Learning to Serve

This morning I am reminded of how faithful the Lord has been to our church in so many ways.  As He continues to grow and mold us into the corporate body of believers that He desires us to be, He is all the while working in each person's heart.  I have been so encouraged to see how he has expanded and matured our relationships in the community and how he chooses to use us to accomplish his purposes.  Yet recently, I have been just as encouraged to see how Lord is transforming our own hearts by simply being willing and obedient in this service.  This is evidenced to me as I talk with RCC folks who are serving, as I read on our blog of their experiences, and as I see people begin to catch the vision of taking the Gospel to and living the Gospel among the needy.  I pray that the Lord will continue to lead us as individuals and as a body to selflessly give of ourselves and all of our resources for His name's sake.  And I pray that as we learn to submit, we will not miss the blessings and sweet lessons that His Spirit is teaching us.

Matthew 16:24-26

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

He will finish the work he began...

I’m short on words to describe how I feel and what I’m thinking after sharing dinner with the families at the homeless shelter Tuesday night, so this will be brief. I kind of feel like I should have some really intense and profound feelings about it, and I confess – on the way home, I drove in silence – praying and waiting for the Lord to whisper to me what he wants me to understand from this night – digging for some deep, illuminating revelation.

I’m pretty sure the only thing I heard was an invitation to keep coming back to find out, for the treasure lies in the heart of real, deep, lasting relationship. That excites me, partly because I am so intrigued by the people I met – but also because it became evident to me in just a couple of hours that they understand something about the experience of living, and perhaps something about our God, that I cannot.

I can only say that after meeting these precious people, particularly beautiful, radiant, eleven-year-old Keaira, I am humbled by my lack of understanding of what real hope, courage, and love look like. I am thankful for the truths in this verse from John Newton's hymn, "No Sweeter Subject" and for what it means for these families, myself, and our church...

Grace reigns to pardon crimson sins,
To melt the hardest hearts;
And from the work it once begins
It never once departs.

I am thankful for the opportunity to meet them and engage in fellowship and community with them, and I am filled with a hunger to know more – more about them, more of what they know, more of Jesus, and more of the joy that is here as we get to enter into his work together.

claire hardin

Fear. Thankfulness. Hope.

Fear. Thankfulness. Hope. Those are the three words I would use to describe my emotions over the past two days since I served dinner at the Family Shelter on Tuesday night.

The first…Fear. Could my family end up there someday? How did they get there? What choices led to this? Could my choices ever land me there? How are that mom and dad with four kids going to get out of there and make it back to paying all their bills? Will her husband be healthy and able to get work? And on and on. Fear for myself but also for the mom of four whose story poured out in the one hour we spent together. We are both just moms trying to meet our baby’s needs and I hurt for her. There is no bigger fear for a mom than not being able to meet you children’s physical needs while keeping them safe.

The second… Thankfulness. I am thankful for my bedroom that seems so big after seeing a four bedroom house with five families living in it and sharing one bathroom. I am thankful that my kids have never missed a meal. I am thankful that I don’t have to feel guilty for what I have yet now have perspective on what I really need to live. I am thankful that I have the best neighbors and church friends that have become family and who wouldn’t let us fall off the edge. I am thankful for a pastor who can remind us of God’s heart for the poor and oppressed and encourage us to be gripped by that. I am thankful that I can serve Jesus just by offering a meal to those who need it. I am thankful that I serve a God who really can meet all my needs as well as the needs of those living at the shelter.

And the last… Hope. I am hopeful that I can do practical things to encourage the mom of four who lives at the shelter now. I am hopeful that as a church we can aid in breaking the yoke of injustice and poverty. And I have the ultimate Hope of knowing that Jesus died to give a heavenly home to people like me and for those who have no place on earth to call home.

