LOCAL CONFERENCE TO FOCUS ON FATHERING

When Hallmark Cards offered Mother's Day and Father's Day cards to all Missouri inmates, 10 times more cards were requested for mothers than for fathers.

"Our prison system is full of men who either don't have dads or don't care to remember them," says the Rev. Mike Woelk.

The apparent connection between a lack of fathering and crime is one of the reasons for Turning the Hearts of the Father to the Children, a conference to be held Feb. 23 and 24 at Living Foursquare Church, 1222 Bloomfield Road.

"We want to raise the level of fathering in the community and see that every person has the opportunity to inherit from God what they have not had," Woelk says. "God is the father."

The primary speaker will be Clay McLean of McLean Ministries of Boone, N.C. At 7 p.m. Feb. 23, McLean will speak about the need for the gifts fathers can bestow. At 10 a.m. Feb. 24, he and a local panel will discuss contemporary fathering issues. The panel will include Bishop Dr. William Bird of New Dimensions Church, the Rev. Jack Smart of Teen Challenge, the Rev. David Butler of Shepherd's Cove Children's Home and Kurt Pfanstiel, a layman with Living Foursquare Church.

The death of 19-year-old Jesus Sides in a shooting at Indian Park last fall prompted Woelk to begin thinking about the need for the community to talk about fathering. Sides grew up without the involvement of his father, Woelk said, but his killing in a crowded park pointed to a larger problem.

"That's the sign of an unhappy city," he says.

Led prayer vigil

Weeks after the shooting, Woelk led a community prayer vigil at the park.

"This is not a neighborhood problem, not a black problem. This is a community problem," Woelk says.

Woelk and his wife, Trish, have three children. The fact that his youngest son, Leland, soon will graduate from high school is another reason Woelk has been thinking about the role of fathers. He has been evaluating his own performance as a father.

"Is he ready to head into the world a confident, visionary young man?" Woelk asks himself.

Fathers provide children with material needs, a sense of security, spiritual and emotional strength, and a feeling of being loved, which includes acceptance and forgiveness, a sense of destiny and friendship, Woelk says.

But a father doesn't have to be present for fathering to occur, the minister says. Churches can father and communities can father. "Everybody plays a role in fathering."

Moms can father

Mothers can father as well, he says. "She just has to understand what that is."

Boys are directly affected by an absence of fathering, but girls need fathering as well, Woelk says. "Fathers provide them with security, with the assurance that they don't have to go looking for their self-image in a man," Woelk says.

At the Jefferson City Correctional Center, Woelk has been ministering to a 25-year-old convert serving a 60-year sentence for murder. This man was insecure and had an ongoing desire to prove himself, Woelk says.

Since becoming a Christian, this young man who had no fathering himself has gotten involved with the prison hospice and watches over new prisoners. God has become this man's father, the minister says.

The conference is church-based, with 15 area churches participating, but Woelk says the issue is one that concerns everyone.

"We're looking at fathering not just in familial sense but looking at fathering as a church responsibility and a community responsibility.

"We'll be asking, How should the city fathers look at that responsibility?" Woelk said.

Questions about the conference can be directed to Woelk at 335-4899.