Mission Birmingham

I spent three days last week in Birmingham, Alabama at a workshop. We were trying to learn how to raise financial support for our ministries. One of the ministries represented was Mission Birmingham. Their mission statement says "The Whole Church taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole City". Verdell Stanley who serves as their Coordinator of Community Based Networks told me a sad story that, I'm sure can be told in every city. Verdell said he took some young but committed Christians to a rough part of Birmingham where they met a group of drug dealers. The Christians were able to help one of the dealers come to Christ and everyone celebrated. Later, the new former dealer told Verdell that he was excited to be a Christian but now that he didn't sell drugs, he needed help finding a job so he could take care of his child. Verdell tried to find a suitable job but, with the economy the way it is, he simply came up empty every time. The new Christian was forced to go back to dealing drugs. Six months later, Verdell stumbled onto a church near this location which had a program training young people with the skills they needed to work as an apprentice in various fields. Everyone in the program found a good job after their training.  One of the things Mission Birmingham is now doing is making a lot of individual churches into one Church (big 'C') in Birmingham.  In John 13: 34 and 35, Jesus says we are to love each other. How can we do this when we don't know each other's needs and allow them to go unmet. If we really loved each other, how could anyone stand outside this Covenant community and not want to be invited in?