Update

Dear friends,

I am doing right now, (and with my wife's blessing by the way), what I had planned not to do. I am traveling. I am traveling a lot.

Just recently I've been in Corpus Christi, Houston, Dallas, Brookhaven, Gainesville, Valdosta, Macon and Atlanta. I'll be in Birmingham this weekend. I'll be in Chicago the next. I'll be in Orlando the week after. I'll take a couple of weekends off and then travel to the Northeast to speak to a group of students from Harvard, Yale and other Ivy Leaguers. And then I'll round off November with an engagement to speak to a church from Augusta at a retreat in the North Georgia Mountains. (My schedule is blank in December by the way, in case anyone might want to book me, or otherwise desires to send support to keep me at home!)

Ellen and I just had a lengthy conversation about our lives. It was good. But we've endured much in the past few years - like 17 Years of front line urban ministry in one of the nations most challenging communities. Then came a hurricane...the loss of all our possessions...a rough patch in our love affair..the departure from the ministry that I founded and dearly love, not to mention the immense stress, pain, disappointment and anger that severance caused.

We've also experienced much healing though, much confirmation of love and much joy in reflecting on God's restorative faithfulness. And we want and pray for the second phase of our ministry lives to be more meaningful, more beautiful, more fruitful, more impacting and more glorifying to God than was the first.

And so, I reluctantly travel. Partly to invite others to participate and partner with us in this next phase, partly to continue to inspire others to follow Christ in healing and redemptive ministries among the poor wherever they are, and partly to pay the bills.

But we were thinking tonight. We're thinking and praying about putting our West Bank house on the market, considering purchasing a lot back on the east bank of New Orleans and hoping to build a new house for the Leverett's there - reestablishing ourselves in ministry in the heart of the city that we love and have been called to serve.

The city presents so many new and wonderful opportunities. In whatever sphere you can imagine there are exciting yet daunting challenges - whether in the fields of housing, education, church planting, economic development or any other part of urban revitalization, the truth is, New Orleans is where it is at. There is the possibility that our strategies for rebirth in New Orleans would have implications for urban renewal throughout our entire country. Our experiments will be considered and studied by many throughout academia and government halls. It is an opportunity for the church to do more than provide relief but to lead in rebirth initiatives. Thus, the idea I am now calling, The Center for Rebirth.

While this concept is still seminal, we're thinking that all of the expertise that we've harnessed over the years could be critically important to the rebirth of our city and other pockets of poverty, as well. And rather than me traveling so dog gone much, why not develop a center where we can invite and facilitate the gathering, inspiring, training and commissioning of persons into ministry in this city and well beyond it? The Center would be a place that could inspire incarnational works among the poor in every county in our nation, every continent in our world as well as every community in our city. The center could help to reawaken the church to God's heart for the brokenhearted. And the center might rekindle within the heart of the church God's passion for the poor as well as promote effective and proven strategies for transformation and hope. The Center might facilitate many great works that would provide a foundation for rebirth in this great city and beyond.

We are trusting God to continue to provide for us and to lead us in the way we should go. Will you pray for us as well and tell us what you think?

Going deeper,

Mo Leverett