The Christian Aristocracy and the Emerging Social Chaos

Posted on March 3rd, 2008 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: ministry updates.

The Christian Aristocracy and the Emerging Social Chaos
- a ministry update from Mo Leverett -

The Church is a fellowship of sinners. And no matter how much we accomplish, how far we pilgrim or how high we climb, we are fortunate to never forget that.

Sanctification is primarily the process of cleansing and binding our wandering hearts to God. It is about the advancement of His Kingdom in us and conforming our rebellious nature to His. Moreover, it is about His turning our reluctance into readiness for the advancement of His Kingdom through us. Above all else, it is a removal of the greatest obstacle to all the aforementioned objectives – the obstacle of our pride.

Central to God’s strategies for sanctification is His sovereign and surgical use of pain in our lives. Pain is the inevitable, unavoidably blunt instrument of Christian sanctification. I once heard Chuck Swindoll, a leading evangelical pastor, say, “When God wants to do the impossible, He takes an impossible man…and He crushes him.”

I heard another popular author quoted recently, saying that “sanctification is akin to open heart surgery without the anesthetic.” It should be added that the longer this invasive procedure is delayed, the riskier and more painful the reality of any prospective future surgical maneuver. Pain makes us desperate. Pain makes us dependent. Pain makes us desire not only relief but healing and change. In other words, pain breaks us and leads us to God.

When I was a younger Christian, my overly simplistic understanding of sanctification was that it was a movement away from pain – a progression of compounding personal righteousness toward a nearly perfected spiritual adulthood. I thought that I would gradually advance toward a plateau popularly called maturity. This maturity, I felt, was gained through the accumulation of a critical mass of knowledge and obedience. Sanctification, I believed, was a spiral spiritual staircase facilitating our upward mobility – away from pain. My perspective has changed.

Soon after the Katrina floods had receded, and going into the ministry’s kitchen and into its industrial sized walk in refrigerator and freezer, I discovered a room full of rotting meat and shelves full of other spoiled food products. Both the sight and the scent turned my stomach.

There were a variety of insects crawling over and through the boxes and containers – bugs I did not recognize. Under everything there was slithering movement. There was a thick cloud of gnats. It took a full day, maybe two, if my memory serves me correctly, to finish emptying both the refrigerator and freezer. I did the work mostly myself with some help from a reluctant but dedicated staffer. After the task was done, some many wheel barrow loads and hours later, the penetrated odor was so strong that all of my clothes had to be disposed of, even after two lengthy washings. It seemed the foul aroma only intensified with each attempt at cleaning.

And never before had I cherished a shower so intensely.

I remember thinking…THIS is the sanctification process. This task begins to approximate the efforts of the Holy Spirit excavating my soul of the stench, darkness, death and spoilage within. Our fallen souls are never entirely made clean of its filth, until we are removed from this shell of a body and this train wreck of a world. And so His work in us tarries.

But the enterprise of removing the filth from the freezers is also a good picture of ministry in the midst of social chaos. It is simply a dirty and sometimes painful business. There’s no way to enter into a place of great need without becoming needy. There’s no way to enter into a place of intense dysfunction and disease without requiring healing and cleansing yourself. So even as you administer the gospel, you eventually stand in the need of it.

I read this week that 1 out of every 100 Americans is now in jail – a higher percentage than ever before in our nation’s history. This clearly, is not a positive social indicator. Of course the urban youth crisis, which has become my professional ministry focus, represents a growing bulk of the incarcerated population. Throughout the years, I’ve had occasion to visit the courthouse at Tulane and Broad to assist those who buttress with their many problems these social statistics. I’ve found myself there as recently as last week.

One of the reasons that ministry in this setting is so important and effectual is that it is within the confines of prison cells, or the serious threat of such, that men and boys finally face themselves and are thus readied to hear the gospel.

