a lot. I really do. There's a whole theory

and here it is. 1 of the favorite slogans of gun right advocates is

an armed society is a polite society. The idea

here is that carrying weapons raises the level of

civility in society by deterring individuals who

may become violent from assaulting others. Why?

It's assumed that people would think twice before committing harm to

others because others might also

be armed and could intervene. The fact

though is if an armed society were a more, indeed

a more polite society, guess the, you can guess what's coming.

The United States would be the safest and most polite of

among all advanced societies. US has the

highest number of civilian held guns per capita.

120 guns for every 100 people,

more than any other country. Ridiculous. We will

leave it to others to determine the politeness of Americans relative to

people in other countries. America does stand alone

relative to other high income countries with regard to its

high levels of gun related mortality.

That's the kind of thinking around arm every teacher in a public school. This same

sort of thinking that goes there. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Bishop. I know you want

to say about that. That's all I wanted to say about that. Yeah, and

I'm not I'm not I'm not bad mouthing

people who own guns. I'm just

saying we cannot have an idolatrous

obsession with guns and

then try to use that as a rationale for creating

a more polite and humane society.

We can't arm our way into being

more humane. It's just not working.

As Dr. Phil would say, how's that working for you?

It reminds me of the Golden Calf where they tried to make something

happen out of nothing, you know, that kind of thing. And I'm also reminded

that and listening to to Angelo

talk about what is happening with the Peacemaker

Academy, which arose out of a local church,

I think that's a big piece we need to talk about here, arose out

of a church that I believe took seriously

the beatitude from Jesus, blessed are the

peacemakers, and not just

happy are the people who talk about peace, you know, or just pray about

peace. The peacemakers are people get involved and engaged.

Can you say a word

about the transition that the local church that Angel's a part of did to help

this to happen, to be a peacemaker? Well, I think

he's connected with First Church, Fort Wayne.

And you've gotta have pastor and lay leadership that are willing to say, hey,

you know, we may not have the biggest youth group in town, but

we got a great facility. We got a place where people can meet. And

we're close enough to walk to some of the places where young people are.

And once they make that decision to say, our church has to

liv but more importantly,

out the church building, then

everything. So I think do I know

that's happening I in that district

doing, I do this conference wide c

find the closest school t churches, pray for

those to find out how we might participate with them,

whether it's backpack support or school

watch or after school programming.

There's something we all can be doing. And as he reminded

us, our job is not just to make disciples of Jesus.

Jesus wasn't looking just to have more people follow. Jesus was

looking for people to literally transform the

societies that they lived in. Yeah, we talked about finding

solutions, and he talked about the problems

that Martin Luther King Jr. Uplifted, racism,

poverty, militarism, and how through

their program here, the Peacemaker Academy, they're

looking for solutions. And I think they're looking for a

solution through innovative ideas that come from the

people who are going to be implementing a lot of that. That's our young people

and lifting them up. We're not trying to do as ministry or something solution

for them that we are engaged with this in an integrated manner.

That's pretty cool, isn't it? That is pretty cool. And, uh,

uh, it's, it's, it's not, again, it's not easy work,

but if it's not done, then we just biding our

time until we all perish in a

sea of hopelessness. And so I think we have to encourage people who are

doing ministry like this. And also, I think something Angelo

said too was, you know, get involved, get involved in something.

Yeah. Get involved in something that has a positive,

positive impact on our communities

and on our families. We need to stop

spending so much time looking for people to blame

or to vilify others

and spend more time on engaging, listening to each

other's stories and encouraging those

young people as well as older people, I would say, to engage

in positive behavior rooted

in love of God and love of labor.

Look for the positive and engage in and grow on that. The abundance

of John 10 10 instead of the, you know, the rust that he comes to

steal and kill and destroy. Let's look for the abundant life and that type of

thing. And I'm going to confess to you, I admit, I want to admit to

you something here. When I first was talking to Angela about their program

here and about how there was young people involved with community,

developing the leadership and so on, I thought perhaps,

perhaps some of these young people might be somehow

kind of forced to do this or some sort of a correctional

situation. I thought that might be the case, I didn't know. I was

so thrilled and delighted to hear these are

people that have stepped up as leaders who

want to be part of a solution, find that kind of thing. And we need

to be encouraged, don't we, by our young people who are saying, okay,

you baby boomers and others who kind of messed things up for

us, we're stepping up now. Can we be encouraged by that today,

Bishop? Absolutely. And I think we just had a myth

busted. And that myth was that, well, young people,

they're just concerned about gaming and being in front

of a TV and so forth or

on their cell phones. But no, these young

people, like so many thousands of others, want to

see a better, they wanna be in safe schools.

