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Entertainment + the Gospel
Ty Cobb, Program Director for Memphis’s new Salvation Army Kroc Center, has extensive experience in the entertainment industry. Here is a brief video demonstrating this experience:
Cobb’s entertainment background will be of unique benefit to Memphis’s Kroc Center. One of the main goals that Area Commander Major Mark Woodcock has given to Cobb is to find creative ways for every program in the Kroc Center to offer activities that will encourage the formation of relationships. Through these relationships, leaders will have the opportunity to teach participants about the love of Jesus Christ, and encourage excitement in participants about attending Corps worship services on Sundays.
In order to generate and maintain interest in young people to attend the Kroc Center, events and activities in the Crossfire area of the Kroc Center are themed around the Crossfire Commandos Comic Book Rescue Team. The rationale behind this theming is to make the events intriguing and exciting: if participants enjoy the experience, they are more likely to return.
More specifically, the events are choreographed to create a high energy level, and are designed around the theme of training to become a “Crossfire Commando.” The “training” (or “adventures”) in the Crossfire space work with all ages. Some are family activities, while others are carefully designed to stimulate discussions between participants with different socio-economic backgrounds. Here is a video showing the kind of excitement level produced through Crossfire’s events.
Going “Gold”
Another goal Major Woodcock has assigned to Cobb is to help the Corps Youth Soldier Development program reach and maintain “gold” status. Following are four ways the Crossfire area in the Kroc Center can further that end.
1. To reach “gold” status in Soldier Development, we need to enroll six Junior Soldiers each year. Taking a youth from just “being a visitor” to committing to be a Corps member involves relationship-building and teaching students about what the Corps stands for. During the events described above, time is set aside, according to a carefully-choreographed schedule, for discussions between leaders and participants. The floor plan below depicts the tables where these discussions take place:
Floor plan of Crossfire area in Memphis’s Kroc Center.
The Crossfire area in the Kroc Center is designed to put participants on teams of six or fewer, with a trained Corps Facilitator on each team. The Corps Facilitator leads the team as they rotate between the unique teambuilding challenges and the discussion time. We use the tables for certain discussions so that the participants can more easily write answers to the questions they discussed. We have them write down their answers because we need to be able to evaluate, monitor, and respond to each individual’s progress.
As you watch the next video notice how the students participate in a physical or mental challenge and then return to the table for discussion time. They continue to rotate between teambuilding activities and discussions.
2. Another requirement for reaching “gold” status is to have between 41 and 45 Junior Soldier meetings in one year. The Crossfire space includes obstacle courses where these students can participate in “adventures.” These obstacle courses include twelve uniquely themed areas. Each area or room has its own set of problem-solving challenges.
At each training session, the students receive a series of challenges to overcome. Each challenge has a time limit, and a specifically integrated teaching opportunity. If a student participated once a week for a whole year, he would have a different adventure each week. This video shows a particular “adventure” in an obstacle course that Crossfire has already built.
3. A third requirement for reaching “gold” status is to increase Corps Sunday School attendance to an average of 75 students. At the fun, larger competitions that the Kroc Center will host each weekend, we can inform participants about the Corps Sunday School classes, and encourage them to attend.
Some of the competitions will be open only to Corps youth groups. The winning Corps teams from these competitions will compete in annual championships that can be filmed and produced as an hour-long TV show that can be broadcasted locally and also made into a DVD. Here is a mock-up version of the television show.
This DVD will be made available to Corps youth departments throughout the territory, as a tool for Corps leaders to recruit youth from their communities to join their youth groups and come to Memphis to participate in these weekend competitions. One of Cobb’s goals as Program Director is not only to work with the Corps youth leaders here in Memphis, but also to partner with the Corps youth leaders throughout the region, by providing activities that will increase their enrollment. This DVD will also create the opportunity to feature short stories about other projects of the Salvation Army in Memphis (such as Angel Tree and the Purdue Center of Hope), or unique stories from Corps locations throughout the territory.
4. To increase the appeal and scope of the Crossfire area, the larger weekend events will feature live music played by students from the main Salvation Army Corps Band, along with the many students who are training to earn a position in the Corps Band. Because of the unique design of the multi-stage structure, 216 students will have the opportunity to play at least one song each weekend. Seven of the eleven stages face the Gymnasium floor; four face the Turf area. While the Corps Band members and the band recruits perform, other students are participating in team-building competitions in the Gym or on the Turf. Here is a video of music performances during a team-building competition. (The last part of this clip shows the video wall concept, which involves projecting large video images along the West wall of the gymnasium, using four video projectors.)
Crossfire’s multi-stage structure, running down the side of a basketabll court.
Self-Evaluation and Contact Information
Our successfulness at reaching “gold” status will be recorded in our unique web-based tracking system. Users with the appropriate clearance status will be able to access the system online 24/7 and view progress reports, which will be updated weekly. The reports will include information about the Sun Beams, Explorers, Rangers, Scouts, Singing Co., Youth Chorus, Gospel Arts, and other Corps programs.
Interested Salvation Army staff should feel free to contact Ty Cobb to learn more about these unique and exciting ways to keep students engaged.
Phone: (901) 543-8586
Email:Ty_Cobb@uss.salvationarmy.org