First United Methodist Church of Tuscaloosa
Thursday, September 09, 2010
 
JERUSALEM
(Local Outreach)
 
First United Methodist Church reaches out in ministry to those in need in our local community through support of the following missionaries and ministries.  Click on the link to learn more and to read the latest newsletter from the missionaries.     
 
 
 
SUNDAY MORNINGS: WACT 1420 AM 10:30 A.M.
Click here to listen to a lesson.
The Bruner Radio Ministry was conceived and developed by the Holy Spirit. God spoke a word to me in June 2000, which was "Radio Station in Tuscaloosa." After pondering this word in my heart for at least a year, my husband Joe approached me and informed me of the need to move forward with the word the Lord had spoken. 
 
My retirement in 2000 was a much needed time of rest and renewal from twenty-nine years of public school teaching.  Our R and R was disrupted by God's needs in Tuscaloosa.  In 2002, we began making the necessary preparations to sell our home and leave our friends for over 20 years. Our desire to obey and please the Father caused us to exercise our faith and depend on God for the outcome of the mission. Never having done radio before, required a level of faith that we had not experienced before. We finally had an idea of how Abraham must have felt, when he was told to leave Haran. Our Haran was Silver Spring, Maryland.
 
 THE VISION
The vision for this ministry comes from Acts 26:18 --where Paul relates his calling to King Agrippa.  "To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me!"
    
THE MISSION
 To carry this word to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth-through Biblically-based Holy Spirit inspired teaching.
 
The Bruner Radio Ministry can be heard across Tuscaloosa County and is now available worldwide through audio streaming and download from this website.  Click here to listen to a lesson.
 
 
COMMUNITY SOUP BOWLS 
 
AMY GRINSTEAD – TUSCALOOSA COMMUNITY SOUP BOWL
Amy Grinstead is the Executive Director of The Tuscaloosa Community Soup Bowl which is located behind the Piggly Wiggly Food at Southside (1711 23rd Avenue). The Community Soup Bowl opened in 1981 when five downtown churches united to meet a growing problem with hunger in the Tuscaloosa community.  The facility serves one meal at noon seven days a week. 
 
Our mission is simple: To feed a daily nutritional meal to the homeless, the unemployed, the working poor, the mentally challenged, the physically challenged, the senior citizens and most important of all – the children. We provide this meal to our guests in a friendly, non-threatening atmosphere. Our belief is that no one should go to bed hungry, on the street or otherwise. The Soup Kitchen provides a nutritional and tasteful meal to the less fortunate in our community. It is a meal we would be proud to serve our family at home.  
 
The current building was constructed in 1998 and is able to seat 80 at a time. Meals are prepared and served by staff and volunteers on weekdays. Various volunteer groups rotate the duties of preparing and serving on weekends. The Tuscaloosa Community Soup Bowl serves 70,000 meals annually which accounts for an average of 185 meals served daily.
 
First United Methodist Church not only supports the Community Soup Bowl financially but also provides a number of teams to volunteer week days and weekends throughout the year. Tuscaloosa Community Soup Bowl is in South Tuscaloosa just off Greensboro Avenue. 
 
CHARLIE SIMMONS – EAST TUSCALOOSA COMMUNITY SOUP BOWL
Charlie Simmons is the Director of The East Tuscaloosa Community Soup Bowl. The program is feeding the hungry in Alberta City on Sundays with sack lunches and with hot meals on Wednesdays. Beginning next month the East Tuscaloosa Community Soup Bowl will begin serving hot meals each Friday as well. All meals are served at Alberta United Methodist Church. Teams from various churches have scheduled days to serve at the soup bowl. The teams generally meet at Alberta UMC at 10:00 AM and serve at noon.
 
There is tremendous poverty in some areas of Alberta City and a great need exists to provide meals to those who often do without. The sad part about running the soup bowl is opposition some in the community have to the program. When the soup bowl began some residents protested it and claimed the soup bowl would erode the community. Initially volunteers had to hand out sack lunches in the parking lot of Home Town Grocery.
 
This past Christmas the East Tuscaloosa Community Soup Bowl was able to serve a hot meal for only the second time in its history since it started in 2002. East Tuscaloosa Community Soup Bowl is in Alberta City. 
 
 
Eagles’ Wings, Inc. (EWI) is a private, non-profit corporation that was formed in 2005 with the stated purpose of providing vocational and residential services to adults with special needs. The organization, which also gained its 501(c) (3) exempt status in March of 2006, was formed by concerned parents, teachers, and friends of these special adults.
 
Intended to primarily serve those who live in the West Alabama area, EWI has shaped a mission to build a nurturing and caringChristian community that provides a family-style atmosphere for adults with mild, moderate, severe, and medically fragile disabilities. EWI and its team are dedicated to providing a wide array of services to meet these individuals’ spiritual, physical, emotional, and social needs via a vocational center, occupational opportunities, and on-site medically supervised residences. Overall, the organization’s main motivation will be to build a community that is focused on the happiness and personal fulfillment for each individual in a secure, nurturing, and disciplined environment.
 
Eagles’ Wings, Inc. has purchased 96 acres of land to build homes providing residential care to adults with special needs. Residents will have private furnished bedrooms with their own belongings. This property is located approximately 10 miles west of Tuscaloosa on U.S. Highway 82.
Numerous vocational opportunities will be provided for residents as well as adults with special needs from the community.  Eagles’ Wings, Inc. is in Tuscaloosa County. 
  
