CLUB REMEDY: FELLOWSHIP MISSIONARY REACHES TEENS THROUGH COFFEE AND ROCK MUSIC
Two girls sit on the cold, pale bathroom floor. One of them has her knees drawn up to her chest and she’s crying hard. The other, a friend or stranger perhaps, rests a gentle hand on her back and waits for the verbal diagnosis of her pain. Outside the restroom the noise level is considerably louder. This isn’t surprising considering that nearly 300 middle schoolers and high schoolers are now occupying the building.
In the coffee shop an adult volunteer sits across from a kid who can’t be much older than 16. The kid has come to play basketball, or dodge ball, or maybe one of the many free games to be found in the dark, noisy recesses of the arcade. The kid has also come high, his eyes jerking nervously, uncontrollably back and forth. Even under the influence of the drugs, those eyes still manage to communicate an emptiness he can’t escape.
This is a normal night for those who volunteer and work at Club Remedy, 2536 Tillman Road. Formally known as the “youth outreach ministry” of Fellowship Missionary Church, Club Remedy offers teens a place to go other than the parties and streets on Friday nights. From the hours of 6:30 to 11:30 p.m., anyone from the age of 13-19 can buy a soda in their personalized coffee shop, worship then throw things at the worship band during a killer game of dodge ball, play some X-box, listen to a teaching series, or strike up a round of euchre. And that’s just on a normal night. Once a month, Remedy brings in contracted bands from around the nation, all just to get kids inside the doors and a chance at ministry.
Clinton Faupel, youth pastor at FMC and the man who makes Remedy run, called it a mission to provide a place of safety and significance for young people; a place where they can find love and meaning. Faupel says with passion in his voice, “Jesus is the remedy. We believe that knowing Him is a gift, so whatever we do on a Friday night, that gift is always being offered.”
Remedy started after Faupel read an article in Newsweek about a place in Minneapolis called “Club 3∞” that used concerts and other relevant activities to reach youth. He took some teams to check out the place and then launched an action plan. It took awhile, but once they started selling the vision, people began to get on board. One of the teens who went on those scouting trips, home schooled junior Ashley Hout, remembers exclaiming, “What, are you, crazy? We can’t get those kind of bands. We’re in Fort Wayne, Indiana!” Today Ashley laughs and admits she was wrong. “Remedy has become something more than I could imagine and it’s not because of us. It is totally because of God,” she says.
Performers unanimously seem to approve of Remedy’s mission as well. Singer DJ Maj (who is currently on tour with Winter Jam) says, “Remedy is a concept worthy of modeling nationally.” Andy Colbertson, bass player for the local band Sakered, says, “Remedy was very different from everything else. The folks there treated us like rock stars!”
But it isn’t the awesome music or the coffee that some claim is better than Starbuck’s that makes Remedy what it is. As Faupel says, “The stuff is just a vehicle for us. The main thing is always relationships. If it became popular to walk like a duck and quack, we would start a place where people could walk like ducks and quack. That means we could change tomorrow, if that’s what God called us to do.”
Change is familiar territory to the 50 plus volunteers involved with Remedy. What started small has grown tremendously. Each week these adults come to connect with teens, share in their pain and fuel their dreams. Future hopeful changes include having a building of their own where they can host thousands of kids instead of hundreds, a hair salon, and a skate park for something to do outside.
Faupel smiled when he said, “The ideas are a little controversial, but we want to be a beacon to the southeast side of Fort Wayne. We don’t just want to talk about it. We want to do it. And if we’re going to put out money where our mouth is then we can’t back off.”
The dream is gathering momentum. Whatzup magazine reporter Grant Smith wrote that, “Sometimes it seems that Fort Wayne lacks positive places for kids…one solution to this problem is Club Remedy.” Nichol Wilson, a seventh grader at Heritage Jr. Sr. High School says, “If I wasn’t at Remedy on Friday nights, I would probably be out with the wrong group of friends.” Faupel’s face came back into view and the words he had spoken earlier rang clear. “I will do whatever I can do within the boundaries of a moral compass to help these kids.”
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