LEWISTON – Surrounded by other faiths and located in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Maine, the Trinity Episcopal Church almost closed or moved away.

By the late 1980s, membership had fallen off. And like the gas lights in its sanctuary, a grand space of oak timbers and polished brass, it seemed pretty but impractical.

“I think the leadership did a lot of soul searching,” said the Rev. Larney Otis, the church’s priest. They decided there was still plenty of work to be done right here.

Nearly two decades later, the church hosts a lunch crowd in its basement that feeds more than 70 people. Four days a week, the neighbors come in, outnumbering at every meal the still small congregation of 30 or so people who worship every Sunday.

However, the church is still here. And it’s celebrating its 150th anniversary.

“It’s been interesting to see how each congregation discovers its mission in its age,” said member Kathryn Tracy, who has been studying the church’s history as the anniversary gets close.

The church was begun by a group of immigrants from England attracted to the offshoot of their Anglican Church. Their first meeting was held in an Auburn hall on June 11, 1854.

Their first church was on Ash Street in Lewiston, where the city’s post office now stands. They moved to the corner of Bates and Spruce streets less than 30 years later, laying the cornerstone on June 21, 1879, 25 years and 10 days after that first meeting.

For the next century, they weathered changes in the economy and families. They survived the Great Depression, the collapse of the textile industry and the increasing poverty of the nearby neighborhood.

Yet some people stayed. Even now, a few members can follow their families within the church to its early years. The building took on added meaning.

“Those people who have those roots – which go back 65, 80 or 90 years – they felt a real sense of this as a sacred place,” Otis said.

The building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings, shows the care. One wooden altar piece came from that first church on Ash Street. The wood in the pews and the ceiling came from Colorado.

On Sunday, the church will celebrate the first meeting of its congregation.

Its members plan to have an open house, a procession that will take them across nearby Kennedy Park and a community meal.

The meal is the same one served every Sunday in the basement and open to anyone.

The church doesn’t do it alone.

Though begun by Trinity and still led by church members, other churches and Bates College have joined to create the Trinity Jubilee Center, an independent non-profit organization.

It helps new mothers with supplies such as diapers and formula, help find housing for folks in need and supply a place for people in the daytime, particularly when it’s cold outside.

The focus remains on the meals, though.

Some of the people who come here are homeless. Others are sick, addicted or just plain hungry. Anyone is allowed in, as long as they don’t disrupt things for others.

On Tuesday, they began lining up half an hour early before gathering up plates with baloney sandwiches, green beans, cups of peaches and boxes of raisins. Typically, the food, donated by Bates College is hot, though.

Sometimes, a meal is what people need the most.

“It’s not about the building,” said Otis of her church and its work. “It’s about the people. It’s about responding to the community and its needs.”

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