Meet our new Chaplain and Church Relations Manager

Two years ago, we introduced you to Chezeray Moore and shared how as a resident of Saint Leonard’s House, he was using his voice to advocate for the unhoused.

Chezeray arrived on campus three years ago after 31 years of incarceration. He moved into Saint Leonard’s House, advanced to second-stage housing in Saint Andrew’s Court and graduated from our Road to Success job-readiness program.

He now lives independently and works at Street Samaritans as a case manager for unhoused people.

Ask Chezeray Moore about Saint Leonard’s Ministries, and his words are ready.

“I often describe it,” he says, “as a soft landing place after a very hard time.”

And now he has a new role at SLM. As our Chaplain and Church Relations Manager, Chezeray is providing spiritual guidance to campus residents and fostering strong relationships with the local church community. While incarcerated, Chezeray felt inspired by the chaplains he encountered. He received what he put into those relationships, earning the opportunity to give weekly sermons in prison. “Knowing that the one person in most prisons, no matter how tough things are, the one person that was staff – but wasn’t security staff – was the chaplain. You could set an appointment, and he or she would accommodate you. So I figure that I could be that for brothers and sisters coming home on this side of the wall,” Chezeray says. “The thing that has motivated me is the desire to reciprocate – as I was served.” When you hear Chezeray speak with a natural flow and clarity of both thought and delivery, you may wonder if his words are written down or improvised. “Most of the time, I go off the top. I have enough basic Biblical knowledge that if you say something, I have a way to sermonize it. That can drive some partners crazy because they want to know what I will say ahead of time,” he says. As chaplain, Chezeray’s approach creates spaces for meditation, dialogue and movement. “I turned the weight room into the ‘temple of human transformation.’ I realized that we need a different type of teacher than we used to have because people’s attention spans aren’t quite designed for hourlong-intensive Bible study,” he says. “On Wednesday, it’s Soul Talk. Let’s have a sacred space where we can talk,” he says. “On Thursday, it’s Soul Walk. We talk the talk Wednesday morning; we walk the walk Thursday night.”

Last week, Chezeray was on NBC Chicago’s Matt in the Morning sharing about the power of moving your body on Global Running Day alongside SLM partner, Back on my Feet. You can view Chezeray’s clips here and here.

For church relations, Chezeray’s goal is to maintain and enhance the existing relationships and find new partners. He wants to bring SLM residents to visit other parishes and see different congregations. And he has another goal in mind. “I want to erase, or at least blur, the line between citizen and returning citizen,” he says. “It’s citizen.”