Birmingham’s Women Under Construction Gather For a Night of Song and Worship

Shellie Layne, center, founder of Women Under Construction celebrate with volunteers the conclusion of its 21 Days of Kindness through praise and worship. (Marika N. Johnson, For The Birmingham Times)
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By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times

The Women Under Construction Network (WUCN) concluded its 21 Days of Kindness campaign with its Building Hope Thru Music event, a night of powerful worship, uplifting fellowship, and heartfelt generosity. The concert, held June 21 at the Cornerstone Christian Church in Birmingham’s Ensley neighborhood, was directed by Allen Pruitt Jr. of the Called II Worship Ensemble.

Charmaine Flores, one of the night’s soloists, didn’t consider her turn on stage a performance “but an intimate time with Jesus, where we just got to tell Him how much we love and appreciate Him,” she said.

Cassandra Fraizer, another lead singer, said, “I’ve always known I was supposed to sing about God to his people. No one has ever had to tell me that that is what I am supposed to do. This is just an extension of what I heard at 5 years old. … [I’ve] been a church girl my whole life. I tell everybody everywhere that I go, it’s always going to be about Jesus.”

Allen Pruitt Jr., of the Call II Worship Ensemble leads the choir as Women Under Construction celebrate the conclusion of its 21 Days of Kindness through praise and worship. (Marika N. Johnson, For The Birmingham Times)

The Birmingham-based WUCN supports women, their children, and the elderly living in underserved communities. They use actual tools combined with corresponding life parallels to teach basic home repair and life repair and work with contractors to perform minor repairs for low-income elderly.

From June 1 to June 21, the group served thousands of people across the metro area with acts of kindness like feeding those dealing with hunger, serving those who lack housing, and assisting those beset with disadvantages—and what better way to conclude three weeks of service than by serving the Lord with praise and worship.

WUCN CEO and founder Shellie Layne said she had no concerns about getting members of her group on the same page—or hymn book. The all-women choir is made up of “volunteers with the organization,” she said, adding that “some are staff, some are people who love what we do and want to be a part of it.”

“You don’t have to audition to be part of the choir. It is open to willing vessels. You don’t even have to know how to sing,” Layne said. “Some people say they can’t carry a tune in a bucket, and we’re like, ‘OK. That’s what we want.’ … We want it that way because we believe if we do this the way God wants us to do it, it will be a symphonic sound.”

Asked about future plans for the choir, Layne said she would really like to see “a mass choir that includes every church in Birmingham, women building one another through music. I really want to see more cultural, ethnic diversity in our songs and in our women so we can truly spread the gospel not only to women who look like us but to everyone who has ears to hear.”

The Women Under Construction Network (WUCN) concluded its 21 Days of Kindness campaign with its Building Hope Thru Music event. (Marika N. Johnson, For The Birmingham Times)

The Building Hope Thru Music event was a success because people came out for a concert, “but they really got Jesus, and that was amazing for us,” said the WUCN founder.

“The choir was blessed, the congregation and the people who came out were blessed. … We built hope, which is what we desired to do from the very beginning,” she added. “We accomplished the task, and God did it through us.”

To learn more about the Women Under Construction Network, visit wucnetwork.org.

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