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Jeff Dugan

transformedlives_feffer.jpg“The CCO has helped strengthen my faith to the point where I want to follow Jesus with everything I have,” says Jeff Dugan. “This is why I work at a church, work at a school, and coach all in the same neighborhood. All my resources go towards serving the youth and families in my neighborhood.”

Jeff Dugan serves as the youth minister at Friendship Community Presbyterian Church, a small interracial, inner-city church in Pittsburgh. Jeff also coaches the boys’ soccer team at his alma mater, Schenley High School.

Even before he showed up at Slippery Rock University in the fall of 2000, Jeff was familiar with the CCO. From attending grade school at Pittsburgh Urban Christian School, which was founded by CCO alumni, to being coached as a high school soccer player by a CCO staff person, he was a prime candidate to help get a Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter started at SRU. He was a sophomore when CCO staff worker Tom Rapchak showed up at Slippery Rock, and Jeff was a key leader in this new Christian group on campus.

“My involvement in the CCO’s ministry gave me support and encouragement to pursue Christ and live faithfully throughout college,” Jeff says. “If the CCO had not been at SRU, I probably would have weakened in my relationship with Christ instead of being strengthened. As a member of the soccer team at a school that has a reputation for partying, I was often in the minority, if not all alone, in some of the choices I made. CCO staff and the community created through FCA gave me the support I needed to make tough choices that would honor God throughout college.

“Being able to practice making choices in a supported environment has empowered me to continue making biblically-based choices in my post-college life. I cannot say exactly how my life would be different, but I am thankful for the support I had in college.”

Jeff is also grateful for the Jubilee conference. “Starting in high school and going through college, I was consistently challenged spiritually and intellectually at Jubilee. Much of what I learned at Jubilee became the foundation of many things I do today. The theme of Christ being the center of every part of your life was constant at the conference, and that is what I strive to do now.”

As the youth director at Friendship Church, Jeff is responsible for all of the youth programming for middle and high school students. “Besides the actual work I do for my church, I spend recreational time with the youth,” he says. “I live in the same neighborhood as the church, and that is also where most of the kids that I work with live. They spend time at my house, I bring them to social and family functions with me, and I participate in some of their recreational activities around the neighborhood. I also spend time with some of the senior citizens in my community.”