 
Janet Zeanah is Assistant Director of The Phoenix House, Inc. of Tuscaloosa, Alabama; a free-standing, non-profit halfway house. Phoenix House began operation in the late 1960's and evolved to its current mission and structure in 1972. During this period, it has provided opportunities for addiction recovery in both residential and outpatient levels of care.

In June, 1994, operations moved to its current location at 700 35th Ave. The main facility houses 12 females and 20 males. Residents stay from a minimum of 90 days to the maximum of one year. Our primary mission is to assist individuals in their recovery from alcohol and drug addiction and help them return to society as productive members. Success is achieved through individual and group counseling, family counseling, vocational and adult education,  life skills training, and job training and placements. Our program focuses on two axioms:
  • Responsibility & Self Discipline
  • Self-honesty & Self Help
We are a state certified and supported residential rehab facility. We serve the west Alabama community. We are also partially supported by The United Way of West Alabama. We currently serve twenty male clients and twelve female clients.  Once residents have completed at least 90 days in the Phoenix House, they can move into the transitional homes across the street for a period of time up to eighteen months. During their stay, the residents work, attend in-house and outside 12-Step meetings, and take on the responsibility of managing their day-to-day life.
 
First United Methodist, First Presbyterian, and Northridge Baptist together with several local merchants have joined hands since August 2002 to add four transitional homes to the Phoenix House programs, two for women and two for men. Phoenix House is in West Tuscaloosa.
 
 
  
MIKE & LAURA GREEN – YOUTH FOR CHRIST
Mike and Laura Green have served Tuscaloosa Youth For Christ (YFC) for 13 years and Mike has been with YFC for a total of 20 years.
Youth For Christ’s local mission is to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with hard to reach high school and middle school age young people. They accomplish this through Campus Life and Teen Moms outreaches in area schools and neighborhoods. Currently Tuscaloosa YFC impacts 700 young people each week in its ministries. Over the last 2 school years, 250 teenagers have committed their lives to following Christ.
Mike is a product of the Tuscaloosa ministry and after college took a YFC staff position in Charlotte, NC. That is where he met Laura and they began their ministry together. Mike and Laura have two kids, Brittany, an accounting major at University of North Alabama, and Ross, a sophomore at Northridge High School.
 
Since 1944, Youth For Christ has had a distinctive history of youth evangelism. YFC now reaches over 1 million young people around the world each year through 35,000 paid staff and volunteers. Ministries are tailored to reach youth in urban, suburban, and rural settings and are in 100 countries around the world. YFC continues to demonstrate an unwavering commitment to youth evangelism and biblical Christianity. They creatively communicate this message of hope, grace and love so that they might reach every young person, one at a time.  2008 is the 40th anniversary of Youth For Christ in the Tuscaloosa community.
 
CHELSEY SNIDER – TEEN MOMS
Chelsey Snider is finishing her last semester at the University of Alabama.  She is serving as the Teen Moms Director, a ministry of Youth for Christ – Tuscaloosa, as an internship for her graduation requirements.  Chelsey is from Knoxville, Tennessee.
 
Teen Moms ministers to teenage mothers who need assistance through the many difficulties of being a teen parent. We help to provide teen mothers with resources, such as baby clothing and bottles, as well as meeting with them on a weekly basis in a group setting. During these meetings teen moms are able to enter a community in which they are able to interact with other teen moms who are having similar experiences. Teen moms are assigned to a mentor, an adult within the community with whom they meet periodically. Through the relationships built and issues discussed, Teen Moms staff and volunteers are able to introduce students to Christ.
 
Teen Moms currently runs clubs for pregnant and parenting girls at Northridge, Bryant and Central High Schools. Teen Moms is seeking volunteers to help lead these clubs and build one-on-one relationships with girls. If would like to make donations of baby supplies please contact us or drop them by our office in the downtown First Federal Bank building.
 
For all the details on Teen Moms contact Elizabeth Moore, our Director. She can be reached at the YFC office or on the Teen Moms hotline at 205.239.7001.  If you are aware of youth that could benefit from our programs please give us a call.  Teen Moms is in Tuscaloosa. 
 
 
The United Methodist Children’s Home – Tuscaloosa, is one of sixteen residential group homes and one of four transitional living homes serving the North Alabama and West Florida Conferences of the United Methodist Church. The primary purpose of the group and transitional living home is to provide temporary care for up to twelve males who are unable to live in their own homes. The home provides moderate care group home living for eight adolescent males between the ages of 12 to 17 and young adult transitional living for four males between the ages of 17 to 21.
The facilities are in Cottondale, Alabama and are located right outside the city of Tuscaloosa and are tremendously supported by the churches of the Southwest District of the North Alabama Conference. The Tuscaloosa UMC Children’s Home is one of six located throughout the North Alabama Conference.
 
The Tuscaloosa Group Home was built in 1996, moving from the Genesis House near the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The structure is home for up to 10 school-age boys through a residential group care program.  The Milton C. Booth Home is part of the transitional living program. It was built in 2007 by volunteers and others from the Southwest District.  UMC Children’s Home is in Tuscaloosa County.
 
 
ALTITUDE MINISTRIES - under construction