In my many years of ministry, I’ve met individuals who have committed murder, those who are self-described whore mongers, drug dealers, thieves and other various violators of the conscience. But believe it or not, they are not the most difficult category of persons I’ve dealt with in my life. None of these persons thought of themselves as holy. In other words, they thought of themselves rightly.

The most distasteful of sinners, the ones most difficult and painful to deal with, are the ones who believe they are not so – ones that believe that they are mature. They tend to pontificate about the declining culture around them, but do not see how they contribute by action and inaction to it. In other words they believe they have been “sanctified” above the social chaos. They are the Christian aristocracy.

Yet Christians are at our best when we are helping others out of a sense of mutual need, a common state of desperation and a deepening sense of universal moral vulnerability. We are at our worst when we assume moral superiority. Those who are subject to delusions of moral superiority fail to see themselves as God does and thus internalize and spread a distorted view of the cause we have been enlisted to represent. Rather than removing the stench, by our spiritual pride we contribute to it.

Christians are God’s appointed sanctifying force in society. We are called and commissioned by the Savior to be salt and light – externalizing our own personal transformation in good works towards the preservation and illumination of the culture that surrounds us. This is true, but may we never forget the source of that sanctifying force. When we think of ourselves rightly we never judge, lest we be judged. On the contrary, we are merciful, so that we might receive mercy.

I read recently that Evangelicals have overtaken Catholics as the predominant Christian sect in America. As we look at the declining social conditions in our country and the emergence of the evangelical church – we have to ask ourselves this question: Why, when we are at our peak in numbers, that we are the least impacting on our culture?

Could it be that our view of sanctification is principally responsible? Could it be that instead of an upwardly spiraling staircase away from pain and problems, that sanctification is actually a descending staircase into them? Could it be that the purpose of sanctification, instead of lifting our heads, is to bow them? Is it possible that when looking at the cultural degradation around us, that it is we, the proud, who are the first who need to repent?

If we do, we will find as always, that God draws near to those who are made low! Moreover, we will rediscover His cause among the least and the lost. Then we will begin to address the social chaos that is presently consuming us.

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Celebration Church Donates Used Van to Rebirth International!

Posted on February 26th, 2008 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: ministry updates.

Praise God!

Our published need of a ministry van has been satisfied with the donation of a used van from our friends at Celebration Church of New Orleans!

It should be said that some of the most significant work in our ministry happens on the way to and from scheduled ministry events. During our work in Desire, the ministry van took on an almost metaphysical importance. It was the place where conversions, spiritual growth and discipleship took root. Our ministry vehicles facilitated the formation of spiritual community. They were a mobile sanctuary of sorts. And so we expect that this van too will become more than a vehicle. We anticipate it becoming sacred space – a place where God will transact spiritual business.

As our ministry expands over the next number of years – this van will take on iconic significance for the next generation of young urban leaders – just like my red Subaru Justy, our old blue station wagon and our other vans did for the guys at Desire Street. And so, we can’t begin to express our gratitude to Celebration Church enough for their gift to our mission! They’ve given our vision wheels and we will be eternally indebted to them for setting us in motion!

Pray with us now to find a way to afford the necessary insurance and these rather high rising gas prices!

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Rebirth Needs a Ministry Van ASAP

Posted on February 11th, 2008 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: ministry updates.

Would you please pray with us regarding our ministry’s need for a 15 passenger van?

I have located a used van (Dodge, 2003) for about $12,000.  If you know of any other unique opportunities, please let me know.  Or if you would like to donate toward the cost of the van or to help with insuring it, please let me know as soon as possible!

In addition to the ministry activities we are attempting to facilitate in our own personal vehicles, we are entertaining many college groups and are in desperate need of wheels!

Thanks for your prayers!

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The Incarnation of the Caring Class – A New Social Revolution

Posted on February 8th, 2008 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: ministry updates.

Few know that you’ll often find me, during my down time, watching or listening to political coverage. You might call me a shade-tree political analyst. News shows get intensely interesting for me when events become focused on an upcoming political presidential election.

