Rebirth – Relocating and Raising Funds

Posted on December 15th, 2011 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: blog, ministry updates.

I am sitting in a Krystal Restaurant – somewhere on the north side of Jacksonville – enjoying my newest corporate office digs – wrapping up ministry obligations in Ocala, FL while also relocating to this cool city and starting a new work. Merry Christmas y’all!

I’m identifying prospective donors, potential board members while simultaneously pursuing temporary residence and exploring organizational ministry partnerships. I am also prayerful that those who have linked with me in the past will consider ongoing investment.

This is a big step of faith for me – not my first rodeo to be sure – but I am starting over – shouldering extra baggage on an aging frame. However, I seek to internalize the spirit of Caleb – taking on giants in the high country – confronting even greater challenges in the second half of ministry life than I did in the first.

I could use all the prayers and support I can get. I hope you will prayerfully consider an investment in Rebirth during this holiday season and before the end of the year. It is much needed and appreciated.

Also remember that I still have many CD’s which would be wonderful stocking stuffers this Christmas. It’s not often that you can buy music that truly advances the Kingdom among the poor. Please take advantage of this opportunity to help twice over.

You can contribute online at www.myrebirth.org or send your tax deductible contribution to:

Rebirth International
P.O. Box 2174
Jacksonville, FL 32203

In addition to moving the headquarters of Rebirth to Jacksonville and launching an incarnational ministry here – we plan to develop a training program for next-generation urban community development leaders and missionaries. I am in initial negotiations with a seminary in the area regarding a potential partnership toward that end.

I am still writing music and will probably begin work on a new CD project soon. My children are doing very well – and I am fat and happy. I miss you all – please stay in touch. Merry Christmas!

4 comments.

Punting Perfection

Posted on June 19th, 2008 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: blog, ministry updates.

I was a punter in high school and college. Nobody likes a punter. The punter only comes on the field when the offense has failed. Punters are most despised by perfectionists – persons who think failure an unacceptable option.

When we consider the men of the Bible – we get a picture of the nature of achievable spirituality. Often they fail. And yet it is wrong to hyper-moralize their failure. Their failures not only open the door for grace, it demonstrates what is non-achievable spirituality – perfection. (more…)

1 comment.

Pray for Rebirth

Posted on June 13th, 2008 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: blog, ministry updates.

Rebirth International is an organization in a launch mode. We are still raising the awareness of our work to the general Christian community. And we are developing a new donor base.

Our purpose is to advance urban ministry initiatives in pockets of poverty stateside and worldwide. In service to that vision we are focusing on three primary objectives: 1) REVIVING indigenous ministry in post-Katrina New Orleans; 2) RESOURCING the church in urban ministry consultation services; and 3) REPLICATING incarnational ministry in specifically targeted communities across the country. (more…)

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We’re Feeling Good

Posted on August 22nd, 2007 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: blog, leverett family, ministry updates, new orleans.

For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Peter, The Apostle of Jesus
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! John, The Apostle of Jesus

I’ve been pulling early mornings and so I was nodding off at nine. My wife gently awakened me to inform me that Manning, my nine year old son, has a surprise for me and wants to tell me something. My wife noticing my preference for sleep and reluctance to be disturbed assured me that I would not be disappointed. Collecting myself, I struggled up the stairs and found Manning under the covers with nothing showing but his glowing and compressed grin. I snuggle next to him, place my arm under his head and say, “Hey buddy, what’s going on?” He paused. Then he said, “I’m ready to accept Jesus into my heart.”

I’ve had some encouraging moments in the past year. But as I reflect back, there are none quite so sweet as this one. My pride in that boy is one of the most cherished parts of my life. To impart myself to him is the world’s greatest privilege. For him to believe that I’m the world’s greatest dad is affirmation at its finest. So after leading him in prayer and exchanging some words of affection, I asked him, “How do you feel Manny Man?” He paused. “I’m feeling really good about myself,” he said.

It’s hard to believe that God’s love for me and Manning is greater, far greater than what we feel for one another. But that is the good news. While I love Manning, it is no trouble at all for me and it is my distinct joy to introduce him to His real Dad – Abba Father. While I am a staunch believer in the theological motif of original sin – and I give evidence to it daily – I believe also that because of the Father’s love, we can truly feel good about ourselves.

