An Interview with Linwood Bagby
By Janine C. Hagan
Linwood Bagby is the Founder and President of Restore Ministries. Linwood was born in Southern, New Jersey and comes from a large family of nine siblings. He graduated from The College of New Jersey in 1981 with a degree in Speech Pathology. He moved to Northern New Jersey in 1982 and worked as a campus minister at the universities and colleges in Newark, New Jersey. After completing a successful career in Newark, Linwood changed careers as a Speech and Language Specialist for the Elizabeth Board of Education. While employed as a public school teacher, he saw the need for mentoring middle and high school young people at risk of dropping out of school because of a lack of motivation and or social and personal problems. Linwood incorporated Restore Ministries in 1994 with the mission to encourage urban youth to continue their education after high school. Linwood is a member and Elder at Second Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth, New Jersey and is currently in the graduate Speech Pathology Upgrade Program at Kean University.

Janine: Linwood, we met at Princeton Theological Seminary several years ago. We were both attending the Princeton Youth Forum. This is where I learned a little of your particular calling and ministry at Restore Ministries, Inc. Will you tell us the story of Restore Ministries, Inc.? Where it is located? Who “founded” it? What is its purpose? What is your position in that context?

Linwood: I am the founder and Executive Director of Restore. Restore is a non for profit 501-(C) 3, faith-based mentoring program that a fellow public school teacher and I started. I was approached by one of my students who was feeling discouraged. Most of his friends were getting involved with drugs, stealing cars and joining gangs. I had a great talk with him and he went away encouraged. When he came back to see me the following week he asked me if we could talk again, but this time he wanted to bring a couple of his friends. My home church at the time opened their doors to us and my colleague and I started meeting with eight middle and high boys on a weekly basis.

The purpose of Restore Ministries has always been to walk along side of our members and help them safely get to a hopeful future. We are located in an urban city, Elizabeth, New Jersey with a population of one hundred and fifty thousand. The public school population is about twenty-one thousand students. Restore provides services to young people (both boys and girls) in the Essex and Union Counties of New Jersey. Some of the major cities where our young people live are Elizabeth, Newark, Linden, Union and Rahway. We want to help each of our members to seek higher education or technical training after they graduate from high school or receive their High School Equivalencies (GED).

Janine: I don’t think that I heard the story of your “journey” into this mission. Will you share some of that with us?

Linwood: Before I came to the Elizabeth Public Schools, I was a lay minister with a national campus ministry. I worked in the colleges and universities in Newark, New Jersey for five years from 1982-1987. I noticed that most of the students in the Christian Fellowship who graduated from urban high schools dropped out college by their sophomore year. They were good kids, but they could not keep up with college level work. This disturbed me because most of the urban college students that I met were African Americans and Latinos. I really wanted to get involved in a practical way to bring hope to young people in our cities. I went back to work as a school speech and language pathologist.

To my horror I realized that the needs of our cities were more than I could possibly handle. I came in touch with young people who looked at school as more of a social time to hang out with friends than a place where learning takes place. The good students were the ones who showed up, did some work and did not cause problems in the classroom. The teachers and administrators I met were overwhelmed trying to teach in an overcrowded building whose young people had so many personal and social problems. How do you teach someone who comes to school hungry or was up all night on the floor because of the gun fire in their neighborhood?

God is always a step ahead of us. He is there in our present and future. God sent my teacher friend and my speech student to plant the seed of Restore. God also used the ministry and fundraising tools I had learned in my previous job to help me invite men and women on our board who were willing to work to create Restore Ministries. Some of the common themes we notice were young people whose lives were bombarded by violence, gangs, and emptiness. We knew God was leading us in the right direction when we planned a softball game in a local park and it rained that whole day. The kids were to meet us by ten in the morning. We went to the park thinking no one would be there, but just in case. To our amazement, all eight showed up with invited friends. They said that they just wanted to be with us. It was a real humbling experience. God was showing us the value of being present in a teenagers’ life.

Janine: What brings you the greatest joy and energy in your ministry?

