NEWS FEATURE: Reclaiming Downtown Birmingham: Worshipping in Unlikely Buildings

c. 2004 Religion News Service BIRMINGHAM, Ala. _ The driveway on the east side of Crossroads Community Church’s downtown building once led to an automotive shop. Now, travelers pull in to get their souls serviced instead of their tires. Through the years, downtown Birmingham buildings that were once warehouses, a bank and even a bus […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. _ The driveway on the east side of Crossroads Community Church’s downtown building once led to an automotive shop. Now, travelers pull in to get their souls serviced instead of their tires.

Through the years, downtown Birmingham buildings that were once warehouses, a bank and even a bus station have been reborn as houses of worship.


Crossroads, which began in February 2000, met in a hotel conference room before moving to the former auto shop in December 2002.

Crossroads needed a large space for children because many of the members were young parents, said Crossroads’ pastor, Andrew Jenkins. Instead of carving up the space for small classrooms, church members divided the space into big rooms for children, he said.

The Center for Urban Missions/New City Center holds services in a former bank building, which it converted into a church in 1985. The Church of the Reconciler holds its services in a former meat packing warehouse, and Walking on Water Christian Church calls a former Trailways bus station home.

Michael Calvert, president of Operation New Birmingham, said there are advantages to opening a church downtown.

“It’s a central location,” Calvert said. “You could get to downtown in 20 minutes from a long way. If you drew a line to all parts of Jefferson County from downtown, you’d cover a lot of territory.”

Churches aiming for diversity often prefer downtown.

“It’s a place where everyone can come together,” Calvert said. “It’s not a black or a white neighborhood. It’s not a rich or a poor neighborhood. It can be a mix.”

The Church of the Reconciler, which has about 250 members, draws many homeless through its large warehouse door, a former loading dock, for worship, Bible study and meals.


“We don’t have any filters at that door,” said Pastor Lawton Higgs Sr. “We’re an unconventional church meeting in an unconventional building.”

It has been in the building since spring 2003. It took about nine months for the church to transform open space into a sanctuary, offices into Bible school classrooms and a freezer area into a family life center, he said. Moving from another storefront in downtown Birmingham fit with the mission of the congregation, Higgs said. And reaching out to the downtrodden echoes the mission of Methodist founder Charles Wesley.

“Wesley ministered on the streets of London, England, in the 1700s, and we’re doing it on the streets of Birmingham, Alabama, in the 2000s,” Higgs said. “We are anything but exclusive. We accept everybody.”

The Rev. Gerald Austin of Center for Urban Missions/New City Center looked at several sites before settling on a former bank building.

His church’s congregation consists of a mix of races, cultures and income levels. “We consider this a neutral zone in terms of community,” Austin said. “We have always had hope in the city.”

DEA/MO END COMAN

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