Southwestern alumnus Philip Levant serves in multi-cultural pastoral ministry

Two-time Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary alumnus Philip Levant is using his multi-cultural background and theological education to pastor a Fort Worth church with services in multiple languages, despite changes to what he thought his ministry would look like over the years.

Levant’s mother was born in Colombia while his father was born in Brazil, where his Jewish Polish parents had moved to upon fleeing from Europe during World War II. His parents eventually came to the United States, where Levant was born in Virginia before moving to Laredo, Texas, when he was in first grade.

“So I don’t know what I am,” Levant joked when describing his multi-cultural family history.

But Levant considers the border town of Laredo, where he said the population is about 98% Hispanic, his home. There his father pastored their church and continues to do so 40 years later.

Levant became a Christian when he was 5 years old and was baptized at 9. When he was in third grade, he began playing violin at his public school and developed a love for music that would continue for years as he stayed involved in music and orchestra through high school.

Levant attended college at Dartmouth with the plan to study physics, but a year into that degree he felt the Holy Spirit leading him to pursue music instead.

“I didn’t want to, but I obeyed,” Levant said, but the reason for that leading became clearer the summer before his senior year when he returned to his home church where his father pastored and helped start a choir. “God used that to show me that I wanted to use music as a tool for ministry, to encourage, to build up the church, to worship. And so that’s when I realized, ‘Oh, that’s why God wanted me to go into music. He wanted me to go into vocational ministry.’”

Upon his graduation, he came to Southwestern Seminary and received his Master of Music degree in 2002. While studying, he served vocationally in music ministry at a church in Dallas and part-time at other churches.

Levant then served in a Hispanic church in Garland, Texas, from 2005-2007. But in that final year, Levant began to realize that he enjoyed leading the discipleship group he was involved in more than his position as the worship leader. With that realization, Levant approached the pastor for guidance.

“I talked with him about it, shared my heart, and he said, ‘Well, let’s just continue to pray and see,’” Levant said.

In the meantime, he took a course online from Southwestern to see if that love for theology would continue. It did, and Levant recognized the clear call to pastoral ministry in his life. He resigned from his music position and started studying at Southwestern, and then for a time at Criswell College.

But his plans for his theological education were delayed when he had an opportunity to plant a church with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC) and North American Mission Board (NAMB) in 2009.

“I was studying, and then started the church, and then decided to focus full time on the church,” Levant said. “And so I hit pause on my studies.”

In August of 2009, Levant planted Iglesia Bautista La Vid with First Baptist Church of Colleyville as its sponsor church.

“If I’m honest, we didn’t know what we were doing,” Levant admitted. “We didn’t know, but we wanted to see God work, and the church grew slowly but surely.”

While pastoring, Levant was given the opportunity to reconnect with Southwestern in a different way as he joined the Board of Trustees in 2014. In the following 10 years until he rotated off the board in the spring of 2025, Levant served with three presidents the seminary and witnessed different highs and lows at the institution but also the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) as a whole.

“As a trustee, I saw the best and the worst of our convention,” Levant admitted of that experience, saying he even reached the point of considering leaving the convention as a Southern Baptist.

“What convinced me to stay were the other trustees,” Levant said. “Because I saw that our churches are made up of people who love Jesus and they’re coming to serve. And I could see their love for the Lord, that they’re active in their churches. That’s what the SBC is. It’s made up of normal churches, made up of redeemed people, that love the Lord and want to cooperate for the Great Commission. And that actually reaffirmed my commitment to be and to continue to be a Southern Baptist. I saw the worst, but then I realized that the best overcomes by the grace of God.”

With the reminder that no convention, seminary, church, or individual is perfect, Levant said the experience as a trustee and even as chairman of the board was a worthwhile one for which he is thankful.

After more than a decade of pastoring and while part of the Board of Trustees, Levant became a Southwestern student once more in 2021 and completed his Master of Divinity in December of 2023.

“I felt I needed to finish getting the tools I needed for ministry,” Levant said. “So, I realized, yeah, I need to finish, it will help me be a better pastor. So, I buckled down and did it with my wife’s support and all seven kids.”

Levant said his time at Southwestern helped him be a better and teacher and gave him an opportunity to witness how the professors and faculty modeled how to live a life of ministry in different ways.

“The other thing, that I think is the non-tangibles, is just the relationships with students, the other students in the class,” Levant said, pointing out he is still friends with former students that he was in class with more than 15 years ago. “You meet people, you rub shoulders, you get to see, ‘Oh, man, they’re the same place I’m at,’ or ‘they’re where I used to be,’ or ‘they’re where I would like to be.’ But you develop those friendships.”

While serving as a trustee and completing his studies, Levant began to see growth in his church as it became independent of its sponsors and was sharing a building with another church in Hurst, Texas. But after the Covid pandemic, Levant said they recognized that it was time to find their own building.

Levant learned of another church that was just blocks away from Southwestern and was looking for a new pastor. He entered discussions with the church to see where the Holy Spirit would lead them, and the result was the two churches combined into a replant through a partnership with NAMB and SBTC, with Cross Church, formerly North Richland Hills Baptist Church, as the sponsor.

Members came from both churches, but Levant explained when Iglesia Agape opened its doors in August of 2023, it was as a new church. Both churches had been holding bilingual services every Sunday, with Levant saying he would interpret his sermon each service so that he was preaching in both English and Spanish. But that had become a barrier for some, and in September of 2025, the church switched to two Sunday services, one in English and one in Spanish.

Levant said they have also begun to move away from being a church with a Hispanic identity and toward an international church identity as different cultures are already present in the church.

Iglesia Agape has members from Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, and this fall added their first Chinese member to the congregation. The church has begun a Chinese ministry to continue to reach that culture that can be found around the area.

“Jesus said, ‘All nations,’ and I believe we’re uniquely equipped to do that,” Levant said. “Since we’re already Hispanic, we’re bicultural and bilingual. It’s easy for us to navigate different cultures and understand the differences, and we can be more sensitive to even third or fourth cultures.”

Levant said his education at Southwestern, the models exemplified by his professors, and the friendships he built on campus continue to help him lead his church today. He plans to return to Southwestern again as a student one day for doctoral studies, but currently he is focused on leading his family and his church, praying for ways the congregation can fulfill the Great Commission and make disciples.