Our city, as with most cities in our country, is built around cars. Gone are the days of my 93 year old grandmother's teenage years when she could take the street car from her home in the Inglenook neighborhood of Birmingham to her school downtown. Many people at Church of the Reconciler are the ones most negatively impacted by our car-centric city because they do not own a car. They take the bus whenever they need to go somewhere.
Imagine, for those of you with a car, having to rely on public transportation to get around. Recently, this became more than an imaginary exercise for me. Last week, I had some car trouble and was without my car for a couple of days.
This gave me the opportunity to do what most folks at Church of the Reconciler do every day - take the bus. I planned out my route the night before. I would take the Magic City Connect bus from Homewood to Central Station downtown and then only be a three block walk from Church of the Reconciler. I double checked the departure times from the stop closest to my house and called it a night - feeling confident in my ability to navigate public transportation.
The first morning I took the bus, everything went as planned and I made it from my house to Church of the Reconciler with time to spare. Then came day two of taking the bus. I left the house about a minute later than intended. This can happen when you, your wife, six year old, and three year old daughters are all trying to get ready for the day and out of the door at the same time. I walked quickly toward the bus stop knowing that I was going to be cutting it close.
About a block away, I watched as the bus I needed to be on pulled up to the bus stop, stopped for a second, and then pulled away without me on it. This was a face-palm sort of moment. One of those small mishaps in the morning that leaves you thinking, “This is going to be that kind of day.” One of those misfortunes that move you to consider calling it a day before you’ve even had your second cup of coffee. Have you had one of those moments?
Unlike me, folks at Church of the Reconciler, have no problem navigating public transportation. Even so, we can meet our community where they are by giving them a bus pass for the day. Currently, we give away ten bus passes on a first come first serve basis Monday through Thursday. This is our bus pass ministry.
I know you might be saying, with a furrowed brow, “Bus pass ministry?” Yes, giving out bus passes is a ministry! Let me explain.
Ministry is contextual. The first organized ministry in the early church arose, as narrated in Acts 6, out of a desire to effectively minister to widows in the community.
Church ministries bloom out of the soil of each particular community. Church leaders must tend to the people of each community and attune themselves to the movement of God’s Spirit. In one community, a desire to minister to those dealing with grief leads to a grief support group. In another, the presence of many young families with children leads to investments in an impactful children’s and family ministry. Elsewhere, a need for healthy food in a community might compel a church to start a garden ministry.
At Church of the Reconciler, God led us to minister to our community by handing out bus passes. We give away ten bus passes on a first come first serve basis Monday through Thursday. This ministry creates a positive impact in a number of ways. Listen to some of the ways people described the impact of our bus pass ministry.
“The bus pass helps me get to and from the grocery store, and helps me get to and from work.”
“The bus pass helped me get to the Crisis Center for an important appointment.”
““The bus passes gave the me the opportunity to get to places I wouldn’t have been able to get to. I was able to get to job interviews, places for food, and places for housing.”
Dorothy Day, the Catholic social activist and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement once said, “People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.”
There is certainly much work to be done. Giving away bus passes is one small step in the right direction - making travel from place to place a little bit easier, lightening the burden folks carry, and lifting people up so they can say, “Today is not going to be one of those days.” One bus pass at a time people are led to know Church of the Reconciler is with them and for them, just as God is with them and for them. Isn’t that the very purpose of ministry?
For Giving Tuesday 2025, we want to raise funds to be able to give away twelve bus passes a day. Please consider making a donation here this Giving Tuesday and join us in making one step at a time.