Peace and not war, blessings and not curses.

Elder L. David Cornish has been heavily involved in the city of New London for the better part of 50 years, but the pastor of Mt. Moriah Fire Baptized Holiness Church might be best known for the way he wishes people well: “peace and blessings.”

“I don’t even know when I started saying it, but it’s been a long, long time,” he said, joking that he should patent the saying. “It has meaning to a lot of people.”

Cornish and his wife Elizabeth retired as the church’s pastors Oct. 1 after 50 years of serving the greater New London area with outreach programming designed to help families and keep kids off the street.

After singing and serving at the True Vine Fire Baptized Holiness Church in Portland and receiving his first pastorate assignment at Zion Temple Fire Baptized Holiness Church in Meriden, Cornish came to Mt. Moriah in 1965. He and Elizabeth married a year later.

The original church was built into a storefront on the corner of Shaw and Hamilton, which was also the site of the daycare center started by the Cornishes in 1969. They also launched a radio ministry program, which still airs on 98.7 WNLC early on Sunday mornings. Cornish said one man told him that he was sitting at Tiny’s Heat Wave, a former New London bar, one Sunday night when the owner turned on the radio and said “We gotta listen, Reverend Cornish is coming on!”

“We used to do it live from the church, 8:30 every Sunday night, and then I started taking the CD out to the station,” he said. They also started filming their services to be broadcast on local television stations.

The church also used to hold outdoor tent revivals on the corner of Shaw and Bank street where Walgreens is now, and people at the local bars would be attracted by the singing and leave the bar to attend the revival. Cornish also performed old-fashioned river baptisms, where candidates gathered at New London’s Green Harbor Beach for a full submersion baptism in the Thames River.

Cornish was reassigned to Cleveland in 1989 to serve as the presiding elder of the Northeast Ohio District and then to Washington, D.C. in 1993 to serve as the pastor of the Tried Stone Fire Baptized Holiness Church before returning to Mt. Moriah in 1999.

Since then, the Cornishes launched some of their favorite programs. Elizabeth, who was also the church’s choir director, started a “Sisters Club” to help girls in the area learn how to take care of themselves. This then expanded to include boys and girls from a variety of nearby churches for programming that included an after-school homework club, field trips, and a Hallelujah Night in place of Halloween.

“We had an etiquette class, and when they finished the course, we took them to a nice restaurant where they could sit and use their skills,” she said.

Elizabeth also said the church had a popular vacation bible school program with about 60 kids involved, but it was hard to put on because of the lack of volunteers.

In the winter of 2004, the city asked Mt. Moriah to serve as an emergency shelter for the homeless. Cornish said sometimes the kids in the Girls and Boys Club were nervous around the visitors, but he told them and neighbors that anyone could be in their situation and it’s important to have shelters like the one at the church.

Many people who attended Mt. Moriah as a child keep in contact with the Cornishes after they leave New London, and many have pursued a career in the ministry.

“We have one that’s a pastor in Indiana, and another that’s a minister in Atlantic City, and the other one is going for a doctorate in ministry in North Carolina,” Elizabeth said. “It’s rewarding and it makes you feel like your work has not been in vain.”

The Cornishes’ retirement celebration service was conducted on Sept. 26. A banquet will be held Oct. 29 at Port ‘N’ Starboard at Ocean Beach Park in New London. Tickets are $35 per person or $450 for a corporate table of 10 with recognition at the event. Checks can be made to "Cornish Celebration" and mailed to Reid Burdick, 36 Jerome Road in New London. The deadline is Oct. 19.

a.hutchinson@theday.com

Twitter: @ahutch411