Nashville is known as Music City; it’s also home to one of the country’s most unique inner-city ministries. Rocketown has been helping kids stay off the streets and find Jesus for three decades. And you might be surprised who started it.
Teens who are into skateboarding, video games, need a hot meal, or just a place to do homework can find it all here at Rocketown, an outreach with a mission to help young people experience the love of God. The mind behind Rocketown, now in its 30th year, is Christian music artist Michael W. Smith.
He tells CBN that, back in 1991, he literally heard God say, “Build it and they’ll come. And I kept thinking, no, that’s the baseball movie, that’s Kevin Costner. And I just kept hearing it, ‘build it and they’ll come, build it and they’ll come.'”
“And so, I did a bunch of research, and we had meetings, and everybody said it would never work, and three years later we opened up Rocketown in Franklin, Tennessee,” recalls the ministry founder.
CEO Kenny Alonzo says their first priority is getting kids in the door.
“If it’s going to excite a kid and get ’em in the building, we’re going to do it. And so, once they’re here, we get to love them and care for them and provide for them. And we try to be the hands and feet of Jesus. I know that’s said a lot, but honestly, that’s what we do,” said Alonzo.
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As for who is walking through the doors, Alonzo told us, “We are within a mile from the most violent public housing community in the state of Tennessee. And that’s saying something because Memphis is pretty rough, and we have a lot of kids that come out of that community and they’re here in their safe environment every single day.
“We’ve had everything from couch surfers who have a home, but they don’t want to stay there, to kids who live in storage units with mom because they don’t have anywhere to go. And then some kids from the street, and they just come in here because they can get warm when it’s cold,” he said.
Ages here range from 10 to 20, with a focus on high school students like 15-year-old Lemy Sanders who enjoys skateboarding and working in the skate shop. When asked what Rocketown means to him, Lemy told us, “For me, it’s just, being in a community that you do fun things for kids like me.”
Nineteen-year-old skateboarder Izzy Hopkins, who’s been coming here since he was about seven years old, said he likes that “it’s a safe environment, a fun place, great place to meet new people.”
Another cool feature of Rocketown – a recording studio for those who feel called to the music industry.
“That’s a no-brainer to me. We have a lot of creative kids, and so this gives them an outlet to go in, and with technology today, you can do some pretty extraordinary things,” Smith said.
One of the highlights here at Rocketown is the family dinner held every Thursday night. Everyone gets a delicious free hot meal and hears an encouraging message. And the night we visited, a former student got a big surprise.
Now 25 years old, Donny Gordon spent much of his time as a teenager right here. Today, he’s married with a child and one on the way. Rocketown leaders knew his family desperately needed a vehicle and thanks to one of their partners, the Gordons received a white minivan.
Donny said he didn’t see this coming. “No, I did not!” he said. “This is a wonderful feeling, it’s a blessing.” His wife Dominique said she was speechless. “We couldn’t have expected a better gift, especially to be provided with transportation; it’s all we needed,” she said.
In addition to a legit coffee bar and after-school program, Rocketown is most famous for its indoor skate park.
“We started out as a dance club in Franklin, and when we moved downtown, we built the skate park. And so, we’ve had a skate park down here for over 20 years. We went after kids that were not traditional athletes, that were not connected with extracurricular activities,” Alonzo said.
Seventeen-year-old Ariana Der works in the skateboard shop and drives over an hour to get here from Kentucky each day. “So, I came to Rocketown for the first time probably last summer, and I don’t know, it kinda just felt like a family right away,” she said.
She’s also one of the few female skateboarders at Rocketown. “So in Florida we have quite a bit of females, there’s only about three or four that I’ve seen out here so it’s different, but the guys out here are very uplifting, very nice, always push me, so it’s super sweet out here, I like it,” she said.
And as far as sharing the gospel with these kids, Alonzo says, “Our motto is you have to earn the right to speak into a kid’s life. And that takes time.”
Smith added, “Just some of the background stories you hear like a girl, her dad is in prison and her mom’s a prostitute. What do you do with this kid? You just love on ’em. And for many years a lot of people didn’t understand our philosophy. They were upset with us because we weren’t more direct about the gospel. And sometimes, especially when you have a very troubled teen who has a lot of damage, they don’t trust anybody. And so, you have to earn their trust. And that’s our methodology of just we’re going to love kids into the kingdom, but we’re going to love ’em first,” Smith said.
Smith says the vision now is to take this idea to other major American cities. “People started hearing about Rocketown and they would come and visit us and say, ‘Would you please come and build one in Seattle? Would you please come to Minneapolis? Would you please come to Dallas?’ So, I think it was just the plea from so many people that said, ‘We want to replicate what you guys are doing in Nashville and bring it here. Can you help us do that?'” Smith said.
Alonzo says seeing these young lives changed never gets old. “I get emotional talking about our kids because we’re not in this for a year. We’re not in it for a lifetime. We’re in it for an eternity.”
To learn more about Rocketown and its ministry, click here.
