Wade Norman's Story: From Brokenness to Legacy

Bethany Norman:

I think home to me is a place that you're always welcome. Where you can walk in the door and not much has changed. Even if the physical aspects have changed, relationships don't change. There's always an openness to it.

Wade Norman:

I'm 28 years old right now, and I've probably lived in over 20 different places. No place more than two or three years. I grew up moving from house to house: Eggleston, Normal, Emerald, Union, Harvard, Princeton, Yale. Growing up in Roseland, it was just easy to see a lot of brokenness in the community. In the school, even in the household, just broken families, right?

When everything around you is broken, it's hard to even know what it would look like if it wasn't. Because everything's broken, right? What does it look like if our school system changed? What does it look like for a husband and wife to love each other? What does it look like to grow up in one home and be with your parents? What does that look like? That was foreign to me. That was probably foreign to most of my friends that grew up in Roseland. Brokenness was definitely a big theme.

Milton Massie:

What I feel like when I think about Wade and his family at this point in the way, even when he was a single, I think about the journey of legacy. The reality of investing in people's lives and seeing one-on-one, or one life at a time transformation.

Brad Harry:

Well, I came to Chicago and joined the [Cru Inner City] ministry. My initial role was to reach out to teenagers. So I started volunteering at a couple of different high schools in the band programs, the music programs. Wade was one of the first guys that I met. I remember he was in the percussion section, and we connected initially, and it was really through some friends that convinced him to come and check out our community center.

Wade Norman:

The first time I saw the Agape Center, I don't think I was even in high school. I was a little kid. It's a gray slate of a building next to these train tracks.

And so I run into this building again in high school with a friend, his name is Clarence. And he said he'd go to the Agape Center. And so I went in and I was really surprised that the place was warm. It was nothing like what it looked like on the outside. It had a gym, it had all these volunteers in there and somebody that I had seen – Brad Harry, who I met in my band class, was volunteering.

Milton Massie:

Wade came to our ministry through the high school ministry, and particularly as Brad was volunteering, he experienced what we want him to experience – the sense that he belonged. That he was a part of this family.

Wade Norman:

It was the only place where I wasn't experiencing that conditional love that I spoke of before.

It was unconditional love. It was leaders there that were willing to invest with me to spend time with me and my friends and hear about my life. They just wanted to know me. And I just felt like that was so powerful at that time when I'm wrestling with this question of identity.

Brad Harry:

And that was my heart for Wade from the beginning. To see him figure out who he was in Jesus, figure out his identity, that God loves him like crazy.

Milton Massie:

At one point, Wade obviously made a decision to begin to follow Christ. To begin to experience what we call a real koinonia, a real fellowship.

Brad Harry:

He just really became rooted in understanding that he's a son of God, he's loved like crazy, and that became a strength for him. He's able to engage really maturely in other parts of his life because of his spiritual foundation.

Wade Norman:

I actually prayed. I said, “God, just put somebody in my life to show me what the Christian walk looked like. I feel like I don't want to judge You for what I've experienced.” And the next day, Brad Harry invited me to this other Bible study he had. It was there where he shared the Gospel that night. And I went home and made the decision that I wanted to follow Christ.

Michelle Harry:

Wade’s maturity level has just gone through the roof. When he was 20 years old or so, he was still trying to figure out college, trying to get a job. And now he is a dad, he's a husband, he works full time with our ministry. It's just so amazing to see how he has grown.

Brad Harry:

I'm grateful that Wade is continuing the legacy of our ministry. It's been almost 40 years of passing on what it looks like to follow Jesus in this challenging context, and Wade has embraced it. Wade came up in the area just like Milton, and God has transformed his life.

Milton Massie:

When Wade came to know Christ in that age, he got a chance to begin to really experience the hope of a life that would actually have meaning, would have purpose, and would be adventurous for his lifetime into eternity.

Wade Norman:

All these things would have never happened if it wasn't for people like Brad, like Mildon, really working together with me to create those options. It says something to have men of character in the community that are living out the Gospel and not just keeping it to themselves, but sharing it with the next generation.

I'm so grateful. There are kids under me that are looking at me, so what legacy am I going to leave as a leader, as a kid or young man that's grown into adulthood? What legacy am I shaping for the kids that are watching me?

Note: Wade is now the after-school program director at Cru’s Agape Community Center where he and Bethany plan to continue serving the next generation.

​Cru Inner City