They wanna be in safe communities. They wanna have

a positive outlook on their life. And

I think being engaged in this kind of Peacemaker Academy

certainly lends itself to the kind of leadership that we

often say we want to see in our young people. Well,

let's just bring the conversation around to this. We had a great conversation with

Reverend Angela Amante from AliveFortWayne.org.

It's AliveFW.org and the Peacemaker

Academy And you are all about Bishop

being a voice of encouragement to an often discouraged world.

And the reason why the Peacemaker Academy exists is to speak

to violence in the Fort Wayne community and to do something

about it. And so let's just bring it around to this. What are you encouraged

about here today, based on our conversation, or anything

else that we've talked about here that you want to leave a message for our

listeners here today as we conclude our conversation? Well,

I'd like our listeners to know that Reverend Angelo Manti is

an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church. That's a clergy

person whose particular calling connects him with

community as well as church. So he's not just concerned about

what's happening in the church or for the church membership. But as a

deacon, his specific calling is to connect the

church with its community. So I'm encouraged by that.

I'm encouraged by the fruit. He felt called to this ministry out of

another whole state. He was living in Georgia and felt called here as

a result of a death of a cousin in

Fort Wayne and he felt called by God to do that. I'd just like

to say to our listeners you may feel called to do

something totally different but whatever you're called to do may it be

something that brings life and hope.

And someone said the best way to encourage yourself is to

help others. And I've always

felt encouraged when I'm, Brad, engaged in conversation

with others like yourself and others and our listeners,

because I feel like as long as I'm doing that, I too can

benefit as a result of that encouragement.

God is honored, God is honored when we allow

God's sweet Holy Spirit to cause us to be

faith-driven. I'm quoting the Reverend Calvin Austin

Jr. From Columbus, from Ohio,

in his book Driven by Faith, that we should

be driven by our faith because God has said

that God will be glorified according to John 15. God will be

glorified. And that if we ask God and according to

his will, we will bear much fruit

because God will help us in that which we are asking God to help us

do. So I say all of that to encourage our listeners

and to thank everyone for whatever little part you're

doing to make the world a better place.

Appreciate that. I think in a kind of a synopsis of that, I think

Reverend Mantee said, well, get involved. And you're saying, you know, same

thing, get engaged. Get involved, get engaged. And

that becomes the fruits out of that. The solutions start to

happen when people get involved. Pretty darn Westland too, isn't it? You know,

in terms of what Westlake was all about, getting on the horse

and going to the fields and the factories. Do all the good you can

and all the places that you can. And all the time you can. Yeah,

that's a great place for us to end our

conversation here today. I did want to say that we made a commitment, and

it was mentioned a little bit in our conversation with Angela Manti, that in

the future we will be having a conversation with

Reverend Angela Manti a little in-depth

about the origins of

Alive Fort Wayne and the Peacemaker

Academy and how that came about and

Angelo has quite a personal story to tell about personal

tragedy as well in his life, which helped to lead to the

formation of this. And I would encourage people to tune

into that. That'll be a part 2 of

this podcast episode that we're doing. And we hope, as we mentioned here today,

to actually have some of the participants, some of the young people who are involved

with the Peacemaker Academy. I know that I believe that it's in the plan and

in the works. And I'm gonna be looking forward to those conversations. I know you

are Bishop, as we continue this conversation as well.

And his name is a Reverend Angelo Manti and the name of the organization

is Alive Fort Wayne org. The website is alivefw.org.

You can find out more about it. And we appreciate you listening to

us, Bishop Julius C. Tremble, and myself, Reverend Dr.

Brad Miller, here on the To Be Encouraged

podcast, the podcast where we look to offer an

encouraging word to an often discouraged world.

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