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Let us rise up and build




Let us rise up and build

Let us rise up and build

In April 2017, I and countless others watched in sorrow as the old Bransford Community Center was demolished by the city. Since 1913, The Bransford High School had been a historical treasure and landmark in the City of Springfield. It embodies the history and institutional memories of much of Springfield’s African American community and has provided a sense of pride and identity to hundreds of graduates.

In 2013, the middle portion of the building was beautifully renovated once again for use as a community center and was given new life as the home of the growing Bransford Pride Afterschool Program and Summer Camp, and for five years hundreds of children – black, white, Hispanic, and others – were introduced to a world most had never seen through the cultural enrichment and educational programs of the center. Seeds were planted in these young minds that will eventually bring a harvest to bring change to our community.

Unfortunately, asbestos and structural issues eventually brought about the building’s demise. The afterschool program lives on, however and is doing well it at its temporary home at Bransford Elementary School. What also lives on is the hope and faith that a new community center will arise from the ashes. Just as one building served as a place of hope and healing for our community for more than 100 years, so will another.

Never before has our city needed healing and transformation more than today. Our youth have been strategically targeted by the enemy with drugs, gangs, bullying, violence, fatherless households, and the list goes on. It’s time to “awake out of sleep” (Rom. 13:11), break the cycle of destruction, and take back our city!

Last Thursday, more than 120 people from many parts of our community came to the library for the Bransford Open House conducted by architects with Lose Design to lend their input on desired programming and features for the new Bransford Center. As I watched concerned citizens place dots on the vision boards, I also saw an awakening. I believe we as a community are slowly awakening to the possibility that change is coming, and that finally something is about to be constructed in our city that will enrich minds instead of pockets.

We cannot stand idly by and let allow our city to be ravaged by the forces of darkness, when God’s word plainly tells us, “…you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one.” (1 John 2:14).

I write this article on the 11-year anniversary of my father’s death. One thing I have come to realize is that every death brings something else to life (John 12:24). My greatest accomplishments in ministry came after I laid my father to rest. Let us not let the countless deaths of so many of our blossoming youth be in vain. Let us not wistfully mourn the memories of an old building that we lose sight of something much greater. I challenge you with the words of Nehemiah, “You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach…and they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work.” (Nehemiah 2:17-18).

Robert Gardner is pastor at City of Faith Church in Springfield.

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