Desire Street Ministries -- Darren Grem

Welcome back to our contributing editor Darren Grem, currently finishing his PhD at the University of Georgia. Darren sends word that his dissertation title has changed from its previous posting. It is now called "The Blessings of Business: Christian Entrepreneurs and the Politics and Culture of Sunbelt America."
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With the passing of Katrina’s two-year anniversary, the cameras and microphones have once more left the New Orleans/Gulf Coast area. Desire Street Ministries (DSM), however, plans to stay.

Musician and pastor Mo Leverett shares administrative direction of DSM with Danny Wuerffel, a former Florida Gators and NFL quarterback. Both lost their homes in New Orleans and their ministry at Desire Street when Katrina hit, and both have been integral in reforming their ministry in the city’s poor and predominantly African-American Upper Ninth Ward. After Katrina flooded their Desire Street Academy and scattered their pupils and their families across the region and nation, Leverett, Wuerffel, and the DSM staff have worked to rebuild both their presence in the community along with the economic lives of those who remained or returned. Volunteer work groups from various churches have engaged in short-term trips to supplement these efforts, and thousands of dollars worth of donations have also helped fund DSM’s transition back to “normalcy.”

What makes DSM interesting is how it illustrates a social ethic informed by contemporary Protestant conservatism. Leverett is a graduate of the conservative Reformed Theological Seminary, and DSM receives its most direct support from the conservative Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) denomination. As such, DSM lines up with the PCA’s views on biblical interpretation (it affirms inerrancy) and “kingdom building” (it emphasizes the conversion of individuals as a means to socio-economic change). Yet, it remains something of an outlier when compared to the PCA’s demographic make-up (which is mostly white, professional, GOP-leaning) and, most especially, its denominational policy. Indeed, despite the attention and support granted to DSM by the PCA, their relatively close relationship has not inspired any drastic changes in the higher halls of the PCA itself. According to a PCA pastor and friend of mine, only a handful of people showed up at the denomination’s most recent General Assembly for a seminar on poverty while hundreds attended various other seminars on the finer points of neo-Reformed theology. Whether a sense of social awareness is growing among local-level PCA churches likewise remains to be seen.

Regardless, Leverett and Wuerffel’s ministry has no doubt had a vital role in the recovery experience for the Desire Street community and the New Orleans area. Their ministry is also a vital reminder of the past impact of numerous social ministries, their present impact within (or in spite of?) the framework of larger denominational, institutional, or political issues, and their future impact on the oft-forgotten corners of America.