It was also my joy to introduce some young men at Clark High School recently to my Father as well. It is even greater encouragement for me to know that Richard Johnson, who I had the privilege of introducing to the Father in the early days of my ministry in Desire, is becoming for these young men a real father figure. It also gladdened me to facilitate the generosity of Greg Jacobs, another one of our students and disciples from Desire who now is a young and successful entrepreneur, who almost single handedly funded the camp these boys attended!

While much of the past couple of years have been difficult, I will testify with much assuredness that I would not trade my life for another man’s life or for anything that you could offer me in this world. You could say that I’m feeling really good about myself.

I have a packed Fall and early Spring traveling, speaking, singing and teaching. We are advancing the principles and theological framework that gives rise to kingdom building among the poor. This is resulting in many new works around the country and world. Thank you for supporting me in this endeavor. My new CD project Of Orphans and Kings will be released this Fall. Pray with me that this CD will help widen the impact that we can have in the promotion of incarnational ministry among the poor stateside and worldwide.

Our vision for the city of New Orleans is crystallizing around the concept of replicating the original ministry package of youth bible studies, leadership development, tutoring and camping in every one of the at-risk public schools in the city. We also intend to plant a church into which those young people can be enfolded, nurtured, instructed and commissioned in the Gospel of Christ.

Never before has the public schools of New Orleans been more open to the help that we can provide. We’re excited about these opportunities for the Gospel’s advancement in the city. We’re feeling good. Real Good.

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Rebirth moving forward on city-wide vision in New Orleans!

Posted on July 27th, 2007 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: blog, leverett family, ministry updates, new orleans.

While Katrina did more damage than it is healthy for me to think about at the moment, she also has created new opportunities for the gospel. Please pray for me as I begin to plow ahead in seizing some of those opportunities in the coming months. Pray that God would glorify Himself through the feeble sacrifices of a humble servant.

We are moving forward with a city-wide vision to plant the core urban ministry programs we established in the Desire neighborhood many years ago in other neighborhoods throughout the city. We are hoping to be able to rehire some of our previous indigenous leaders who will emulate my coaching and youth ministry exploits in other high schools in the city. While we’re unsettled entirely on the leadership construct for a new church, we have decided that a new church is needed. We are asking for your prayers and support in the coming months as we in earnest re-enter the devils turf.

Already, some of those indigenous leaders have started a new work at Clark High School in New Orleans. Young men and women have already made decisions to follow Christ. We are constructing a tutoring program for the fall and will partner with the football coaches to execute a combination two-a-day and Christian football camp in the next couple of weeks. I have been asked to coach special teams for Clark and so will be laboring alongside and underneath the leadership we led to Christ many years ago. It has been refreshing to be out on the football field again working with the kickers. It’s been encouraging to see that though I’m old, overweight and out of shape that I still can punt a football a good piece down the field. (I’m getting it together in case the Saints need me sometime this season!) Even more encouraging though is that I am able in small ways to help the next generation of youth from our beleaguered city realize their potential in life through Christ. It’s good to be out there again.

As one preacher said from the pulpit just the other day, “This whole Christianity thing is a Holy Spirit production…I’m just thankful that the Lord gave to me a speaking part!” I too am thankful to be out on the front lines again in a Holy Spirit production.

My Fall schedule is almost completely full. You can check out our calendar of events on the website to keep track with my travel plans. We will release my new CD, Of Orphans and Kings, in the Fall. However, you can download the music directly from our music website. The project will give you a window into how the Lord has worked in my life over the past number of months after Katrina and hopefully inspire you to remember the One who has made Kings from Orphans. It also gives you a tangible way to invest in our new work.

Ellen and I and the kids are well. We are working hard to build the infrastructure for a new movement, to raise the support necessary to do so and to discern with clarity the Lord’s precise call and vision for our future. We are so thankful for our partners in this. Please stay in touch with us. Every note of encouragement and word of support achieves its desired end.

Thanks again for your partnership!

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Orphans and Kings

Posted on May 19th, 2007 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: blog, concerts & music, ministry updates.

Well, I’m standing in the C Group, about to board a Southwest Airlines flight to Nashville, hopefully for the last time for some time. We will be mixing down the new project which is now officially titled Orphans and Kings. We should have downloadable versions of the project somerwhere on the internet very soon – I’ll keep you posted. We are also in the process of designing the CD jacket and such for those who simply have to have their own copy of the project.

