About Us

City Life Center connects the community to opportunities, resources, and information that help families to thrive.

OUR HISTORY

In December of 2013, Bethel Church became the new owner of the 41,000-square-foot building formerly owned by the John Will Anderson Boys & Girls Club at 225 West 5th Avenue. Wanting to utilize the building to serve the community in greater ways Bethel leadership decided to establish a separate 501(C)(3) tax exempt community organization in 2014. City Life Center (CLC) is the fruit of that decision and was charged with serving the community through programs, services, and acts of compassion that exemplified and demonstrated faith in action.

OUR values

STRONG Thriving FAMILIES

City Life Center supports families to aid in the develop of the five protective factors that helps families to thrive and helps mitigate risk and enhance healthy development and well-being for youth. To learn more about how we accomplish these goals click here. "Strong, viable families build strong communities. Strong communities build strong economies, and strong states, and support the basic framework of American resilience, competitiveness, and high quality of life. Those, in turn, build a strong, prosperous, well protected, well respected nation." - By Hunter Oct 2, 2005

COLLECTIVE IMPACT

No single organization has the ability to solve any major problem by itself. Collective impact is a powerful approach to cross-sector collaboration that is achieving measurable effects on major social issues. City Life Center engages with likeminded organizations and individuals of good will to bring about change.

Fiscal Integrity and transparency

Financial integrity is one of the most critical responsibilities of City Life Center. Managing our money in true alignment with our organization’s mission is the core of financial integrity. In this era it is more important than ever to be sure that our organization manages its finances responsibly, and that the financial image we present is not only technically accurate but also tells the world how we use money to carry out our mission. We believe in a very high level of accountability and transparency because they want donors to know that we are trustworthy. We follow best practices in governance, donor relations and related areas to ensure ethical and responsible activities.

#Teamlife

Ken Patrick Barry, MBA, MMHEA - Executive Director

Driven by a call to serve the urban community, Ken has committed 24 years of his life to helping people from all walks of life maximize their life’s potential. He has demonstrated an authentic passion to see families improve the quality of their lives and is a leader with a strong track record of innovation, program design and successful implementation that leads to quantifiable results.

Ken has an MBA with a concentration in Management, a Master’s of Management in Higher Education Administration and is currently pursuing his Master of Divinity at Moody Bible Institute. Ken seeks to use his education, reputation and creativity to contribute to revitalization of the city of Gary, Indiana.