Another Baseball Sunday - Rector's Rambling for May 5, 2019

Welcome to our many friends joining us on our 19th Annual Tiger Baseball Sunday.  This is a great opportunity to gather together with our friends and family; to worship the Lord, have some lunch together, and head over to the ballpark.  This is the 17th year the Choir is singing the National Anthem – one year we couldn’t schedule an available Sunday, and the first year I threw out a first pitch.

Our location is a wonderful asset, something that people might not have said 30 years ago.  Many of us remember when this was a less than desirable neighborhood of derelict warehouses, theatres, and other buildings.  When St. John’s was built, this neighborhood was farmlands and orchards, with a few country houses dotting the landscape.  The area eventually was built up with fine Victorian housing, which eventually became boarding houses as the rest of the neighborhood, particularly Woodward Avenue, filled with commercial and retail buildings.  And the slow decline occurred until the 1990s, when the Fox Theatre was renovated, and Comerica Park was completed in 2000.  A few fits and starts occurred with housing and retail, but it has really taken off with the District Detroit development of Little Caesars Arena and its ancillary buildings.  A home that could be purchased for $65,000 ten years ago is now worth over $650,000!

But with all the changes and challenges in the neighborhood, one thing has remained unchanged…for the better!  That is the faith in Jesus Christ for which this building was built to nurture, promote, and spread!

If you are visiting with us today, I hope you will consider making this your downtown church home.  If you have a church nearer your house, join us regularly for special events and other reasons to come downtown.  And if you don’t have a church home I hope you will consider making this that place for you.

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