-Ashley Johnson

For Joel's podcast on God's Heart for the Poor and Oppressed click HERE

Spring Festival Pics

Check out some of these great pictures from the Woodlawn Spring Fesatival this weekend.  Despite some inopportune rain, the day was a great success and a cool chance for the community to come together.  For more amazing pictures of the fun day, taken by Lori Dill from Church of the Highlands, go here.

Woodlawn Spring Festival

Come to a fun-filled community event for the whole family!

WHAT:Woodlawn Spring Festival

WHEN:This Saturday, May 2, 10am-2pm

WHERE:Woodlawn High School

5620 1st Ave N

 Birmingham, AL 

There will be games, food, prizes, music, sports, free health screenings, local artwork, and much much more!  

RCC will have a booth with info for our church, as well as our bouncy castle, face-painting, and balloon animals for the kids. We would love for you to swing by and visit or help us throughout the day! Tell your friends and hope to see you there!

Focus on Fairfield Pictures!

This past Saturday we were able to take part in a large community workday in Fairfield. Many churches, organizations, and individuals came together and united to accomplish quite an amount of work! There were 6 overall work projects with a variety of focuses, including scraping and painting residents' homes, doing yard maintenance for elderly women, planting trees and plants for a church and restored homes, cleaning the local Christian school, and much more! The RCC people worked predominately on the gigantic task of scraping and painting a large house owned by a lovely woman named Miss Ada Riggs. It was an awesome day, and though it will require another workday to finish, we were pleased with the amazing progress!

Here are a few pictures:

Cornerstone Workday Pics

Our workday on Saturday was awesome! We were able to get all of the projects done that we needed to and in the perfect amount of time. About 15 Redeemer people were able to come help and they were ballers! Although the day started off with a few kinks and problems, the Lord worked it all out and we had a great day! Here are some of the pictures:

These were some of the rooms/areas inside to which we did drastic cleaning and organizing:






Outside, we weeded and cleaned their two playgrounds and then re-mulched them:









We also pressure washed their sidewalk:



And we moved about 75 desks and chairs up a flight of stairs:

Focus on Fairfield Workday

On April 25th RCC will be taking part in another Focus On Fairfield workday, in conjunction with several other area churches and ministries. Restoration Academy helps host this event quarterly and our church was able to have the joy of assisting with the last one in January. During that workday we were split up into about 5 different groups and did a variety of tasks including painting interiors of houses, trimming trees and yards, weeding and gardening, mowing grass, assembling cabinets and furniture, playing flag football with local kids, and much more! It turned out to be such a blessing for the local residents who were the recipients of the labors, as well as for those of us who were able to help. Here is a video of a lovely lady named Ms. Ruthie, singing for us as we were painting her house:




This upcoming workday is again geared towards helping some of the local residents of Fairfield with maintenance and upkeep on their homes. These are individuals that the local churches have working relationships with, and our help is an investment in their lives that will continue to show them the love of Christ. Since this is a joint effort by many churches, it is also a great opportunity for the body of Christ to unite on a larger scale and demonstrate to an unbelieving world what the Gospel of Christ looks like in action. In addition to helping others in need and working with others to accomplish this, we have the opportunity to form relationships with those involved, as well. I am so excited about the work that will be accomplished for the kingdom through this day and how lives will be impacted for the Gospel!

Please mark you calenders and invite your friends! It will be an opportunity to bless others and be blessed!
Important Info:
-Saturday, April 25th, 7:30-11:30, with a cookout after
-Meet at 5600 Carnegie Ave. Fairfield, AL 35064- mapquest it and someone will be there to guide you
-Wear work clothes and gloves and bring any gardening and yard tools you may have
-Good opportunity for the whole family-bring the kids and let them see the importance of serving others
-If you have any questions, contact Dwight-dwight@rccbirmingham.org or 336.831.4489

