I told you yesterday that today I wanted to talk about an organization that is in the middle of West Montgomery called Common Ground. It was started by a couple in Montgomery and they felt God's calling on their life to move to this neighborhood and transform it. It couldn't have been easy, it must have been scary. This was a type of neighborhood that many of us won't even drive through; yet, they were moving their life and their kids into this neighborhood. I copied in their mission because my words couldn't do it justice...

The Mission of Common Ground Montgomery is two-fold:

We seek to create a "safe haven" of love and grace along with structure and discipline for the children of our community when they are most vulnerable to the destructive influences of our streets.
We also concentrate on investing in our urban youth by focusing on "holistic development". We do this in three main ways.

First, our staff, with assistance from godly neighbors, is devoted to "life on life" training of the youth. We accomplish this by living in the community that we serve in; opening up our homes to the neighborhood kids and training them through biblically based "discipleship" relationships.
Second, we provide relationship-based programs that focus on character, social, and life skills development in various areas like academics, arts, sports, and entrepreneurship.
Third, we connect kids with loving Christian mentors from across our city. These enduring relationships begin in the 4th grade and carry on through the child’s high-school graduation.

I think this is so meaningful because they aren't just writing a check. Writing a check is sometimes so easy. Don't get me wrong, giving money to groups like this is very important and they appreciate every dime. What amazes me the most is how the founders and their staff changed their whole lifestyle and spend everyday building relationships with these kids and their families. Our church had a mission day the last weekend in October and our "mission field" for the day was Common Ground. We went in and some men did some construction work and everyone else just spent time playing with those kids. What a blessing it was. The smiles on their faces just to be hanging out were incredible. They don't forget your smiling face either. There were some kids from our youth group out there and they go out there to tutor and spend time with the kids during the week. They knew those youth and they knew about Saint James and were excited to see familiar faces. Chris and I can't wait for our next visit!