Black Excellence: The Pastors II — The Shepherds Behind Noel Jones, Miles McPherson, Travis Greene and Darrell Hines

Noel Jones

Senior Pastor, City of Refuge Church — Gardena, CA

Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X

He was born on January 31, 1950, in Spanish Town, Jamaica, one of seven children of Bishop Robert and Marjorie Jones — a family that also produced his sister, singer and actress Grace Jones.

His official biography says he endured early childhood abuse, and Praise Cleveland, drawing on that biography, describes him as born poor and called into the ministry at 19. His parents relocated to Syracuse, New York, in 1965, when he was in his mid-teens.

He earned a Bachelor of Science in Theology from Aenon Bible College, took his first pastorate at Bethel Temple of Longview in Longview, Texas, at 26, and in June 1994 succeeded to the pastorate of Greater Bethany Community Church in South Los Angeles, then about 1,000 members.

The growth was so strong that the church acquired a new home in Gardena in 2003 — the City of Refuge, serving a membership put at about 17,000.

"If I could reconcile and keep peace among us, I can reconcile the Church through the power of God."

Jones carried that ministry well beyond one pulpit. He starred in Oxygen's Preachers of L.A. in 2013 and 2014, telling Christian Post he joined not as an evangelistic tool but to give church members balance about their pastors.

His City of Refuge Sanctuary Choir's 2007 debut album, Welcome to the City, reached number one on Billboard's Top Gospel Albums chart, and English director Sophie Fiennes had already made the 2002 documentary Hoover Street Revival about his Los Angeles church.

Praise Cleveland — “Who Are The 'Preachers Of L.A.?': Bishop Noel Jones”
Wikipedia — “Noel Jones (Pentecostal bishop)”
Christian Post — “Bishop Noel Jones: 'Preachers of LA' Is Not an 'Evangelical Tool'”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Corey Brooks  ·  Derwin L. Gray

Derwin L. Gray

Founding and Lead Pastor, Transformation Church — Indian Land, SC

Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X

Derwin Gray was born in San Antonio, Texas, to teenage parents — his mother was 16, his father 17 — and was raised primarily by his grandmother in poverty on the West Side, near government housing. He told Saddleback attendees, through Christian Post, that peace was not part of that childhood.

At 13, football became, in his word, his god: a way to a scholarship and an escape. He won a state title in high school, played at Brigham Young University, was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts in 1993 and was voted a team captain by his third year. Yet success could not help him forgive his absent father.

Colts teammate Steve Grant — the 'naked preacher' — pressed him about Jesus for years, and in August 1997 Gray committed his life to Christ. In 2001 he searched for his father, found him in prison, wrote him a letter saying he loved and forgave him, and they reconciled.

"Peace was not a part of my life. As a matter of fact, it was a war zone. It was a living hell,"

Gray and his wife Vicki founded Transformation Church in January 2010 in Indian Land, South Carolina, deliberately building a multiethnic, multigenerational church after noticing congregations were, as he told Christian Post, pretty much all white or all black.

The church became one of the fastest-growing and largest in the Charlotte metropolitan area, and Gray has written books on race, faith and reconciliation, including Building a Multiethnic Church and How to Heal Our Racial Divide. Crosswalk named him one of its top 12 most influential pastors in 2024.

Christian Post — “NFL Player Turned Pastor Derwin Gray Shares How He Found 'Authentic Peace'”
Wikipedia — “Derwin Gray (defensive back)”
BYU Universe — “The linebacker preacher”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Noel Jones  ·  Joseph Walker III

Joseph Walker III

Senior Pastor, Mt. Zion Baptist Church; International Presiding Bishop, Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship — Nashville, TN

Official links: Website · Instagram · X

Joseph Warren Walker III came to Nashville's historic Mt. Zion Baptist Church in 1992 at just 24 years old, when the church had 175 members.

Under his leadership it grew to over 30,000, expanding from its original Jefferson Street location to multiple weekly services in three physical locations, plus a virtual campus and a television broadcast Alcorn State says reaches 15 million viewers worldwide. That public rise was matched by private loss.

A Full Gospel announcement, reported by Path Magazine, records that his first wife died of cancer in 2005, his home was destroyed by fire in 2007, and lawsuit allegations filed in 2012 were dismissed by the Tennessee judiciary that same year.

He remarried in 2009, his home was restored, and he kept leading — the resilience Alcorn State cited when it invited him to give its 2022 Baccalaureate address.

