EDITOR’S NOTE: This year’s Week of Prayer for North American Missions is March 1–8 and is focused on the theme “More Than a Gift” and the theme verse of Ephesians 3:20–21. The emphasis spotlights the spiritual needs and ministry taking place on the North American mission field leading up to the annual Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. All gifts given to the offering support missionaries and resources on the mission field. The AAEO provides half of the annual funding for the North American Mission Board. Gifts to the Annie offering can be given through local Southern Baptist churches or online at give.anniearmstrong.com. This year’s goal is $80 million.
In almost every way possible, Leon and Javon Every of Marrero, Louisiana, looked like the heads of a traditional household.
Childhood sweethearts who were still very much in love — “Through thick and thin,” Leon said, “Javon’s always been there for me” — the Everys successfully raised four kids and, as they grew old together, would proudly show everyone photos of their 14 beautiful grandkids.
The Everys were remarkably traditional in every way — but one.
“When we first met Leon and Javon,” said Troy Gause, “they’d been together 39 years, but they’d never been married.”
Call for help
Gause is a church planting missionary who first came to Marrero because of a dying congregation’s call for help. Coincidentally or not, that church’s building happened to be just around the corner from Leon and Javon Every’s house.
As God began answering that church’s call for help, the Everys would experience transformation they did not know they needed.
“Ames Boulevard Baptist Church had been in this community for 60-something years,” Gause said, “and at one time, they’d been really successful. But when the community started to change and they didn’t, the church dwindled down to just a few elderly members. When I first became aware of them a couple of years ago, they were probably just a few months away from closing their doors.
“But they didn’t want to leave this community without a gospel witness.”
Dying churches
The demise of Ames Boulevard Baptist Church is not an isolated occurrence.
“Churches all across America are dying,” said Mark Clifton, senior director of replanting at the North American Mission Board (NAMB). “Among Southern Baptists, as many as 700–800 churches cease to exist every year. And every time that happens, it makes a statement to the community, and that statement is, ‘Our God is unable to keep this church going, let alone transform your life.’
“But the reality is, God is able, and churches don’t have to die.”
In 2023, Gause and his friends joined forces with the handful of people remaining at Ames Boulevard Baptist Church, and they replanted a new work — Cross Community Church — in Ames’ Boulevard’s old facility.
“What happened next,” Gause says, “was undeniably God.”
The church’s parking lot first got Leon and Javon’s attention.
“We’d been driving by that old church for years, and nothing much ever seemed to be happening there,” Javon says. “But then one day we passed by and noticed that the parking lot was full. There were cars everywhere. We’d been wanting to get into a church. And so, we said to each other, ‘We should go visit there.’ So, a couple of Sundays later, we went. And the rest is history.”
It’d been years since the Everys had been to a church of any kind. Still, when they visited Cross Community, they liked what they found. They treated us just like we were family,” Leon said.
“And not just that,” Javon said. “We couldn’t help but notice the diversity. There was White and Black and all different kinds of people there, and they all loved each other, and they were all learning about God together. It was beautiful, and we really connected with that.”
Leon and Javon went that first Sunday, and then they went back the next Sunday, and the next Sunday. Pretty soon, they were faithful, never-miss-a-worship-service attendees — even when, after getting to know them better, Gause and his wife, Chanel, asked about their non-traditional living arrangements.
“They were like, ‘Why aren’t you married?’” Leon said. “And I was like, ‘I don’t know. I guess we just got so busy trying to make ends meet that we never got around to it.'”
For Leon and Javon, first came love, then came gospel conversations, then — finally — came marriage.
“Troy talked to us about marriage and what it symbolized, and then the church gave us a beautiful wedding,” Javon says. “Wow. That meant so much. We started bringing our family to church, and what happened next was just crazy. Seven of our grandkids got saved. Seven. Can you believe that?
“I always wanted us all to follow Jesus, and this new church — this is how it happened.”
New church, new life
Now, in a place where one church almost died, the Everys are an important part of a new church that is very much alive.
“I love the story of Mr. Leon and Mrs. Javon,” Gause said. “Seeing their family come to the Lord, seeing their kids and grandkids learning about Jesus, and then seeing all the other people we’ve been able to baptize since we replanted here — it says something to the community.
“It says that there’s a God who’s powerful enough to keep His church going. There’s a God who can give life. And there’s a God who isn’t finished with Marrero, Louisiana.”
The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering is used for training, support and care for missionaries, like Troy and Chanel Gause, and for evangelism resources.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Tony Hudson and originally published by North American Mission Board.