Perhaps many would assume that I’m a liberal – in that I’ve spent most of my life around the poor who generally vote Democratic. I’m a social troubadour, singer-song writer and folk artist. I’m one of the later baby-boomers and early gen X’rs, born in the 60′s and idolize Bob Dylan. I admire Dr. Martin Luther King. I see myself as partly contributing to his legacy and in part an extension of his vision. For many, that is enough to make me a liberal.

However, it might surprise you to know that places of poverty are mostly responsible for peeking my interest in supply-side economics and social conservatism. Many would assume that as a southerner, evangelical and Calvinist that I am hopelessly conservative. But while I’m conservative, I’m not your dyed in the wool Republican. I’m something quite different and more radical than that. Nevertheless, I’m convinced that government policy toward the poor has proven itself at best ineffective and at worst dangerously counterproductive and corrosive.

“So you are a moderate then…?”, one might suspect. Let me say, of any option in the array of choices, I am moderate – least of all. As I see it, the gravest sin on the left is careless social engineering, compassion from a distance and with other people’s money. The insidious sin on the right is that mostly they could care less. Some have said that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. This is true. The rich tend to get richer because they continue to do the things that made them rich. The poor tend to remain poor because they continue to do the things that make them poor. However, through the intervention of the caring class, this does not have to remain this way. There is a way for those who are poor to become rich through moral transformation, through industry and financial literacy. I’ve seen it happen with my own two eyes.

You might say that I’m a conservative who gives a damn (please pardon my French). But I passionately believe that what is most needed in pockets of poverty is an infusion of good conservative family values, the Judeo-Christian work ethic and empowerment through education. More importantly I believe that the intervention of the word and work of the gospel and of the church is God’s prescription for what ails American pockets of poverty.

So who should be president?’

If we become what God has designed us to be as the church, an institution that is truly salt and light, pouring ourselves out in radically transforming ways, it matters little who is governing. The church frankly has depended too heavily on government either to legislate our moral framework (conservatives) or to commission our enterprise of compassion (liberals). The government’s internalization of our values and social vision are more the outgrowth of our effective evangelistic strategies and our incarnational community activism.

However, after 18 1/2 years of front-line urban ministry, I see the multi-generational impact of the war on poverty and its resulting degradation of culture, family and individual dignity – in the very place where those components are the most necessary for overcoming the challenges of poverty. And so I will be voting conservative. But I will also be applying and leveraging our rich theological and educational heritage among the poor to such an extent that through our common sacrifice we will see the poor become rich – in every way. I hope you will join me in this.

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Flying home after a long trip

Posted on February 5th, 2008 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: ministry updates.

I’m in the Orlando airport about to board an early morning flight back into my beloved city.  My trips to Connectict and to Florida have been very productive evidenced in part by my weary soul.  In addition to speaking and performing in numerous churches and campuses, I was also able to meet with prospective donors.  It looks like a new ministry launch in East St. Louis is becoming a real possibility.  Keep praying.
I will have a few projects to tend to before turning back around and speaking at Grace Fellowship’s Missions Conference in Gulf Shores, Alabama.  Work has already begun despite my absence on the repair of two homes in the Desire neighborhood.  Ministry at Clark High School in New Orleans has been carrying on in my absence.

I can hardly wait to see my wife and children.  I imagine that there’s a project or two awaiting me there as well!

Thanks for your support and prayers.  We’re making progress…

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Training the next generation of urban ministry leaders

Posted on January 31st, 2008 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: ministry updates.

At this moment I’m enjoying a break from teaching a class at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando with a dozen or so students. Normally during the breaks I’m meeting individually with students about their own ministries or helping them to envision one where they will make a difference in this world. Tomorrow will be the final day of class. At this moment they are broken up into groups piecing together all the content from the class up into a rap they will perform for the rest of the class! It should be entertaining.