Linwood: To see our alumni talk about their future dreams and aspirations. To get a telephone call from a young man that I haven’t seen since high school and say that he made to age twenty-five and he was never in jail, he got his high school degree and is getting married. He called to say thanks. To meet for dinner with a former Restore member who when he was with us, he was eighteen years old and failing the tenth grade. We encouraged him to get his GED instead of continual high school failure. He said he just wanted me to know that is going for his State tests in cosmetology and is going into a partnership to co-own a local barbershop.

These and many more end results (small victories as I call them) strengthens me to keep working and expecting good in the lives of our young people.

Janine: In working with your particular youth, do you see any areas where life and faith make any kind of connection? If so, what kinds of implications does that have for all of us?

Linwood: A number of our youth say that because of the disappointments and the unfulfilled promises in their lives, they wind up thinking negative thoughts about their surroundings. They tell me that they harbor ill will towards people who hurt them and sometime strangers whom they feel may even look at them with contempt.

Many of our young people have anger deep inside of them and it scares them. One of our boys’ stepfather was out of work for two years. During that time, the family lived in welfare hotels and in shelters. His mother sent him to live in Harlem, NY with his father. His bed was a mat on the floor. He was in and out of school, for two years until he finally quit. Frustrated and feeling hopeless, he called me from Harlem and we started to rebuild a mentoring relationship.

Restore made a promise to this young man that if he went to any of our meetings and church, we would make sure he would get bus fare to get home. During the two year period before he was reunited with his mother, he attended two Restore meetings per week and went to church with me. The summer before he moved back with his mom and step-dad, he joined five other Restore teens on a mission trip to Mexico.

We find for a number of our members that life and faith connects when they meet men and women in the Christian community, either at Restore or in their churches that are willing to listen to them, walk alongside of them and love them.

The greatest gift we can offer others is our willingness to listen to them. I find that listening is hard work because by nature I like to solve problems. We have learned that when we listen, truly allow ourselves to be caught up in the need and concerns of others, we extend Christ love and peace; and ultimately God uses us to built hopeful futures for others.

Janine: The theme of this issue of ecumininet™ online! is “Pentecost and Promise.” What do you think of when you think of the season of Pentecost? What comes to your mind (with regard to your ministry/mission) when you reflect on “promise”? Do the two words/thoughts join in any way for you?

Linwood: The season of Pentecost is when we look towards God’s gracious authority to rule in our lives calling and enabling us to be his children. (John 1:9) We want to witness to our families, co workers, those in and outside of our surroundings that God is still alive and still active in the hearts and the affairs of his creation. Pentecost is when God’s fulfilled promise to empower those first followers of Jesus who were gathered in the Upper Room. Their experience with Pentecost compelled them to share the Gospel though out their known world.

For Christians today, Pentecost is when we celebrate hope, a hope stirred up by the promises of God that through His Holy Spirit that He is still at work among His people. It is God calling us away from our emptiness and pouring his purpose, mission, and calling into our experiences. In regards to Restore Ministries, we attract members who are in constant conflicts with adults and peers. Restore offers all our members a safe place to grow, to learn, and to find out about the greater world around them. We give our members the opportunity to develop their relationship with Christ, be in Christian community, and given the encouragement and skills to obtain healthy productive futures.

Janine: If you had a few things on a “wish list” for Restore Ministries, Inc. what would that be, besides prayer?

Linwood: The room that was given to us by the church is very sterile looking. It has the bare necessities. Our young people would like it to look more inviting like a place to learn and hang out. We need comfortable, contemporary furniture (sofa and chairs) that has seat and back cushions made from fire retardant foam.

Other items we need are:

A family subscription to Papermills Playhouse, in Millburn, NJ.

Digital video camera

Gift certificate for the cost of three van rentals for summer activities

Volunteers who can give two-four hours weekly

Janine: Linwood, thank you so much for sharing your needs and your ministry with us. Pentecost is a perfect time for us to begin to focus on how we respond not only to the mandate of “go therefore” but also how we respond to the needs and the promise that exists or could be within the lives of all of our teens everywhere.

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