Cornerstone Workday

This coming Saturday, April 18th, RCC is going to be having a workday at Cornerstone Christian School in Woodlawn. Over the past year we have been building a strong relationship with this school and love its mission and heart for the community. They are dedicated to helping break generational cycles of poor or no education for inner city children, and their desire to do so through the Love and Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ matches the heart of Redeemer. Here is their website. We have been able to come alongside their efforts thus far through tutoring, leading chapel services, and helping with school supplies. We are about to provide their young students with Bibles suitable for their reading level, as well as providing their kitchen with more adequate cooking supplies. Next year we are planning on helping take over their chapel services, starting a guys' and a girls' FCA, helping with field trips, providing more school and kitchen supplies, increasing tutoring and mentoring, and even providing them with some new teachers (yay Elaine and hopefully Amanda Blake)!



The opportunity this coming Saturday will become the first of regular workdays with the school, in an effort to get large amounts of work done in a short amount of time. As the old adage goes, "Many hands make light work", so we are hoping to have a lot of RCC people come out! All of the work will be done outside for this workday and will consist of tilling and planting their urban garden, landscaping, trash pickup, cleaning up the playground, and many other similar activities. This type of work will be great for people of all ages, including children, so please bring your whole family out and serve our community together. We recommend you wear suitable work attire, and if you have work gloves and gardening equipment, please bring them! We are so excited about this opportunity to help partner with another hand of the body of Christ and to be a growing light in the Woodlawn community. The day starts at 9am and will last til around noon. The school is located at 135 54th St N Birmingham, AL 35212 and is an easy turn directly off of 1st Ave North onto 54th St North. If you have any more questions, feel free to contact Dwight. We look forward to seeing you there!

Updates and Shelter Schedule

The last several weeks have been very productive and encouraging as we continue to build our presence and relationships in the community. The Lord has been so faithful in providing continual opportunities to expand our outreaches and relationships with new individuals, churches, and partners as well as deepening the existing ones. Every day I am taken back by how he makes connections and seems to show up in ways I never would have expected. This week alone, every day I had multiple meetings with Cornerstone Christian School and Restoration Academy about our involvement with them throughout the rest of this school year and into the next year. They are beginning to trust and love our persistent desire to join in ministry with them and we are overwhelmed with exciting ideas of how this will play out in the near future. I also met this week with a pastor of a church in Woodlawn who has desire to reach out into the community, and we were able to share the heart and vision of our churches and begin a relationship that we hope will continue to grow. The new health clinic in Woodlawn, Christ Health Center, has just started seeing patients and it was so exciting this week to meet with their staff and see how we can assist their ministry with their patients. The many other meetings and activities of this week are too many to elaborate, but some highlights were: judging a student talent show at Cornerstone, attending the monthly Woodlawn Business Association meeting and hearing genuine desire to help the needs of the community, working at a neighborhood community cleanup day in Woodlawn, helping with a multi-church outreach event in downtown Birmingham last weekend, planning upcoming workdays at Cornerstone and in Fairfield, moving into our new office, finally having health insurance (praise the Lord!), and much more! The Lord has been so faithful to gently guide our young church in the way that we should be part of this community and to grow us closer to His heart. Pray that he will continue to give me and the rest of the church wisdom and discernment as we seek to be faithful and obedient to serve in the best ways and to give of ourselves selflessly.

As a reminder, we are continuing to serve meals at the Family Homeless Shelter every Tuesday night at 6:30 and are always looking for more people to volunteer some time this night of the week. I helped this past week and was able to have some great conversations with several of the residents and really felt like they were beginning to open up to our people. There are 5 families staying there again and this a great opportunity to build a consistent relationship with all of them. This is an updated schedule of who is serving each week and what dates are open:

April 14: Eli Johnson, Bill Rowe, and friends
April 21: Loudon Family and Greg Robinson
April 28: Glass and Pittmans
May 5: deVillenueves and Amanda Blake
May 12: Johnsons and Sizemores
May 19: Michelle Reid and Claire H.
May 26:
June 2:
June 9:
June 16:
June 23:
June 30: