- (laughing) I have no idea.

I might not even be alive at this point.

You know, losing Jody was a traumatic thing for me.

Thank goodness God had already led me to be here part-time.

And then after she passed away, they said, you know, "You can work as much as you want to."

So that's what I've done.

- [Narrator] Funding for this program comes from the Mike & Gillian Goodrich Foundation with additional support from the American Advertising Federation of Roanoke.

(gentle music) - [Michael] Ever since I brought my TV show "Buzz" to my home state of Alabama, friends and family have encouraged me to feature one particular nonprofit, Christian Service Mission.

The reason?

One of its main volunteers is a longtime family friend, Dickey Atchison, the former football coach at McAdory High School, who nurtured the likes of none other than Bo Jackson.

(gentle music) Now, I had never heard of Christian Service Mission, so I called Mr. Atchison, who shared with me that after the untimely death of his wife, Jody, in 2018, it was the nonprofit that got him through his grief and saved his life.

Curious to learn more about such a special place, I decided to visit Christian Service Mission's warehouse home and meet its executive director, Tracy Hipps, an inspiring man in his own right, whose son, Tate, it turns out, is a professional videographer who had already produced some incredible stories about the organization.

Whether fate or faith, I don't know.

But the pieces all too easily fell into place to produce this "Buzz" to kick off a new round of four episodes starring non-profits in Birmingham.

(gentle music) - [Tracy] What Christian Service Mission was when I came was just a facility that just had stuff.

(gentle music) Christian Service Mission was a mess, and we felt that God had told me to clean the house, He'd fill the house.

And we did that for a year.

And it was on April 27th that everything changed.

- [Reporter] Yeah, Jason, the tornado appears to be just north of the downtown area.

This is serious, serious business.

- And we're the distribution center for the downtown area of Birmingham, working with a lot of disaster relief.

(dramatic music) These are over $10 million worth of resources that came in, in that next year.

And we would continue to give it away and God's fulfilled the vision, which he said clean it up and He'd fill it up.

And it still happens today.

(pensive music) He wanted this place back to serve as a hub of transformation.

For people, for lives, for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He will direct you if you put your eyes on Him.

That's where he wants us to stay.

That's where he wants us to be, to know God and then to make Him known.

(reflective music) - [Michael] Right.

- So this is the building of Christian Service Mission.

- Wow.

- We've been around, we've been here about 35 years, but it's been around for 55 years - Okay.

- [Tracy] In Birmingham.

And I've now been here for 15 years of that.

- [Michael] Yep.

- [Tracy] And the mission and vision of Christian Service Mission is connecting resources with needs.

You see all the resources.

- [Michael] Yep.

- [Tracy] To build relational partnerships.

- [Michael] Okay.

- To see Birmingham thrive.

- Mm.

- And what that means to me is really working with the church.

So besides all the resources here we have, we use food, food is a great resource.

(people chattering) This year alone, we'll serve about 20,000 families with food through our relational partnerships with the churches.

It's not our food.

And we've been given grants and different things to be able to purchase food to use that as a tool.

- [Michael] Right.

- [Tracy] For the gospel.

- [Michael] Yep.

- [Tracy] And to feed people.

So we have a big 8,600 square foot freezer, refrigerator, and all that so that we can do that.

And we have teams of churches that come in together and make these boxes of food, do it together.

And we're pretty excited about this next food distribution.

We'll have about $60 in a box worth of food that it only costs about $25 to put together.

- It still costs you $25, which means you've still got money to raise.

What is your annual budget?

- 1.6 million is our annual budget.

- Woo.

Okay.

- We spend about three or $400,000 on food and about $300,000 on housing.

- [Michael] Mm-hmm.

- [Tracy] And another $300,000 on resourcing and all that kind of stuff.

- [Michael] Right.

- We don't have no people, officers of fundraising.

We believe God says faithfully, He who calls you, He will do it.

- Okay.

- And we're gonna let Him do it.

And we're just gonna do what He tells us to do.

(bright music) (people chattering) (bright music continues) My name's Tracy Hipps.

I'm the executive director of the Christian Service Mission and Christian Service Mission has been around for 55 years serving Birmingham community.

And our vision in Birmingham is to build relational partnerships with local churches to see the community thrive.

We do that with Briarwood as an example of a church that came in last fall and made boxes for Thanksgiving where we served over that 7,000 families and the opportunity to share the gospel.

So every hand makes a difference.

And the seven or 800 boxes we made on that Saturday is tremendous help.

The value of the partnerships leading into relationships that we have to foster in the community is paramount to what we do.

- [Michael] Outside, Tracy shows off the Rotary Trail that now runs behind Christian Service Mission, a public private venture that helped boost the value of the nonprofit's property from $1.6 million to 6.4 million.

- [Tracy] It brings value to the community, it brings value to our property, brings value to everything we do.

- [Michael] Wow.

- So it's pretty cool.

(security panel beeps) This is the back of our property.

We've got it fenced in.

It's a couple acres.

We have our own gardens here where we have everything we produce in these greenhouses and gardens.

Our goal is to go into the kitchen.

- Yep.

- We have a commercial kitchen inside, so from farm to table.

- [Michael] Mm-hmm.

- And so we're excited about that.

We're helping to start another garden as a result of this.

We've helped seven gardens be planted in Birmingham.

- [Michael] Community gardens?

- [Tracy] Community gardens.

- [Michael] Okay.

- [Tracy] Inside the communities.

- [Michael] Do I see hives here as well?

- We do have bees, that's a part of the aqua system we got.

The bees feed.

We have the different flowers and all that that help feed the bees and stuff like that.

And so we got the whole system here.

- Good morning!

- [Tracy] So.

- [Michael] Yeah.

- [Tracy] It's pretty cool.

- [Michael] Yeah, it's very cool.

- [Tracy] That's about six-years-old.

We had aquaponics and hydroponics at one point and we had about five years of that.

- [Michael] Yeah.

- It just takes a special person to keep that maintained.

- Right.

- I mean, water systems and all that and how that works.

It's pretty tough.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And so we currently have a gardener now.

- Okay.

- That is maintaining it and just regular water and all that.

- Yeah.

Next, Tracy leads me into the workshop where Dickey Atchison and the mission's other construction volunteers work and prepare for their house repair projects out in the community.

But that's an example of what, what they just been working on.

That's actually Dick's.

So I'm going to sit in here.

-All right, well - This might be a good place for you.

Yeah, well, we'll be the test.

All right?

I'm good here the rest of the day.

I know, I know I can sit right here.

If I had a fishing pole, I'd be all right.

So everything you've shown me so far is just what you're doing on a daily basis here on normal times.

But there's also times when disasters strike.

Yeah, we- we spend about 75% of our resources with the local church.

That's our primary thing, 20% with other non profits sharing resources, and 5% of our resources on disasters.

- Okay.

You know, in 2011 when tornadoes hit Alabama, 62 tornadoes hit Alabama.

We mobilized.

And that's really when we got our start.

- Walked up and opened up the staircase door, and when I opened the staircase door here, I'm standing in the daylight.

That was an awful feeling.

Just massive.

Debris everywhere.

And I just turned around and went back downstairs and I told my wife, I said, "Well," I said, "Just prepare yourself.

There's nothing up there."

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - Jesus' vision was that we be one.

(ethereal music) - [Narrator] We wanna show you something.

These are the Christian Service Mission partnerships, the churches, and that's people being directly impacted.

And there's us.

Our philosophy centers around the idea of oneness.

But oneness is hard to achieve.

Many things keep the church divided, but God wants us united.

CSM prayerfully works to help unify the church through connecting resources with needs.

But what's the secret to unifying the church?

- God is the one that created a strategy, and all we want us to do is be in line with Him because He's got that, He's got an agenda and we just need to fall in line with that by falling in love with Jesus and falling in love with God's people.

- [Narrator] Well, that about sums it up.

This is a work of God.

So it's hard to describe, but every day we pray and allow God to guide our steps, which has led us to focusing on building relationships with churches and bringing them together, first to encourage, then to empower.

This is oneness at work.

And we want to keep expanding to build more relationships and connect more resources to needs for a fuller, healthier church.

(bright music) - Together, we build more houses.

Together, we serve you and children.

- Together, we uncover new ways to impact our communities.

- Together, we make more disciples.

- And what partnership says, it doesn't mean I'm doing bad, but it means if we do it together, we can do better.

- Your Savior says, what I want for you to do is to pursue unity.

I want you to experience unity.

- [Pastor] Life is never intended for you to be your best by yourself.

The Bible even says, one put a thousand to flight, but two put 10,000 to flight.

- This is not our idea.

This is not the idea of any other church.

This is your Savior's prayer that he wants this to be the pursuit of your life.

- [Narrator] With over 100 church partners, we believe we are on the right path as we continue to work towards oneness, overcoming the impossible circumstances faced by our communities, - Tracy Hipps, one of our partners and Christian Service Mission we're key in helping us build another partnership who heard of our mission, gathered their board together and generously donated 56 lots here in Birmingham to our organization (crowd clapping) so that we continue to provide safe houses for those in need.

- [Narrator] With your help, we can make this happen on an even larger scale.

We desire no church to be unsupported, but to be resourced well for every good work God has for them to do.

This is Christian Service Mission.

This is when it's embraced.

- God has called us to be salt.

He's called us to be light and a divided world needs to see a unified church.

- [Michael] Unity has historically been more aspirational than actual in Birmingham.

But in 2024, Christian Service Mission nurtured some reconciliation for one of the city's most tragic days in its history.

- Hi, I'm Reverend Arthur Price, pastor of the 16th Street Baptist Church here in downtown Birmingham.

September 15th, 1963 is a day that the world watched, wept and witnessed four little girls losing their lives to a tragic bombing here at the 16th Street Baptist Church.

The Sunday school lesson that day was A Love That Forgives.

And this September 15th, 2024 falls on a Sunday.

So we want to reteach that Sunday school lesson as we remember, reflect and recommit ourselves to the values of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

We are inviting all churches and pastors to join us by coming up with creative ways to incorporate the theme, A Love That Forgives, into their Sunday morning services.

In a city that was known for its divisions, we pray churches will come together to consider the uniting blood of Jesus that covers his church, binding us together as one in Birmingham.

We encourage all participating churches to acknowledge their involvement and plan an activity on that Sunday that reflects this theme within their church context.

A Love That Forgives, September 15th, 2024.

(gentle music) - [Michael] While most of its work is through local churches, Christian Service Mission also connects with area non-profits such as Grace House, which provides a stable home for Alabama girls in foster care.

Each summer, Tracy Hipps raises funds and transports as many as 100 girls to a fun gospel-inspired summer camp in Missouri called Kids Across America.

- Kids Across America is a sporting camp, but everything that you do is gonna be related back to Christ.

So I personally have a really big fear of deep waters.

And so first year they're like, "You're gonna tube."

And I was like, "No, I'm not.

You know, this lake water is really deep.

I'm not doing it."

Every year that we go, I've tubed since then.

So you get over a lot of fears because you learn more and more with everything that you do, that God is always there with you.

This year we had about three buses and understanding like the hardships and the backgrounds that some of these kids have gone through, they're like, "I would've never guessed like that I would be on this path now."

And you know, they are so eager to share the gospel.

Christian Service Mission has had a really big impact on Birmingham as a whole.

And I think that's what Birmingham needs, kids who are eager to share.

- [Michael] Christian Service Mission has certainly impacted the thousands of folks it has served, but perhaps none more so than its volunteers.

- I'll tell you this, I did not want to build anymore.

At the end of '08, first of '09, I said, "I'm never doing it again.

It's ruined my life."

And I felt really bad.

But as God began to transform and then the tornado hitting at 11, He had moved in my heart again.

And when I saw all the devastation, we were out there working, I had a guy ask me on the way home one day in a truck.

He said, "If you could do anything, what would you want to do?"

I remember this like it was yesterday.

I said, "I would love to build houses for free.

For free."

And within two months of that, Tracy at the mission was wanting to start up construction.

And a friend of mine told me about it.

The second those words came outta my friend's mouth, my heart jumped.

(dramatic music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) There is somewhat what we would call a decent amount of vetting.

We first and foremost want to make sure that we are serving and helping people that truly have a need.

We also encourage, once we find out if we're gonna work on a house and we find out who their pastor is, we're going to encourage that pastor to come and pray with us, with their homeowner.

And then when we get done and they're welcome, we even encourage them to participate.

And then the volunteers who come from out of town, and there's been countless, I don't even know at this point, over a thou- Thousands!

And I think helping our fellow man when they're down is exactly what Jesus asked us to do.

(saws whirring) (bright music) (drills whirring) (bright music continues) (gentle music) (nail gun pounding) (gentle music continues) (saws whirring) (metal clanking) (gentle music continues) And then the homeowners themselves, many, many, many of 'em so precious, incredibly precious people who waited for years, who prayed and had faith and would give their testimony of how they had prayed, countless numbers of those.

And so then to be able to be with those homeowners, to share with 'em, to have them share with us.

