1970s

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• The spirit that inspired Mission Alabama began with Birmingham Alive, a group of business leaders, ministry leaders, and intercessors who prayed weekly at 6:00 am for the body of Christ to come together. Leaders focused on unity and reconciliation, and the founders were Drayton Nabors, Chuck Singletary, and Kirby Sevier.  The group recognized that in order to be successful they needed to reach Pastors.

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1980s

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• The 1980s brought the creation of the John 17 Fellowship, an initiative seeking to engage Pastors across denominational, racial, and geographical lines. Frank Barker, Gerald Austin, Drayton Nabors, Chuck Singletary, and Kirby Sevier were instrumental in beginning this ministry. In time the fellowship was predominantly attended by the laity, and the need for a strategy for reaching Senior Pastors remained in the hearts of the founders. The New City Church was the organizational entity that housed the John 17 Fellowship and processed financial matters for the group.

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1990s

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• City Reaching Conference – A group from Birmingham including Dan Allison, Chuck Singletary, Kirby Sevier, and Drayton Nabors flew to Michigan to learn about “city-wide” mobilization. The featured speaker was David Bryant who is committed to awakening throughout the Church fresh hope, passion, prayer, and mission-focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, by proclaiming the full extent of His supremacy and by empowering others to do the same. It was the beginning of visualizing a city-wide transformational movement that would be led by the church.

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• The Prayer Summit – Upon returning from Michigan Chuck Singletary attended his first prayer summit held at Shocco Springs by Pastors from Tuscaloosa. It was here that he learned that Doug Small was the SE Representative for International Renewal Ministries, the organization that promoted the prayer summits. They were working with Tuscaloosa and Little Rock, Arkansas at the time.​

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• International Renewal Ministries (IRM) – We began partnering with IRM because they created a strategy to reach Pastors and connect them that was relationally driven.

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• City Reach / IRM  Birmingham Visit – Jack Dennis (City Reach) and Doug Small (IRM) visited Birmingham to discuss City Reaching strategies.

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• North Carolina Pastor Mobilization Meeting – Chuck Singletary and Frank Woodson flew to Charlotte, NC to meet with Doug Small and attend a two-day conference on mobilizing Pastors for a prayer summit.

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• First Birmingham Pastors Prayer Summit – The formation team for the Prayer Summit was made up of men that were “GateKeepers” in the Birmingham community. The formation team consisted of Frank Barker, Gerald Austin, John Loper, Harry Walls, Rick Ousley, and Dan  Ronsisvalle.

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• Creation of the Mission Birmingham Pastor’s Covenant  – Rick Ousley led in the drafting of the Pastor’s Covenant that quickly became a document that would define our commitment to support and foster relationships for one another.

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• The Formation of the Servant Leadership Team (SLT) – The Pastors attending the first Prayer Summit agreed to stay in the relationship and to meet monthly in fostering continued fellowship. Each promised to work as a team of Servant Leaders that would continue to reach out to Pastors within their stream of the faith to move into a vital relationship with each other. Harry Walls was the President and Gerald Austin was the vice president of the group. Together they would work to mobilize the whole church to reach the whole city with the whole gospel.  

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2000

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• The Cry for Birmingham – The SLT began the Cry for Birmingham, a prayer time for Pastors. This quarterly prayer time was a venue for Pastors to invite other Pastors to move into vital relationships with brothers from across the region.
   

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2001

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• The First Facilitator – The SLT created the first staff position for the Ad hoc group by engaging Kevin Moore to facilitate three key initiatives: Servant Leadership Team meetings, The Cry for Birmingham, and Pastors’ Prayer Clusters throughout the Birmingham area. The New City Church was the organizational entity that housed the SLT initiative and processed financial matters for the group.

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• A Call to Action – After four years of praying together there was a consensus that “praying and waiting” may not be all we should do. It was at this time that the SLT agreed that there must be a demonstration of the gospel to go along with the proclamation. There was a heartfelt commitment to the belief that our unity must be evident to the body of Christ as well as the world.

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• Some Pastors began to swap pulpits and choirs; others looked for opportunities to work side by side with each other.

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• Citywide prayer gatherings were held for the body of Christ at large venues to share and celebrate our diversity within the body of Christ (the very differences that had kept us apart for so many years). These mass prayer gatherings were diverse in culture and denomination. They provided a glimpse of the unity that is possible in the “Church”.

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2002

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• The First Citywide Event and the Formation of Mission Birmingham – Ron Cox was the SLT champion for community engagement. After exploring the idea of building a “Dream Center” in Ensley and various other projects, his proposal for hosting a Convoy of Hope at Legion Field was embraced by the entire Servant Leadership Team.

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• Mission Birmingham was incorporated to have an entity with no baggage or history that could be a deterrent for such a large undertaking (i.e. The Convoy of Hope). It was the largest mobilization of Pastors, churches, and volunteers from the community of faith in recent times. There were so many willing to serve from the body of Christ, those additional volunteers were turned away. It was an incredible demonstration of what we could do as the body of Christ to address the needs of the poor and hurting within our community. Mission Birmingham was born to be a visible manifestation of the whole gospel and the whole church to the whole city.

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2006

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• Mission Alabama (formerly Redemptive Associates) was incorporated to focus on meeting the human needs of families in the Birmingham region.

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2008

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• Mission Alabama became a housing developer for President Obama’s American Recovery Act with the NSP program with a one million grant award from Governor Riley.

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2011

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• On April 27, Mission Birmingham and our IFOC Chaplains responded to the Alabama Tornado Outbreak Event. Mayor Bell appointed Frank Woodson and Mission Birmingham to facilitate the Faith-Based Non-Profit Relief effort.

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• Mission Birmingham Chaplains hosted national disaster relief organizations as they came to Birmingham and across the impacted areas of Alabama. Chaplain Charles Davis was the liaison between Rubicon, Samaritan’s Feet, and other national groups.

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• FEMA invited Mission Birmingham to become a part of their Joint Field Office (JFO) and worked with us to facilitate capacity-building efforts on the ground.

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• Mission Birmingham spun all of its community building, community development, community-based programming, and projects into Mission Alabama. This allowed for the continuity of contracts in housing development, running of public housing community centers, property development, and other services. It also allowed us to expand our roles in disaster recovery efforts.

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2012

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• Governor Bently appoints Frank Woodson and Mission Alabama to be Commissioner with Serve Alabama and the oversight of the Governor's Relief Fund.

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2013

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• Mission Alabama reflects the broader mission of the new organization.  Mission Alabama was moving from being a regional organization to becoming a statewide organization.

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• Since that time Mission Alabama has served cities and counties across West Alabama, Central Alabama and in 2015 expanded to serve the cities and counties in East Alabama.

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• Mission Alabama now has programming that addresses Economic Development, Community Development, Spiritual Development, Leadership Development, Volunteerism, Educational Innovation, and Organizational Development.