Thanks for your patience. It’s taken longer than I thought or hoped it would. I hope you will be pleased with what we came up with. I know I can count on all of you to help me promote the project and thus keep the work of Rebirth International going! Blessings!

Mo

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Untitled Project

Posted on May 14th, 2007 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: blog, concerts & music, ministry updates.

We are nearing the end of this musical sojourn. It has been an incredible experience. As I’m writing this post I’m in the Love Shack Studios on Music Row, listening to Ashley Cleveland, a Grammy-award winning vocalist here in Nashville, as she performs gut-wrenching backing vocals on The Ditch. I’m just enjoying the heck out of this. But I’m also aware that though it’s cool to have accomplished musicians play along me on a record, it’s still my record, my songs and my story and that sobers me and keeps my feet on the ground.

Please pray for things as they wrap up. It is my prayer that this music minister to folks at newer depths and for wider audiences. My hope is that proceeds will continue to fuel a movement of God’s Kingdom among the poor. I also pray for a platform to inspire the people of God toward the heart of God among the poor. If you pray along those lines, you can’t go wrong.

We have considered two different titles for the project. We are presently polling for opinions. The choices are between (1) Orphans and Kings, (2) Like Hell Inside. Let me know if you want to chime in on this issue.

Blessings to all!

Mo

3 comments.

What I love about Jesus? Part II

Posted on May 3rd, 2007 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: blog, devotional, ministry updates.

His attraction to my infection
I was born of the same stuff that is common to all of us who come crying into this harsh world. Like you and everyone else on this planet, I am flesh and blood – vulnerable and exposed, fallen and depraved. Even in my adulthood, I carry the frailties and fears of a wounded child. Like everyone else, that which has become the exterior of my adult life is a cracked shell. Inwardly I am still the child startled by the sharp coldness of this strange awakening.

And have you ever noticed that most people are more attracted to you when your cracks are covered and unexposed. We all know that cracked shells are endimic to humanity, but we nevertheless cover them so that no one will discover what they attest in principle to already know. I come from a movement and community that celebrates grace as a soteriological concept and theological postulate. We celebrate grace in the macro. But when the opportunity is afforded to us to turn this theory into practice, we revert to a previous principle of condemning cracks in others and covering up our own.

Though I am incredibly grateful to the church for gifting to me the gospel, one thing that has always confused me is this point. As a young person it was the practice of everyone, to the point of cultural pervasiveness, to dress up for church. I remember how awkward it was for me to be wearing shoes that didn’t fit, clothes that didn’t match and ties that were outdated by a generation just to satisfy this cultural requirement. It is still the common practice of most churches – this covering of our cracks – this attempt to look deceptively attractive, even though inwardly we are intensely aware of our insidious shortcomings.

Let’s face it. The church is not always a safe place for people with problems. The church is not always a safe place to uncover our spiritual nakedness and own and confess our hidden struggles. Actually it has become for many a place to pretend.

Jesus, on the other hand is not like that. On the contrary, he pursues intimacy with us precisely because of the cracks in our shell. When all have abandoned us in our state of shame, Jesus tends. When we are consumed with infection, he visits us. When we have lost all attractiveness, then He is attracted.

Though my memories do not carry me back this far, when I was a baby, my mother has reported to me later of a serious illness that threatened my short life. I was given medication that my infant body was not ready for. Almost immediately my muscles contracted, my eyes rolled back, my blood pressure spiked. Full of fever, my limbs contorted and though I had not been in the world but a short season, I was on the razor’s edge of death.

I can only imagine the frantic scene. Scurrying doctors and nurses barking orders of medical intervention. Pushing parents to wait in isolated quarters. Having four precious children of my own now, I know that if I had faced the same circumstance with one of my own lambs, my heart would have become overwhelmed with the category of fear that we only experience in the absolute darkest and most desperate of times.

My mother tenderly conveyed that during the crisis, my Father refused to let go of me. I could not be pried from His strong arms. Whatever it was that the hospital staff needed to do with me, simply had to be done while my father held me. What inspired such dramatic devotion is not altogether clear to me.

My father died when I was 15. And it is rare to recall a similar episode in my conscious state as a child. I rarely recall being held in my father’s arms, receiving his extended embrace, hearing his clear affirmations and knowing his healing affections. Whatever it was that held him back – fear, insecurity, or deprivation in his own childhood – I do not know, but I now take courage from my mother’s stories. And the deprivation has made me to have a deep and unmistakable longing both to receive and to give a father’s love. Moreover, it has caused there to be a cavernous hole which can only be filled with the love of my heavenly Father – the One who is passionate for the healing and salvation of my soul.