So many of 'em are Christians, strong Christians, which helps us build our faith.

And it's been, the way it has built my heart has been, it never could have happened before that.

Not possible.

And I'll tell you this, I mean, I don't know another word other than to say this.

It is addicting.

I can't help it.

To receive the love from a homeowner that comes from God, there is no blessing like it, not at all.

- I just think and praise God, first of all for being so wonderful to me because it took some years.

It look like the devil was saying, "God ain't thinking about you.

You might as well quit praying."

But I thank and praise God that I didn't give that to my ear.

I thank and praise God for the word of God.

I thank God for you all, as well.

Come back and visit me.

I'm not a stranger to you anymore.

We are family.

- [Crowd] Amen.

- [Homeowner] And that's what God want us, to love ye one another.

(bright music) - I wasn't ready to do His will those first 40 years, at least not in this aspect, but He made me ready.

And so what seemed to be horrific and was tough, tough, tough for my family, for my wife, for my kids, but turned out to be, this has turned out to be incredible.

And where I thought I would be blessing people, the blessing has been in my heart.

And out there, too.

But the blessing, the eruption in my heart has been incredible.

(bright music) What I would tell anyone, if you will just come and try this, your heart, you will not be able to leave without your heart being affected.

The reality of Jesus Christ in serving is, there's nothing like it.

Nothing.

(bright music) (bright music fades) - [Michael] Then there is, of course, my good friend, Dickey Atchison, who was introduced to Christian Service Mission more than a decade ago by a man in his Bible study.

He started serving just a couple of days a week, but tragically and too quickly, he soon became the one who needed to be served.

The reason?

- My wife, Jody, we started dating in the 10th grade in high school and dated all through high school, dated all through college, dated for seven years before we got married, before we got married.

- [Michael] Hm-hmm.

- And we spent 49, over 49 years married.

And she developed a real rare brain disease in 2017 and passed away in 2018.

My best friend, the love of my life, one of the wisest, biggest heart, beautiful, caring, all her students over her 30 years in education loved her to death that she taught and coached.

And she made me a better person, that's for sure.

And so, yeah, I couldn't have, God blessed me with the ultimate partner in life.

- [Michael] Having known her, I would agree, yeah.

- Thank you.

- [Michael] You did well.

- Well, I did.

- [Michael] You out kicked your coverage as they say.

- (laughing) Yeah, that's right.

I did.

- [Michael] Yeah.

I asked Dickey what his life would be like today without Christian Service Mission.

- (laughing) I have no idea.

I might not even be alive at this point.

You know, losing Jody was a traumatic thing for me.

- [Michael] Yeah.

- Of course.

And having been together for 57 years, but thank goodness God had already led me to be here part-time.

And then after she passed away, they said, "You know, you can work as much as you want to."

So that's what I've done.

- [Michael] Mm-hmm.

- [Tracy] The construction guys that I work with, and there's three or four of us, five of us I guess now, just great guys that are good Christian men that love what they do.

They're all retired.

And we do what we do every day.

And I love the folks here.

I love the folks that we get out and meet in these communities.

(reflective music) Once Jody passed away, you know, I didn't have that, didn't get those hugs all the time.

And you go out into these communities, just yesterday we finished a deck for a lady over in North Birmingham and she must have hugged all of us three or four times thanking us, just giving us hugs.

And the reaction of the people we work with (reflective music) just hit you right in the heart.

And since I lost part of my heart, a lot of my heart when Jody passed away, these people have fulfilled that some.

(reflective music) And this place has fulfilled that some.

So they've replaced what I needed.

(reflective music) - [Michael] I see you still wear your ring?

- I do.

(Michael laughs) Not only that, this is Jody's wedding band.

I wear it around my neck 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

- [Michael] Yeah, close to your heart.

- Close to my heart.

- [Michael] She's still there.

- She's right there.

- [Michael] Yeah.

- And people say, "You still wearing your ring?"

I say, "Well, I'm still married, she's just not here, but she's waiting on me."

She told me that before she passed away.

She said, "I'll be waiting on you in heaven."

(reflective music) And I believe that, and I'm looking forward to that.

Not through here, not through here, but it's win-win.

If I get to stay here, I get to do what I do, get to be here with my kids and grandkids and one day, I get to be reunited with her and be in the presence of Jesus.

Doesn't get any better than that.

(reflective music) - [Michael] All right.

Okay.

(gentle music)