Memphis Pastor Who Found Christ in a Housing-Project Church Plants a Second Congregation in Mason, Tenn.
Leon Jones, 58, says about 1,100 people have been baptized at The Dwelling Place Christian Church, which now runs a food pantry serving about 5,000 people a month.
See where this is ›MASON, Tenn. —
Leon Jones was 8 years old when he joined a small church near the Memphis housing project where he grew up. Now 58, he pastors The Dwelling Place Christian Church, with one congregation in Memphis, Tenn., and a second, planted a little over two years ago, in Mason, Tenn., the Tennessee Baptist and Reflector reported Nov. 2.
“I was living in the projects, there was no other out there but that little church,” Jones told the paper. He was born in Somerville, Tenn., moved to Memphis at age 3 and grew up in the projects near Clementine Road, less than two miles from Graceland.
See where this is ›Jones planted The Dwelling Place in Memphis in 2012. The church says about 1,100 people have been baptized there. Its Memphis building also hosts four other congregations on Sundays: an Afghan church started through Refugee Memphis, a congregation called Level Up, a Latino church and a small Black church.
In Mason, the church took over a 19th-century building that had stood empty for about three years. Volunteers spent six months renovating it and hauled away six dumpsters of debris. Partner churches the paper identified as the Collierville and Leawood churches donated paint and chairs, and the Golden Offering for Tennessee Missions helped pay for the renovation. About 40 to 50 people attend Sunday services in Mason, where the church holds youth nights, movie nights, community meals and a fish fry and block party. “These people weren't unchurched,” Jones said. “They were de-churched.”
The church's mobile food pantry, started about a decade ago with the Mid-South Food Bank, serves about 5,000 people a month. On Friday nights from 8 p.m. to midnight, an outreach called “Lite at Nite” pairs basketball with job training, mentoring and other help for young men. The church also works with the Send Relief Memphis Ministry Center.
Jones has served as a police chaplain in Memphis and was the first African American police chaplain for the Collierville Police Department, praying with officers and going with police when they notify families of a death. He is a former director of enrollment and adjunct professor of church planting at Union University and serves as a part-time missionary to Montana through the Mid-South Baptist Association. “The local church is more powerful than they think it is,” he said.
Mason was projected to draw about 9,000 people with the BlueOval City vehicle plant, though production there has slowed, the paper reported; Golden Offering money also supports a BlueOval City coalition. “We together as Tennessee Baptists are preparing the fields for the rain that is coming,” said Danny Sinquefield, Harvest Field 1 team leader for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board. Clay Gilbreath, director of missions for the Big Hatchie Baptist Association, is also part of the effort.
