Watering Seeds of Love: Fusion at Family Care
Fusion classes in our Family Care homes are a new initiative we’ve implemented recently in Birmingham, and the community has really rallied around it, with business groups and church small groups regularly participating. Volunteers, Chris and Liza Kinsley, have been essential to these groups, and have been faithfully serving our families along with their small group for over three years.
REACHING OUT TO SERVE
With six married couples and their children ranging in age from newly born to their twenties, the Kinsley small group from The Church at Brooks Hills has been meeting in some form for eight years. “We’ve done a lot of life together—the good, the bad, and the ugly,” Liza says. This group meets once a week to fellowship, pray, and study the Word of God.
They came to a point in their meeting together where they began to desire serving the community together, alongside each other and their kids, to make a difference in the lives around them. The group did several short-term programs throughout the city, but had a hard time finding a place they could consistently serve with their children, as well as to invest in and build relationships with those they served. At the end of their search, they found out about our Family Care program.
Many of our moms come to our Family Care program without a plan, a place to go, or a friend to help. In their time with us, we do our best to provide them with all three to help them start a new life on their own. The support of small groups like this is one contributing factor that helps our moms grow and transition to homes of their own.
A MONTHLY FELLOWSHIP
After visiting the home as a service project with her second graders from Westminster School at Oak Mountain, Liza knew Family Care was the right place for the small group to get involved. It started with doing small projects as needed, but really took off from there. While they still help with projects such as lawn care, vehicle maintenance, and cleaning rooms for new families, their newest focus is on Fusion skill classes, which have been implemented largely with their help alongside Alabaster’s House Manager, Cami Jones.
With the vision to fuse together the hearts of those in our care with the community around them, we are seeing relationships form as a result of a few people choosing to show up each month and water the seeds that were planted by our staff team—the seeds that say: you are loved, you are important to God, and there is a second chance for your story—a freedom in Christ that’s yours for the taking.
These classes do more than teach our moms financial planning, fun crafts, and other life skills; they provide a consistency of relationships to our families that they may have never experienced before. Chris shares, “One of the older kids isn’t super keen to come out and play the games with us . . . but we have one guy in our small group who will sit with her, do crafts, and chat with her. One Sunday, he had a meeting at the church and came late. She asked me three or four times, ‘Is he coming? When is he going to be here?’ When he showed up—the way her face lit up—it was so cool . . . That was encouraging to me, that there’s a real connection happening. When he showed up, it meant something to her that he had come back.”
SERVING CHANGES EVERYONE
Chris and Liza have seen this group impact those in our care, but closer to home, they’ve seen it change their own hearts, their kids, and their group as a whole. “Every Sunday, [the kids] ask us, ‘Is this the week we get to go to ABCH?’” Liza says, “We want them to have servants hearts, to look for needs around them . . . that’s been one of the neatest parts to me, to see our children look for ways to help.”
Because Chris serves as the Communications Director for The Church at Brook Hills, he’s seen this opportunity provide a unique place for him and those in his group, to grow. “This is something I get to do . . . It’s a cool opportunity for me to get to serve because so many times when I’m serving, I’m expected, and paid, to serve . . . As our small group leader, it’s encouraging to see people God’s entrusted to you for a season, grow so much,” Chris says.
As a group, they’ve seen this opportunity initiate stronger bonds between them, and it’s provided the space to learn and acknowledge each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and be able to compliment and fill in gaps as needed to serve completely and wholeheartedly.
ALL THAT’S NEEDED
You could make volunteering YOUR next step in serving children and families in need. As Chris says, “I couldn’t help any of these families by myself. I don’t have the training or the experience . . . but I can play with their kids!”
To volunteer, you don’t need a special background; all that’s needed is the willingness to show up consistently to water the seeds planted before you.
Learn more about volunteering with our ministry here.