It was 3 a.m. sometime in 1979, and Bishop John Borders III was sitting in a hotel room in Switzerland with other members of his band “The Energetics” at a crossroads in his life that would soon take him out of the bright lights and into the pulpit at Blue Hill Avenue’s Morningstar Baptist Church – a place where he celebrated a remarkable 40 years of service last year.

Borders’s “moment” goes back to that night in Europe. His successful Atlantic Records R&B group gathered problems along with their increasing popularity. He had sensed that a change was needed while attending Concord Baptist Church in the South End over the previous two years.

“I heard the Lord say to me while I was in Geneva performing – What profit is it to a man to gain the whole world, but to lose his soul?” said Borders, 64, during an interview this week at Morningstar Church. “Marvin Gaye had followed us that night, and the Supremes had played before us. I told the group that morning at 3 – I’m done. I’m leaving.”

The group faltered, and those backing it moved on to other successes, including as part of Boston’s famous boy band New Edition. But Borders took the road leading to a life of Christian faith, preaching his first sermon from the pulpit at Morningstar’s former building (the onetime Schlossberg Funeral Chapel building) in April 1981. What he didn’t know is that when he left the church that day, the members had an emergency meeting to figure out how to make him their permanent pastor – which they did.

“The first time I preached at Morningstar was April 26, 1981, and it was my fourth time ever preaching in my life,” he said. “The sermon was entitled, ‘Going Back Fishing.’ I’ve been here ever since. I’ve only presided over one church.”

A church community evolves
Morningstar dates to 1965 when 20 people split from the New Hope Baptist Church in the South End and settled on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan at the old funeral home. After three attempts at a new building to support the growing mega-church, in the early 2000s, they completed the church that stands just up from Morton Street and is a visual beacon on the Blue Hill Avenue skyline.

Since Borders gave that first sermon, the story of Morningstar has been how it has adjusted to serve the community physically and spiritually. In his early days, Borders had to come up with a sermon “with no experience at all.” That prepared him for navigating unexpected situations.

Borders and Deacon Stanley McConnell, the chair of the church’s Board of Deacons, noted that the church was changed forever in 1992 when a gang brazenly ambushed a church service trying to kill a young man in the sanctuary. The scene was chaotic and violent, and Borders said it stole something from them.

Bishop John Borders III of Morningstar Baptist Church in Mattapan. Robin Lubbock/WBUR photo

“We were one of the first churches in the country that suffered the loss of the ideal that the church is a safe sanctuary for people,” he recalled. “When the gang came in here and tried to kill that young man and people were trampled upon and shot at and that young man was subsequently stabbed, what I heard throughout the city and the community was the church is not a safe space anymore.”

Borders said that changed Morningstar forever. To this day, the church is a congregation on “alert” and always at the ready during public meetings or worship services. On the positive side, the event led to the formation of the Ten Point Coalition, which includes 300 clergy from all religions coalesced to address Boston’s gang problem. It became a nationally recognized initiative.

The trauma also pushed Morningstar and Bishop Borders into serving the community by addressing the violence around them, and by comforting grieving families. Many times, those being mourned at funerals were not even members, but community folks who needed the big shoulders of Borders and his congregation. That included the Odom family, who lost Steven Odom, 13, in a horrific 2007 murder.

“You become a certain kind of congregation when you have to handle a thousand angry, grieving mourners,” Borders said. “So, to this very day we are more knowledgeable than most churches in dealing with grief and bereavement.”

Community service also emerged in the late 1990s. “We sort of morphed from dealing with violence and grief to paying more attention to health and social disparities here,” he said. “That led to a response to this neighborhood being a food desert. Last year we gave away 1,822 bags of food to the neighborhood, all church funded, and much of it to people who are not members.”

McConnell said Borders is good at recognizing helpers, and delegating responsibilities well. He said he has a talent for seeing where people will be in six months or five years, and how they can be valuable to the church.

“I think it’s the integrity piece of Bishop Borders and I think that played into Morningstar’s favor,” said McConnell. “Morningstar isn’t mixed up in any scandals. For me to see other churches come and go, we’ve managed to stay here. I know God has a plan for the church in the communities of Mattapan, Dorchester, and Roxbury.”

Charting the future
Borders is already planning for life after the pulpit, though he’s not retiring right now. When he does, he hopes to write more books. He has one coming out in April called ‘Walk Your Path.’ Outside of the pulpit, he has become very excited about a board member role with the one-year-old Independent Professionals Association (IPA), an organization that advocates for Black and Brown entrepreneurs and gig workers.

“Serving this gig economy is very exciting because I’m expanding as a socially conscious person and bringing my expertise as a pastor and someone in the community to the discussion,” he said.

But adjusting to a changing community and keeping the message and their faith fresh Sunday after Sunday is what Borders and his deacons are focused on now. McConnell said they don’t want to become one of those churches “that has a big, nice church building that no one comes to anymore.”

Borders and McConnell say they continually face pressure to move the church off Blue Hill Avenue to the suburbs. Some 20 years ago, there was a call to move outside of Boston. Borders advocated for staying because moving would have discarded the growing congregation they had become. While other churches have made that move, Morningstar has not, and Borders said they’re thriving because of it.

Outside their doors, an uncertain future approaches with new residential developments and a new streetscape – including a proposed dedicated bus lane on Blue Hill Avenue – being mapped out. The languages spoken are not only English; Kreyol, Portuguese, Spanish have become more prominent. But with those changes, Borders said, Morningstar will also change. They will become a church that people can walk to.

“We are going to send out foot soldiers into this community and create an effort that results in people being able to walk to church,” he said. “We’re ready to adjust and recruit a whole new demographic, which happens to be our neighbors. It’s the only way a community church survives. You survive by recognizing a community’s needs and that’s what we intend to do once again. I will be dead before this building ever becomes condos.”