"I give honor to God for my extraordinary 25-year journey as Pastor of Mount Zion, and cannot think of a better way to celebrate than to support St. Jude,"

In July 2013 Walker was chosen to succeed founding International Presiding Bishop Paul S. Morton Sr. as international presiding bishop of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship.

He is a best-selling author — Alcorn State counts 13 books, including Leadership and Loneliness, and Becoming a Couple of Destiny, co-authored with his wife Dr. Stephaine Walker — and serves on the boards of Meharry Medical College, Citizens Savings Bank & Trust and the Greater Nashville Chapter of the United Negro College Fund.

Alcorn State University — “Bishop Joseph Walker to give keynote address at Alcorn's Baccalaureate Service”
Gospel Centric — “Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III Announced as the Next Presiding Bishop of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship International”
Tennessee State University Newsroom — “Nashville Pastor Joseph Walker to Speak at TSU December Commencement”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Derwin L. Gray  ·  Ralph Douglas West

Ralph Douglas West

Founder and Senior Pastor, The Church Without Walls (Brookhollow Baptist Church) — Houston, TX

Official links: Website · X

Ralph Douglas West first preached at 16 in his native Houston — he told Faith & Leadership he sensed the call as a teenager, announced it the first Sunday of August 1975, and preached his first sermon the next Sunday. In 1987 he heard, in his telling, a simple instruction: go plant a church.

The Church Without Walls, formally Brookhollow Baptist Church, was launched from a meeting at his house in November 1987 with approximately 32 people, worshipping first at the Brookhollow Marriott Hotel and then retrofitting the old Houston Business Journal building. He took the name from a sermon series on Acts, reasoning that everything Jesus did of significance was done outside.

Four decades later that 32-person start has grown into three campuses with more than 20,000 members, in about 150,000 square feet of space — a preacher, affectionately called 'Pas,' who built a megachurch without ever leaving his hometown.

"I am honored and humbled by my appointment to serve as the inaugural ambassador for preaching and multiplying congregations for the Baptist World Alliance,"

West's influence now runs through the academy and the global Baptist family.

He serves as affiliate/adjunct faculty in preaching at Baylor University's Truett Theological Seminary, has spoken at colleges, universities and seminaries across America and at Regent's Park College, Oxford, and in 2026 was appointed the Baptist World Alliance's inaugural ambassador for preaching and multiplying congregations, bringing, Baptist Standard noted, more than 50 years of preaching experience and 40 years of pastoral ministry to the volunteer role.

Baptist World Alliance — “BWA Celebrates Appointment of New Ambassador for Preaching and Multiplying Congregations”
Faith & Leadership (Duke Divinity) — “Ralph West: You can disagree and still come together”
Baylor Truett Seminary — “Rev. Dr. Ralph West and Rev. Dr. Charlie Dates Announced as Affiliate Faculty”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Joseph Walker III  ·  Darrell Hines

Craig Oliver

Senior Pastor (Bishop), Elizabeth Baptist Church — Atlanta, GA

Official links: Website · Instagram

Elizabeth Baptist Church was born in 1928 when six members of Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Atlanta stepped out in faith, and for 35 years Pastor James E. Hightower Sr. built it into one of the city's leading churches.

When Hightower resigned in 1994, the church, a year later, turned to its own youth minister — Craig L. Oliver, from St. Petersburg, Florida — as its sixth pastor. Church biographical summaries say Oliver had received his calling at 16 and became pastor at just 21.

With Oliver at the helm, Elizabeth moved to 4245 Cascade Road in November 1996 and acquired an additional 80 acres.

The growth that followed is documented on the church's own history page: almost 13,000 men, women and children taught at fourteen weekly services, and one church in five locations — Atlanta in 1996, Fairburn in 2008, Smyrna in 2009, Douglasville in 2011 and Conyers in 2014.

Oliver built service into that growth.

The church reports more than fifty ministries, an Indelible Impressions Learning Center that has touched almost 2,000 families, about 2,500 hours of local outreach, a Taste of Grace Food Truck that has served over 4,000 people, and more than 40 active missionaries sent out globally, with work visible in Ghana, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Romania and South Africa.

Its outreach arm, EBC Cares, describes its work as empowering communities through education, sustainability and compassionate service, including scholarships, urban farming and free tax preparation.

