Spiritual Mentor: David Leyerle

This week, I am profiling people who have had the most influence on my Christian spiritual life. Today’s profile is a minister that I knew growing up and later worked under for four years.

David Leyerle

His Influence: As the Minister of Recreation at my hometown church I would have admired and looked up to David simply because we shared a love of sports, competition, and basketball. But there was something else about David that I soon began to notice, even at a young age. First, the Family Life Center, a fancy name for the rec center belonging to the church, that he ran was not an exclusive club for church members but was a gathering spot for downtown area kids and anyone else who might walk through the doors. In other words, the people you saw at the FLC were not the people you would expect to see in my downtown, wealthy, historically rich, large church on Sunday and that was just the way that David liked it. David didn’t just have a heart for the underprivileged and then remain a safe distance from them,  he called them his friends and journeyed with them. At the FLC, I was exposed to the homeless, the mentally ill, and ethnic groups that my school rarely included. The community I found at the FLC seemed to embody what I understood to be important to  Jesus  – acceptance of all people and being a friend to the mostly friendless. David helped create that environment and demonstrated such acceptance and compassion that it made a huge impression on me. His was a faith that seemed to make a difference in the world, a faith that was tangible and real, something that seems to be important to young people.

What I learned from David: When my wife and I began pursuing social ministry and were just overwhelmed with the lack of obvious opportunities to serve, I emailed David and told him of our love for ministry among the underprivileged. He asked us to come visit his new ministry in town that was geared towards underprivileged families and kids. We visited and ended up serving at the ministry as sort of “missionaries in residence”. The best part was building a mentor relationship with David that taught me countless lessons about service to others, hospitality, acceptance, generosity, and love. The only people who seemed to dislike David were either people who weren’t thinking straight due to drugs, mental illness, and alcohol or people who weren’t thinking straight due to condescension, hypocrisy, and being out of touch with the Bible’s call to love the poor, the orphan, and the widow. He is not only a mentor but also a hero. He is retired now and living in downtown Houston. You can probably find him at some pastry shop reading a newspaper and noticing the unnoticeable.

What David can teach you: That Christ’s love for others was never from a distance.