While Joey Leggett, CEO of Falcon Children’s Home in North Carolina, was a student at Emmanuel University, he felt a call into ministry. But, he says with a smile, he later realized he had misunderstood what God was truly calling him to do.
“I spent an extra semester at Emmanuel because I thought God was calling me to preach,” recalls Leggett, the son of an IPHC pastor. “I played on the first School of Christian Ministry basketball team; I was fully committed to what I thought God was calling me to be.”
Fast forward a few decades, and Leggett is now living out that calling in a way he couldn’t have imagined then: leading a Christ-centered organization dedicated to providing a safe, loving, and nurturing home for children and youth. His call is in many ways shaped by Matthew 25: “Whenever you did this for the least of these, you did it also for me.”
The Falcon Children’s Home’s mission is “to provide a home for children needing out-of-home placement. “We desire to provide services and opportunities that will enhance the total well-being of every child mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This is accomplished in a Christian environment where the principles and values upon which the Home was established are emphasized.”
Leggett grew up in the small town of Falcon, NC, near the campus of the Children’s Home. He went to church with the children who were living there and played basketball with them in the gym. He saw the attention his father gave to the kids and the love he showed them, and the Home itself. The foundation was laid for the ministry he would ultimately serve, but first, he had to find his way home.
His journey of service began as a social worker in a nursing home, coincidentally, one that had been a longtime supporter of Falcon Children’s Home. Leggett soon had the opportunity to become executive director of that nursing home, a position he enjoyed and which fulfilled his caregiving spirit. And then he heard God’s true call on his life.
“I was at a wedding with my family when my friend, Charles Boyd, mentioned that the Bishop wanted to speak with me about leading Falcon,” Leggett remembers. “Why me?” he wondered. Unable to sleep, he called his father.
His dad, ever practical, warned him against it. “Don’t go,” he said. “You’ve got a good career; why leave for something so uncertain?”
That, Leggett admits, was sound, practical, fatherly advice. So, he called his mother.
“If you have an interest in doing what the Lord is leading you to do, you should do it,” she said. “And I’ll talk to your father.”
And with that, the decision was made. The call had been heard.
Falcon Children’s Home was founded in 1909 following a camp meeting, when $800 was raised to buy a farmhouse for children in need. When the first two children, Thomas and Mary Ward, arrived, they asked the director at the train station, “Are you going to love us?” His reply: “Yes—just like Jesus loves you.”
Since then, more than 20,000 children and teenagers have found the love of Jesus in the care they receive at Falcon.
“I tell our staff that they might get a bigger paycheck somewhere else, but they won’t make a bigger difference than they will here,” Leggett says. “And I know now that this is where God was calling me way back at Emmanuel. I feel like a shepherd to the kids here. My ministry is with these kids.”
When Leggett became CEO in 2007, FCH was licensed by the state of North Carolina as a group home for children, with 14 residential cottages across 40 acres, but only 14 children lived on campus. The state had decided to move away from the group home model in favor of placing children 12 and younger in foster homes. FCH was a ministry in search of young people to serve. Leggett went to his staff with an idea: teenagers.
“I told them we needed to shift our focus from children to teenagers,” he says. “Their reaction was, ‘Oh, no, not teenagers! We don’t know how to deal with teenagers.’ I told them a child is a child is a child.”
That shift opened the door to new ministries, including support programs for young mothers. The Royal Home Ministry provides residential support, counseling, childbirth and parenting classes, life skills education, and career planning services. Since its inception, the program has served 50 mothers and welcomed 70 babies into the world.
Joey’s longtime friend, fellow Emmanuel classmate, and colleague in the Turbeville, SC, location of the second Children’s Home, Tim Moore, notes Leggett’s vision and awareness of societal change as his key strengths.
“Joey has a real ability to read society, to see what is going on in the world, and to ask how this ministry can meet those needs,” he says. “As an example, we never would have considered the Turbeville or Magnolia Hope programs, but Joey reads what the world needs and how God is calling us to respond with love.”
Today, the Falcon Children’s Home campus includes a private school, 12 residential cottages, a gym, a swimming pool, a cafeteria, and can serve up to 109 students.
For Joey Leggett, the journey that began at Emmanuel University has led him back to the heart of his hometown, fulfilling a calling that took time and trust to fully understand.
“I discovered who I was in Christ Jesus and gained confidence in myself at Emmanuel,” he says. “I developed a keen awareness that there was a place in the world where God needed me and taught me to seek what God wanted for my life instead of what I wanted. Emmanuel formed me as a person and a Christian, and I am forever grateful.”