What I love about Jesus is that He willingly offered Himself to be pierced, bruised and broken to fill those holes of desperation in my life. He brought the loving enduring embrace of the Father to me and to all my orphaned brothers and sisters who want nothing more than to experience mercy and love from our Father. He said clearly, that He is in the Father, and the Father is in Him. Anyone who has seen Him has seen the Father. I have only heard of this love through biblical stories. The love of my heavenly Father is veiled in time and space but is strangely apparent through the spectacles of faith. And though I have not seen Him, He nevertheless reaches out to me. And though I have not felt his touch, I one day will. Until such time, He has promised to never let go of me, no matter what illness invades my soul, no matter what disfigurement becomes of me…no matter…there is no one powerful enough to pry me of his perpetual embrace.

That’s why I love Jesus. It is His confounding attraction to my infection. And there is great healing dispensed in His promise never to let go of me. He clings until I am completely healed, restored and assured of His eternal affection! Wow, what a Savior! What amazes me most is that we would ever resist Him or to project an image that we have no need of Him.

Wounded Flower

Mo Leverett
April 19, 2006
Elkhart, Texas

God defends His orphaned sons
and tends to all the injured ones
the more the shame, then more the care
that He distributes softly there

Thick the walls we form and raise
steeped in self-protective ways
infantiled and sulked within
like a child beneath the skin

Arms will speed from secret space
reaching toward our barren place
hidden holes where hope was hushed
deep where dignity was crushed

Lost and cold and desperate there
something sacred coming where
Wounded hands reach out to ours
opening like a wounded flower

Hands will raise us to our feet
fill our hearts with holy heat
lifting us toward heightened place
gifting us with stores of grace

Slowly changed and soon restored
mercies on our souls are poured
lavished love falls on the grieved
burdened hearts will be relieved.

3 comments.

Ministry Update – April 23

Posted on April 23rd, 2007 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: blog, ministry updates.

I’m on a plane now to Atlanta, will rent a car and drive to Augusta, Georgia where I will be sharing in a break-out session at the Augusta Conference. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to be with the brethren there and hopefully renew acquaintance with many. I also will be meeting with numerous groups throughout my time there including a Campus Outreach ministry at Augusta College on Tuesday night. I also will be meeting with some young people from Milledgeville – some who have expressed interest in staff positions at Rebirth. I will be consulting with others who are actively engaged in urban ministry in the great city of Augusta. It should be a rather action packed few days. Please pray for God’s blessing! Oh yea, I hope to fit in at least one round of golf. And no, it won’t be at Augusta National! However, I’m sure that I’m going to play better courses than that on other side of the Jordan!

I just got in last night from a fund-raising concert and dessert get-together in Slidell, Louisiana. There were close to a hundred persons in the home of my dear friends Larry and Mary Ann Welch. Ellen and I were deeply encouraged to renew our friendship with the incredible folks at Faith Bible and to be introduced to so many new friends, as well! The desserts were unbelievably tempting, yet you all would be proud that I refrained from gorging myself. The folks were very generous and the event was a real success!

I’ll update you more later.

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Concert for Campus Outreach at Georgia College

Posted on March 23rd, 2007 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: blog, concerts & music, new orleans.

I just returned from a short trip to Georgia where I had the opportunity to speak and perform a concert at the Campus Outreach of Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville. It was especially encouraging to have the opportunity to spend time with these extraordinary young men and women both before and after the concert. Thanks to all who came and especially to those who generously contributed to Rebirth International. Special thanks to Glenn Wilkins for the invite and to Sam Rouschenburg for coordination. Also I want to especially thank Jaimie (aka Jeannie) for jumping behind the mike with me at my invitation. You did a great job and are quite talented! Within a couple of days a group of about 20 students from that college will be travelling to New Orleans to help in the city’s recovery. Pray that they might have safe travels and that the Lord’s blessing will be upon us as we explore God’s word together over spring break.

I also had the opportunity to visit with an old high school friend of mine from Macon named Steve Lee. Special thanks to he and his wife Joanie for their hospitality and renewed friendship. Please pray for them that God would continue to bless Steve’s graphic design company called Catalyst as well as their sweet family.

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