Bittersweet by Trey Hill

Bittersweet. That seems to be the right word for this announcement.

After eight years of faithful service and leadership at Mercy Street, Carlton Oby and his family are heading to Tyler, TX to lead a mentoring ministry called Gospel Village. He will be missed. That is the bitter part.

The sweet part is that this is a chance to spread “the Mercy Street way” and really allow Carlton to spread his leadership wings and have a big influence in a divided community.

See, Gospel Village was started by Grace Community Church four years ago and is modeled after Mercy Street. In fact, we have been consulting with them from the start. We have even sent some of our team to help train their folks in Tyler over the years. From the start, I said that they would reach a point where they would need to start a separate entity with a full-time leader. Well, they reached that point and called me to see if they could talk to Carlton about the job. I reluctantly said, “Yes.”

And Carlton reluctantly said yes too (he said no twice before saying yes). He will be heading to Tyler at the end of August.

Carlton joined the team as the first Mercy Street High School Mentor Coordinator in 2005, and later became the Associate Executive Director and Director of the Leadership Institute. In that role, he has crafted a program from scratch that very intentionally and intensively invests in students who demonstrate leadership potential. He also, on his own initiative, created a Mercy Street Alumni Association to track with the students after they graduate from high school and to help them continue in their respective journeys.

However, Carlton filled more than a role at Mercy Street. He represented what was possible to our young men–a young, African American man from the community who had graduated from college, was the faithful husband of one wife, and a great dad to his kids. It is something that was deeply needed when he joined the Mercy Street team. Carlton in many ways typifies what we desire for our Mercy Street kids—that they would come back to the community to make a difference. That is exactly what Carlton did. He made a difference.

Carlton has proven to be a faithful, loyal servant at Mercy Street. His dedication to the kids, his desire to see them come to faith in Jesus and grow in their faith has been unquestioned and relentless. His ability to relate to the kids and connect with them on a deeper level is truly admirable. I am truly grateful for him, his leadership, and his friendship. He will be missed, but not forgotten.

At Gospel Village he will be leading a city-wide effort to have mentors for every student in XX targeted schools. The groundwork has been laid for some really exciting things to happen. In fact, Gospel Village has the full support of the Tyler School Board and many of the prominent leaders in the city. Carlton will continue to build on that foundation and begin to implement a strategy to create “mutually-transforming relationships” in Tyler. He will be building bridges that need to be built in order for the gospel to flourish in both North and South Tyler. Hopefully his time at Mercy Street has equipped him with a few tools for that task.

So it is with happy/sad hearts that we say farewell to Carlton and his beautiful family. I know they will make a big impact for God’s Kingdom in Tyler.

We do have some exciting plans to continue the important work of the Leadership Institute and Alumni Association that Carlton started, but we will let you know more about that next month.

- Trey Hill
Executive Director