Elizabeth Baptist Church — “History” (official church site)
Elizabeth Baptist Church — Home / EBC Cares (official church site)

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Darrell Hines  ·  John F. Hannah

John F. Hannah

Founder and Senior Pastor, New Life Covenant Church Southeast — Chicago, IL

Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X

John F. Hannah's road to the pulpit ran through the juvenile justice system. The Chicago pastor earned a Bachelor of Arts in criminal justice from Alabama State University and returned home to serve as a Cook County juvenile probation officer, working directly with young people in trouble — work the Citizen Newspaper Group profile says shaped everything that followed.

He then served for years as a youth pastor, evangelizing with a focus on urban youth, and led the Inner-City Youth Spring Break Conference as its executive director.

In September 2004, by one church biography, New Life Covenant Church Southeast was birthed with a congregation of less than 300 people, after Hannah began with a Thursday night Bible study and years of services at the Charles Hayes Center and Martin Luther King High School.

By 2018 the Citizen put his congregation at nearly 19,000 people — a South Side megachurch built by a man who started out trying to keep Chicago's young people out of the system.

"I want to continue to support our active youth who refused to be silent victims of the gun violence that tears up our community."

Hannah takes that ministry into the street, literally.

His annual Prayer on the 9 lines thousands of people along East 79th Street from Greenwood to the Dan Ryan to pray against violence; in 2018, inspired by the March for Our Lives students, New Life funded mentoring and after-school partners — Champs mentoring for Black and Latino boys ages 12–18 and Dream on Education — and partnered with Chicago Police on a gun turn-in program.

He is also the author of Just Pray and What to Do While You're Waiting, and hosted a daily Chicago gospel radio program for 13 years.

Citizen Newspaper Group — “New Life Covenant Church SE Will Take to Streets of South Side Chicago With 'Prayer on the 9' Demonstration”
Citizen Newspaper Group — “Pastor John F. Hannah” (profile)

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Craig Oliver  ·  Stephen Chandler

Stephen Chandler

Senior Pastor, Union Church — Glen Burnie, MD

Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X

Stephen Chandler is a pastor's kid who watched the cost up close. His parents were immigrants from Barbados; his father Ron Chandler pastored bivocationally for more than 30 years without taking a salary, running a medical courier company to support five children — Stephen went to work driving for him at 16.

Stephen himself dreamed of owning a restaurant, not a pulpit, and took over as senior pastor at just 23.

He launched Destiny Harvest Church on September 11, 2011; after a year Destiny had reached 150 people, and five years later it was stuck at 350, with zero growth for three years — so stuck that he asked a larger church to adopt it, and they said no. He kept going, rebuilt his leadership team, and attendance climbed from about 700 to over 3,000 in Columbia, Maryland, making it one of the fastest-growing churches in America, according to Outreach Magazine.

"We’re committed to helping people grow in Christ, not just getting people saved,"

Then Chandler did what most pastors fear: he merged. Destiny Church, averaging about 2,400, merged with Jimmy Rollins' i5 City Church, about 1,300, to form Union Church — Rollins wanted more time for the Two Equals One marriage ministry he runs with his wife Irene.

Coming into 2023 Union averaged 3,800; within months it had nearly doubled, and on January 14, 2024, Sunday attendance topped 10,000 for the first time. Chandler co-pastors with his wife Zai, Union reports more than 5,100 conversions in a year, and its BLDERS conference now trains other church leaders to break through attendance barriers.

ARC — “High Capacity: Stephen Chandler on Union Church's Journey from Merger to Multisite Megachurch”
Outreach Magazine — “Stephen Chandler: The Unshakable Kingdom, Part 1”
Outreach Magazine — “Stephen Chandler: Hope in the Midst of Crisis, Part 2”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  John F. Hannah  ·  Miles McPherson

Miles McPherson

Founder and Senior Pastor, Rock Church — San Diego, CA

Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X

Miles McPherson was a football star first. Raised on Long Island as one of five kids — his mother a nurse, his father a police officer — he went to the University of New Haven on an engineering path and became the school's first player to earn All-American honors and be drafted into the NFL.

Drafted by the Los Angeles Rams, cut, and picked up by the San Diego Chargers, he played four years in the league. It was the realization of his dream, the Rock Church biography says, and he began to jeopardize it by falling into a crushing cocaine habit.

After bingeing for an entire weekend, he called out to God, was delivered from the addiction that day, and never used again — in his own words to Andscape, he accepted Christ in 1984, stopped doing cocaine that day, and played two more years.

