The Need
A Suburb Built by Steel
Fairfield was a town teeming with potential. It was home to one of America’s fastest-growing companies, U.S. Steel. It was even graced with a visit from President Theodore Roosevelt. But today, the situation is dramatically different. The average income is now $21,000 and the average home value is around $95,000.
Statistics reveal only part of the issue. The real issue is a city where many residents have been held captive in self-destructive patterns of behavior. Countless people lack direction and hope, so chaos and violence fill the void.
Fairfield is a city today with manifold problems:
- Fatherlessness
- Low work ethic
- Welfare policies
- Violence
- Lack of purpose
- Disregard for marriage
What have we learned in our first ten years?
The gospel is God’s power to change people.
Public policy doesn’t change people. The gospel changes people. We have seen God give people a “living hope” that leads them to become faithful husbands, workers, and citizens. The gospel still works.
It all starts with discipling young men.
Pharoah understood that the easiest way to destroy the Israelites was to destroy their young men. Yet, when Jesus was looking to start a new community, he poured himself into a group of young men. Transforming generational issues starts with transforming young men.
There’s much more work to be done.
Urban poverty is complex. The more we work in Fairfield, the more we realize the work that needs to be done. But we also realize that other parts of Birmingham are facing the same problems, and we need churches like Urban Hope to be planted to serve their residents.
The term “manifold” is defined as “of several different types.” Cities with manifold problems like Fairfield will be changed by the power of the gospel and a vision to see biblical principles applied to the variety of issues which have kept it in bondage.