John Gibson says he’s become fully acquainted with two kinds of burdens in the past seven years.
He’s seen the burden of physical need that many families in the Birmingham area are carrying.
And he’s felt a growing burden to help them in the best way possible, and with more than just a short-term solution.
Gibson, executive director of Serving You Ministries, said those burdens are working themselves out through a partnership with another area ministry, WorkFaith Birmingham, which addresses poverty by helping people become employable.
Continues to grow
“The original goal of Serving You was to be a benevolence arm for local churches,” said Gibson of the ministry started by NorthPark Baptist Church, Trussville, in partnership with about two dozen area churches. “But it’s grown to be so much more than that.”
Since its founding in 2009, when churches would refer someone in need to Serving You, ministry staff would interview them, learn their story and help meet their needs for food or financial assistance as best they could, Gibson said.
“Some would be in crisis situations but others would be in a more chronic state of need where they needed more income coming into their household,” he said.
For the past few years WorkFaith Birmingham has been able to come alongside them and help with the next step — career development and financial education.
“The second month that someone came to us for help we would refer them to WorkFaith, and we would give them a two-week supply of food to get them through WorkFaith’s nine-day work development course,” Gibson said.
Serving You also would give them financial assistance after they graduated from the course to help them until they got their first paycheck from work, he said.
Sharing space
And over time it became clear that it would be good for the two organizations to share space under the same roof — not to mention the fact that Serving You’s two bases in Trussville and Pelham were quite a reach from inner-city Birmingham, which had the greatest need, he said.
So in mid-August, Serving You and WorkFaith moved into a new office building at 6523 First Avenue North in Birmingham, a space provided free of charge by Church of the Highlands.
“It’s just another example of how people in the area are really starting to come together and work together to meet the city’s needs,” Gibson said.
‘Win-win’
Keith Stanley, president of WorkFaith and local missions pastor at The Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, said the two being in the same building was “going to be a win-win for a lot of reasons.”
“In what WorkFaith does, we often struggle to get people to come into the class for two weeks because that would mean two weeks with no food, no resources, no money,” Stanley said.
“Serving You is able to incentivize our students and able to help us on the front end with discerning who needs the help we can offer.”
Together the two can offer a well-rounded ministry to those in poverty, he said.
“There are needs of relief and needs of development,” Stanley said. “We want to help those who need relief but also help them use the resources God has given them to help themselves and serve others.”
As Christians, he said, “we are called to do both.”
For more information about Serving You Ministries, visit servingyou.org.
For more information about WorkFaith Birmingham, visit workfaithbhm.org.
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