NLCM Lowell Leadership Team

— The Rev. Milton L. Thomas, founding pastor of the New Life Christian Ministries, did not start out in life intending to be a minister. In fact, it wasn’t until he was a 40-year-old business owner and father of two that he was drawn back to Boston University, where he had received an under-graduate degree in business administration and marketing management years before. This time, Thomas “wandered into” the admissions office for the School of Theology.

Recognizing Thomas’ potential as a minister and his strong desire to do something different with his life, BU admitted Thomas into the master of divinity program. However, with his two sons, Milton Jr. and Jonathan, in college themselves at the time, Thomas wondered how he and his wife, Jo, would finance a third college tuition.

Not a problem. “He (Dean Earl Bean) told me not to worry about the money, they were giving me a full scholarship,” smiled Thomas, a
Nashua resident who was raised in Roxbury as a member of the Twelfth
                                                                  Baptist Church.

A lucrative deal that was struck in the final months of his business (Thomas owned a manufacturer’s representative firm) also eased finances enough so that he could attend school full-time, he said.

“The Lord set it up for me to be able to go to the seminary without having to work. His hand was in everything,” said Thomas.

Today, 12 years after his ordination, Thomas spends a lot of his time in a neatly refurbished 1829 red brick church building, a historic site just a short distance from the Lowell Transitional Living Center. The church was dedicated as New Life Christian Ministries on Sept. 28, 2003. Major renovations were made to the formerly vacant building, and remodeling projects continue today.

Thomas is also a prison chaplain, counseling inmates at the Billerica House of Correction, among others.

Knowing that through his own ministry God is helping those who are struggling in today’s society — at the prisons, at the transitional living center and in other parts of the city — Thomas is confident that he has been led in the right direction.

“I never own that,” he says of those who are helped through his counseling and prayer. “I’m just the messenger. That’s not my call, but you know when they’ve been touched.”

Thomas and First Lady Jo, a Malden native who actively supports the church while also working as a nurse, phlebotomist and flight attendant for American Airlines, give several examples of lives that were turned around by involvement with New Life Christian Ministries.

One formerly troubled young man, whom the couple affectionately think of as their own son, “got his life turned around. He kept his faith,” said Thomas.

“On his job, he’d have Bible study, and now he has gone on to earn a college degree,” added Jo.

Others come in and out of their addictions, explained Thomas, “but we always keep them in prayer. Sometimes they come back.”

At Sunday morning services, the spacious and nicely refurbished sanctuary — which was once divided into multiple offices for the Visiting Nursing Association, the former occupants — may hold anywhere between 20 and 60 congregants.

Attendance varies with the transitional nature of the living center, but “we have about 30 regulars,” from Lowell, Chelmsford, Methuen and Nashua, said Thomas.

One of the church’s latest missions is to reflect make-up of the city of Lowell by being multi-cultural and multi-ethnic, Thomas stressed. The church has recently welcomed two other churches to hold worship services under their roof: the Full Revival Gospel Church (Brazilian) and Iglesia Pentecostal Church of God (Latino).

“God sent the Latino community to us — we knew we need to open this up as a house of prayer,” Thomas said. “We are all one in Christ Jesus. We should be able to come together to praise God.”

Thomas adds that their doors are always open to newcomers. Services are held at 10 a.m. in the summer months, followed by fellowship, which can sometimes last as long as the services, laughed Thomas.

“Whosoever will, let them come,” he says. “We don’t care about backgrounds, that is not important. Come as you are, but you may leave changed. The word of God ought to have an effect on your life.”