Challenge House
The Challenge House concept is based on the premise that some ment and women have mission-hearts, but prefer to live out their faith dealing with the problems here in our own country. The primary goal is to link the lives of the children and adults living in the inner-city with the lives or men and women of resource. Without dailty interaction from men and women who have achieved a measure of success in their lives, most inner-city residents will not have a sustainable support system to help them improve their neighborhood and lifestyle. It's all about "love thy neighbor"! With the idea of Hull-House as an inspiration, and with the "relocation" so stressed by the CCDA, the concept of the Challenge House Movement was born. The mostly dilapidated houses within our inner-city are acquired and renovated with a variety of volunteer and paid labor. The Houses remain as community resources to be occupied by persons who stress Christian faith, hope, courage, and education.
Working with city, county, inner-city organization, and its neighborhood networks/associations, we work to restore inner-city homes to their former glory, and upon completion of each House, our goal is to "plant" a person(s) into the House who will purposefully agree to live there for one main reason - to impact the neighborhood for good. The men/women who occupy the Houses will be men/women of faith and courage. The ultimate goal of Challenge Houses is to make it easy for persons to live out their faith with an under-resourced neighborhood, and while there to share not only their Christ-centered reason for relocating, but to also help connect kids and adults to opportuntities of education, employment, and life skills.
