To some, Birmingham’s public housing communities are hopeless neighborhoods plagued by poverty and crime, but one local couple and a few Alabama Baptist churches see them as opportunities to show Christ’s love.
Gerald and Gwen Austin began a church and nonprofit organization that have helped countless people “move from a life of dependency to a life of true sufficiency.”
One of nine children raised by a single parent in public housing, Gerald Austin, pastor of The New City Church, knew firsthand the problems that face inner city families each day. He also knew from his personal experiences that there was hope.
After watching residents of Birming-ham’s Metropolitan Gardens housing community fall deeper into destitution, he decided to leave a 13-year engineering career to make a difference in the urban community.
“True sufficiency is found only in the person of Jesus Christ. Thank God for Jesus who convicts us and guides us even when we are tempted to be persuaded by a world of hopelessness,” he said.
In 1986, the Austins opened the Center for Urban Missions to
support families in the Metropolitan Gardens community through Bible clubs, education, mentoring, inspiration and employment opportunities. This community was Birmingham’s largest public housing community then, with more than 3,000 residents, many facing unemployment, financial hardship, illiteracy and teenage pregnancy.
Four years later, the Austins founded the New City Church with 12 other families to meet the spiritual needs of downtown Birmingham residents. Through hard work and perseverance, the small inner-city church and mission center have grown, benefiting countless people in the community. One such development is a partnership with Bessemer State Technical College in 1996, which allowed the center to begin a beverage equipment remanufacturing company called RAMP (Reaching and Motivating People) Industries to create jobs for the poor. RAMP assists individuals in acquiring high school diplomas or GED and certification as beverage equipment technicians through the center’s job readiness and training program.
“Through partnerships in the public and private sectors, RAMP Industries enables us to equip individuals with skills in electronic technology and pipefitting while earning a livable wage,” the center’s Web site notes. “Through RAMP Industries we not only make commercial beverage equipment ‘like new,’ we also enable individuals to become ‘like new,’ not only through employment, but also by providing them with the inspiration to develop a positive work ethic and thereby emerge from poverty’s grip.”
Austin sought relationships with more individuals, churches, businesses and organizations in Birmingham to expand their services. As a result, the center began its STARS (Skill-building Training Achievement Results Sufficiency) program, which allows individuals or groups to support children and their families by adopting them and committing to prayer and financial support.
“The Center for Urban Missions has as one of its highest values the value of partnership,” said Austin. “We draw that from Matthew 12:25. The implication of that text is that we must work together to address the problems of our hurting communities.”
“We find that it is important that we are intentional in developing relationships that are black and white because the problems that we are challenged with are not black problems (or) white problems. They are all of our problems if we are to live out the whole gospel and be good neighbors.”
The center, renamed the New City Center, has about 300 partners in the state and region including three Alabama Baptist churches. These affiliations allow the center to offer summer camps, workshops, seminars, professional Christian family counseling and support programs.
“We have seen lives touched and permanent change achieved over the years in individual children, youth and adults,” said Vanessa Brown, assistant program manager at The New City Center. “One of our greatest rewards was to see families trapped in public housing move to home ownership; marriages re-stored; the dropout rate decrease and students earn high school and college degrees.”
The center has a long partnership with Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills. The two churches plan to work together to meet the needs of families in Alabama’s Black Belt region.
“We do a lot of global things but we want to be active locally,” said Keith Habermas, executive pastor of Shades Mountain. “We are excited about what Dr. Austin is doing. We partner with him because we believe strongly in the work that he does. He’s got a great vision.”
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