He became a youth pastor, earned a Master of Divinity from Azusa Pacific University in 1991, and founded Rock Church in 2000.

"For every way someone can be lost, we want to provide a practical way for them to be found in the very place they have ended up."

Today Rock Church draws more than 18,000 weekly attenders across five campuses, with services carried on radio, TV and online streaming worldwide. McPherson is the author of eight books; his best known, The Third Option, argues for racial reconciliation by honoring God's image in everyone.

He also founded Miles Ahead and launched Do Something Church in 2013, a movement equipping churches to meet real community needs through practical, selfless acts — the Rock's own model of hundreds of volunteer-led outreach ministries in San Diego.

Rock Church — “Pastor Miles”
Andscape — “From the NFL to the pulpit: Retired Charger Miles McPherson now runs a megachurch in San Diego”
Miles McPherson — “About” (official site)

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Stephen Chandler  ·  Travis Greene

Travis Greene

Founding Senior Pastor, Forward City Church; Gospel Artist — Columbia, SC

Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X

Travis Greene's testimony begins before he could speak. He was born on January 17, 1984, in Delaware, a stillborn who was resuscitated — he told Jet Magazine, via BlackDoctor, that his skin was purple, doctors said he was stillborn, and his mother and father prayed until God performed a miracle.

At four, living in Germany, he fell four stories out of a window and was pronounced dead; he says his mother picked up his lifeless body and prayed him back. In 1989 his father died of an aneurysm, and Greene, raised in Warner Robins, Georgia by his mother Charleather — a minister and choir director — turned to music.

That gift carried him to No. 1 Billboard gospel songs including 'Intentional' and 'Made a Way,' five Grammy nominations and 13 Stellar Award nominations, with seven Stellar wins in 2017 alone.

"Pronounced dead, my mother prayed for me and God restored my life so now we’re traveling the world letting people know that Jesus is real and He loves us."

Greene and his wife, Dr. Jackie Greene, founded and oversee Forward City Church in Columbia, South Carolina, which Charisma, citing the church's website, says they planted in 2015.

The church reports rapid growth — Charisma noted 715 salvations and 209 baptisms in one year, and more than 500 new people welcomed the next — and Greene now travels the world leading worship with Forward City, including the live albums Tent Revival and Strike the Ground, while pastoring the congregation he and Jackie built together.

BlackDoctor — “Gospel Singer Travis Greene, Pronounced Dead At 4-Years-Old, Is A Living Miracle!”
Charisma Magazine — “Travis Greene Says His Mother's Prayers Brought Him Back to Life During Childhood Injury”
Wikipedia — “Travis Greene”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Miles McPherson  ·  Corletta Vaughn

Darrell Hines

Founder and Senior Pastor, Christian Faith Fellowship Church — Milwaukee, WI

Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X

Darrell Hines does not just preach about coming back from death — by his own testimony, he lived it. Working as a ground crew employee for Republic Airlines at Milwaukee's Mitchell Airport, he was struck by lightning in 1981.

He told TMJ4, Milwaukee's NBC affiliate, that his heart stopped beating for 45 minutes, and that surviving what he calls a miracle is what called him to the pulpit that year: he felt destined for ministry, destined to preach the gospel.

With his wife Pamela — whom he first met when she was 12 and he was 15, and to whom he has now been married for decades — he started Christian Faith Fellowship Church at 86th and Good Hope in Milwaukee.

Nearly three decades on from its founding at the time of TMJ4's profile, the church had grown to a congregation of more than 4,000, with the Hines' sons Brandon and DJ also ministering alongside their parents.

"I got struck by lightening in 1981 my heart stopped beating for 45 minutes. When I experienced that miracle I just felt I was destined for ministry, destined to preach the gospel!"

The Hines built the church outward, into schools and health care. On the Christian Faith Fellowship grounds sits a medical clinic, and the couple oversee two schools — Darrell Lynn Hines Academy and Destiny High School.

Hines told TMJ4, with a laugh, that naming the academy for him was not his choice: he did not do well in school himself, and thought God had a good sense of humor in putting his name on one.

Their stated ministry, TMJ4 reported, stresses mind, body and soul — not just getting people to church, but enriching lives outside the pews.

TMJ4 — “Bishop finds calling after near death experience”
TMJ4 Milwaukee — “Bishop finds calling after near-death experience”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Ralph Douglas West  ·  Craig Oliver