DOWNTOWN

“And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.” (Genesis 4:17)

As far as I know, that’s the first mention of a “city” in the Bible...Cain’s son Enoch built a CITY. Despite the beauty and simplicity of country life, people have been attracted to cities from the most ancient times. There can be a lot of convenience and security in a city environment, and there can also be a lot of sin and crime in a city environment.

A hundred years ago, Americans were moving in droves to the cities. In addition, foreign immigrants were POURING into our cities, especially New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and to a slightly lesser degree, Detroit, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and St. Louis. People WANTED to live in the cities. The cities had the best public schools, the best transportation systems, the best water and sewer systems, and the best police and fire departments. There were also all sorts of jobs in the cities. THAT was the environment my parents were born into in the 1920s. Each lived in congested neighborhoods in Boston’s Roxbury section.

Between 1950 and 1965, white middle-class Americans ABANDONED the cities. They built new homes in the suburbs. Boston’s population dropped by several hundred thousand in that period while the population of most of its suburbs tripled. By 1970, America’s cities were home to the very, very rich and the very, very poor. 90% of the middle-class had fled to the suburbs.

During that period, mostly white middle-class evangelical churches (including the Assemblies of God) abandoned the cities in droves as they built fancy new church complexes in the suburbs. The Assemblies of God actually did a great work in the poor Hispanic neighborhoods with our Spanish-speaking churches and pastors, but the overwhelming majority of the white middle-class Christians wouldn’t be caught dead in the inner city.

There ARE some churches and pastors who have bucked that trend, however. I was delighted to speak today at Christian Life Ministries church right in the heart of downtown Leominster. Pastor Steve Koroskyeni and his wife Robin have done a WONDERFUL work leading this church! They started with a very small group of people in Lunenburg, Mass. well over ten years ago, but Steve and Robin always had a heart and vision for the people of downtown Leominster.

There ARE a certain kind of people who are attracted to “downtown”. Forty years ago, Petula Clark sang Tony Hatch’s lyrics,

When you're alone
And life is making you lonely,
You can always go downtown
When you've got worries,
All the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know, downtown

Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go
Downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown, no finer place for sure,
Downtown, everything's waiting for you
(Downtown)

Now, that’s an upbeat song, but the reality is, our downtowns are often places filled with poor, lonely, and troubled people...especially after 6 p.m. They’re often places of crime, drug abuse, prostitution, and a lot of things that make many of us uncomfortable. Almost ten years ago, we lost one family from our church in downtown Framingham. The mother said she didn’t want her children around the kind of people in downtown Framingham, including those people at our church. I thought that was very sad, and I still think that. Thank God for Steve and Robin who went against the tide. It was truly a miracle that they were able to move into a former theater and former YMCA facility in downtown Leominster. At the time, the place was a “dump” but the church has poured its blood, sweat, and tears into the place. Today, they are touching all sort of folks in downtown Leominster, and I don’t think I’m off base when I say GOD has GOT to be very pleased!

I was honored and humbled when Steve Koroskyeni contacted me a week ago and asked me to speak in his place while he’d be away today. I had been up to the church a few times, and I knew it was a very special place of ministry. I did not take preparing my sermon lightly at all. Today I went there with my wife Mary Ann and my grown children Jon and Rachel. It felt like home. For one thing, there were a LOT of stairs, and that was true of our old church building in Framingham. The songs we sang were mostly the same songs we used to use in Framingham. What felt most like home was the love and warmth of the people and the love and warmth evident all throughout the service. You could sense many of the people had “stories” and had lived very painful lives. Yet, you could also sense they’d met Jesus and truly loved Him, AND that they wanted to grow in the Lord and please the Lord. This MIGHT be a group some people would look down upon, but I LIKED this group very much and (again) I felt right at home among them. I would have no problem worshiping at this wonderful church every Sunday.

Robin and others in the church are SO talented in art. They have painted some BEAUTIFUL and POWERFUL murals!! There’s a “neat” children’s room, and a very cool youth room. The sanctuary is an old gym...it’s not perfect, but they’ve really done a great job with it. There was no A/C but the fans actually made the room quite comfortable. God has done quite a work in downtown Leominster at Christian Life Ministries. I honestly believe God will do far more there in the next few years.

God bless Steve and Robin and the Christian Life Ministries church! What a pleasure to worship there today!