Planning a Church Mission Trip to Bimingham, Alabama

Have you considered planning a mission trip to Birmingham, Alabama? Church mission trips can be wonderfully informative, community building and faith inspiring adventures. Church mission trips can bring together people in your congregation who are almost strangers to one another and unite them in doing God's work . People who have gone on church mission trips will tell you they can be life altering and life enriching experiences, especially if you plan your mission trip to a place like Birmingham, Alabama.

Having relatives in Birmingham, Alabama and having visited that special southern city several times of late I can honestly speak to church leaders about the value of planning a church mission trip to Birmingham, Alabama. It 's not that Birmingham is necessarily a fast paced, exciting, modern place to take a church group on mission. Birmingham, which claims an active college population centered around the University of Alabama-Birmingham, cannot challenge a fully modern city like nearby Atlanta . And that perhaps is exactly why planning a church mission trip to Birmingham, Alabama makes good sense.

Taking kids to Birmingham Alabama is a trip back into America's historic past in lots of ways. Your group will find the pace slower, the mood more subtle and less aggressive and the people remarkably polite and friendly .

In this relaxed environment your group will also find a city still struggling with its areas of urban poverty that are disconnected from the rest of city life. With effort on the part of your leadership you will not have to struggle much to make a connection with local church leaders to arrange to spend a few day working at local housing projects, with church centered youth groups or volunteering service to community groups. There is plenty to be done among the poor in the city Birmingham, Alabama.

But don't make this the only focus when you are planning a mission trip to Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham in the 19'50s and 1960's was on the cusp of civil rights activities and inter racial conflict. The history of these troubled times between Americans of different races is recorded in the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham
You can arrange in advance to tour the Institute which is open Tuesday - Saturday from 10 a.m-5 p.m. and Sundays from 1-5. This tour will help to situate your group not just in the city of Birmingham but in the midst of its challenging history.

An easy day trip from Birmingham, Alabama is the still rather sleepy southern town of Selma. There your mission group can learn of the courage of hundreds of civil rights protesters who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the face of armed police. As they attempted to make a 60 mile march to Montgomery, Alabama, these unarmed Americans were beaten and treated violently creating images that at last outraged the rest of the nation.

Both the Civil Rights Institute and the Edmund Pettus Bridge can inspire your mission trip members and show them the meaning of working in the face of injustice, oppression and hatred to accomplish the right. There are few cities in the United States that can provide a more inspirational background for a a mission group. There is plenty of "love " centered work to be done here. The Gospel call to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison is as relevant in a city like 2st century Birmingham, Alabama as it was in Jesus' day.

If you are planning a missionary trip with your congregation or youth group, you would do well to consider what Birmingham, Alabama has to offer. There are plenty of options for Christian outreach and lots of historic evidence of the need to keep spreading word of the Kingdom of God.

Sources: www.bcri.com