One of the couples that are present in the class are intending to launch a new work in the image of our incarnational ministry work in Desire. They are hoping to work closely with us to identify that special community of need to plant their new work and to receive from us guidance and encouragement along the way!

Last night I got a call from one of my former students who is now spearheading a new ministry work in Montgomery, AL. Its good to hear about how the gospel of the Kingdom is advancing.

God is on the move.

I’m a little tired but I’m thankful to be used of the Lord. I’m looking forward to returning home to my family. I miss them so much.

I will be performing two songs in each one of the many services at Northland Community Church in Orlando this weekend and then I will be home sweet home. Pray for these students – that God would seal upon their hearts the varied implications of the gospel.

Thanks for your prayers! Stay in touch…

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Humble Pie in Hallowed Halls

Posted on January 26th, 2008 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: ministry updates.

Humble Pie in Hallowed Halls
- a ministry update from Mo Leverett, January 26, 2008 -

I shouldn’t have let my mind drift in this direction but I did.

I was standing in a distinguished chapel at Yale University with towering stone walls under vaulted ceilings sustained by ornate pillars. The architecture was from a distant century – the acoustics like no room I’ve ever played in before. No one so small as me has been privileged to perform in so grand and dignified a place. I was singing but underneath I was reflecting about the significance of the moment. I was thinking that I’ll never forget this occasion – I’ll remember it always – the day that Mo Leverett performed his music in these hallowed halls.

And then it happened. And God seems to always do this to me in the moment I need it most. He fed me some humble pie.

It started with one person, then another, then two more – exiting in the middle of a song. I thought at first…maybe he’s got a night class…and then I remembered it was Saturday. After the second one left I thought…maybe he has another commitment. But then when the two girls left abruptly, I got the message. It was God. And He was thumping me on the head while saying…”Hey you down there! Get your head out of the clouds!”

And so I awakened from my little dream. I finished my little concert and I gave my little talk.

But there was a girl in the back – an uninhibited black girl with dreadlocks that swayed to the rhythm of my music. When I finished, I put up my guitar, gathered my lyrics and licked my wounds. She rushed to the front of the chapel and when I turned around she threw her arms around me, thanked me, gave some encouraging words about my songs and my talk. It seems that I got through to her, maybe others, who knows? But it doesn’t matter. I preached. I sang. God remains sovereign.

I’ve preached in other less dignified places like the locker room at Carver High School or the simplicity of my own living room. I’ve seen those humble places turned into sacred ground as empowered by the Holy Spirit of God sinners turn to the Savior. In truth it matters not what surrounds you when you preach, but who surrounds you when you do. And truth be told, I’d rather be at home teaching and training them.

Nevertheless, my time in Connecticut has been good. I’ve performed and taught at the University of Connecticut, Hartford University, Wesleyan and Yale. I have done a little workshop for urban ministry workers in New Haven. I’ve consulted with a couple of church’s venturing into new works in the inner-city. Tomorrow I will speak in a Presbyterian church’s Sunday school and then hustle over to the Baptist church’s worship service to preach. I’ll then drive to JFK Airport in New York and fly to Orlando to ready myself to teach a week long urban ministry course at Reformed Theological Seminary. I will then sing in 6 or so services the following weekend at Northland Community Church. Between those services Greg Doles and I will record the remaining number of hymns for my next CD project. When I’m done with all these things I’ll fly home the following Tuesday just in time to catch a few beads at a Mardis Gras parade with my Manny Man as well as the rest of the family.

Pray for my family while I’m gone. And pray for me as I miss them all terribly! Pray for stamina for myself until I return. Pray that God would be glorified and His Kingdom advanced. Pray that my many efforts would go a long way in providing the support necessary for the new initiatives at Rebirth! Thank you for your prayers and partnership!

While you’re praying, I’ll be finishing the last bite of my pie. Blessings…

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