Image: The Christian Post
Pastors: The Remarkable Shepherds Behind Michael Todd, Louie Giglio, Keion Henderson and Jamal Bryant
A movement leader who started over in a new city. A pastor whose sermon series broke the internet. Twelve more shepherds who turned small rooms into national platforms.
Produced and Edited by The Bourgeois Society Staff
Part three of our five-part Pastors list: twelve builders whose churches became media movements, publishing houses and pipelines for the next generation of leaders.
Selected on the obstacle climbed, the thing built, and the good given back — and fact-checked line by line, with sources linked under every profile.
The full list: Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3 · Part 4 · Part 5
Founder & Lead Pastor, Fresh Life Church — Kalispell, MT
Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: The Christian Post
Why We're Inspired
Levi Lusko and his wife, Jennie, pioneered Fresh Life Church in Kalispell, Montana, in 2007 — only 14 people showed up to the first gathering. Five years later the church was thriving, and then came the worst week of their lives. On December 20, 2012, their five-year-old daughter Lenya suffered a massive asthma attack and died, days before Christmas.
Lusko has written about picking out a casket for his daughter a day before Christmas Eve, and about closing her eyes himself. Nothing about it was tidy: he describes holding Lenya's hand in the hospital while he and Jennie raised their other hands in worship — broken, devastated and, somehow, not alone.
In the midst of that pain, he stood in his own pulpit on Christmas Eve and preached.
He turned the family's grief into Through the Eyes of a Lion, named for the daughter they called Lenya Lion, writing his “field notes” so other hurting people could find their way through the space between promise and fulfillment — the “Saturday” between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
That is the voice so many readers trust on the subject of pain: a pastor who has actually lived it.
"Suffering in life is not an obstacle to being used by God, it's an opportunity to be used like never before."
The Story
Fresh Life has grown into a multi-site church located in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Utah, reaching the world through television and online streaming, and Lusko's bestselling books — Through the Eyes of a Lion, Swipe Right and I Declare War — keep carrying Lenya's story to new readers. He and Jennie also co-host the Hey! It's The Luskos podcast.
And there is this: Lenya's corneas were donated to two people who now have sight because of her — a little girl whose father says God used her to open his own eyes, still opening the eyes of others.
Sources
The Christian Post — “Pastor Levi Lusko Preaches at Fellowship Church; Shares Four Ways to Deal With Pain and Suffering”
Hagadone News Network — “Pastor's book a cathartic journey after daughter's sudden death”
FamilyLife Today — “Turning Off the Dark”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Kimberly Jones · Louie Giglio
Senior Pastor, Mt. Zion Baptist Church; International Presiding Bishop, Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship International — Nashville, TN
Official links: Website · Instagram · X
Image: Mt. Zion Baptist Church
Why We're Inspired
Joseph Walker III was 24 years old when he took the pulpit at Nashville's historic Mt. Zion Baptist Church in 1992. The congregation numbered 175. Today the church counts more than 30,000 members across three physical locations and a virtual campus, with a television broadcast the church says reaches 15 million viewers worldwide.
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, to Deacon Joseph and Mrs. Rosa Walker, he came to Nashville with an education behind the preaching that is formidable — a bachelor's from Southern University, a Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt, a Doctor of Ministry from Princeton Theological Seminary, plus three honorary doctorates. But the growth is not the hardest part of his story.
In 2005, his first wife died of cancer. In 2007, fire destroyed his home. In 2012, a flurry of lawsuit allegations was filed against him — and dismissed, in the announcement's words, 100 percent by the Tennessee judiciary.
He kept preaching through all of it, remarried in 2009, and saw his home restored the same year. Perseverance, for Walker, is not a sermon illustration. It is the résumé.
"I’m humbled and thankful by this God ordained responsibility and opportunity."
The Story
In July 2013 Walker was chosen to succeed founding bishop Paul S. Morton, Sr. as International Presiding Bishop of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship International — a fellowship of congregations around the world.
He has chaired the Board of Trustees of Tennessee State University, served on the board of Meharry Medical College, and written thirteen books, including Leadership and Loneliness and, with his wife Dr. Stephaine Walker, Becoming a Couple of Destiny.
The pastor who started with 175 people now leads a movement — and still preaches like a man who knows what it costs to stay.
Sources
Praise Richmond — “Bishop Joseph W. Walker III Next Presiding Bishop of Full Gospel”
Mt. Zion Baptist Church — “Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III – Mt. Zion Nashville”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · John F. Hannah · Keion Henderson
Founder, CEO & Senior Pastor, The Lighthouse Church & Ministries — Houston, TX
Official links: Website · LinkedIn · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: Keion Henderson (keionhenderson.com)
Why We're Inspired
Keion Henderson's own site tells his story in three words: steps, scars and seasons. Raised in Gary, Indiana, he carried, in his words, the ache of fatherlessness, the weight of poverty and the collapse of his NBA dreams.
The calling came early — he first felt called to preach at five — and by 21, still a college student on an athletic scholarship, he had founded his first church with just five members and grown it to 600 within five years.
Then came the season that would have ended most stories: he moved to Houston for a pastoral role that never materialized. No job, no network, no blueprint, no guarantees. In 2009 he launched The Lighthouse Church & Ministries anyway.
It is now described as one of America's fastest-growing churches, reaching millions across six continents in person and online, with more than 15,000 members and over 800,000 unique weekly viewers across social platforms, according to his publisher. The fatherless kid from Gary became a father figure to thousands — by refusing to quit in the season when quitting made sense.
"I want my work to be the renewal of thinking, not the decoration of speech."
The Story
Henderson is a bestselling author and the founder of Cry Out Con, his annual faith and culture conference. Through his nonprofit, Take Action Now, the ministry has provided disaster relief, hunger campaigns and community support worldwide — faith, as he puts it, that is not bound by four walls.
Recognized by the John Maxwell Institute as one of the Top 250 leaders in the nation, he keeps building at the intersection of faith, culture and business, equipping people, in his phrase, not just to dream, but to build.
Sources
Keion Henderson — “About”
Crossmap Books — “Keion Henderson”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Joseph Walker III · Kevin Foreman
Founder & Senior Pastor (Bishop), Harvest Church — Denver, CO
Official links: Website · LinkedIn · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: Harvest Church
Why We're Inspired
Kevin Foreman was born in Denver and raised in Orange Mound, a Memphis neighborhood his church's biography describes, in its own words, as riddled with the plight that often accompanies the inner-city. From those humble beginnings, the bio says, he has defied statistics and transcended superficial boundaries — and the record backs the language.
Known as “The People's Bishop,” Foreman founded Harvest Church, a multicultural, multi-generational congregation with locations in Denver and Atlanta and a global online campus. He is also the founder and chancellor of Harvest Bible College, training the next generation of leaders himself.
And he put his own body on the syllabus: through simple, powerful lifestyle changes he shed more than 95 pounds, and built that personal transformation into #FitHarvest, a wellness movement promoting healthy living across his church.
Pastor, church planter, bishop, success coach, speaker, author, philanthropist and entrepreneur — his biography lists all of them, and he earned every title the long way, from Orange Mound up.
The entrepreneurial streak is old: his Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance biography notes that starting and managing business enterprise has been in his veins since he pioneered his first business as an adolescent, and that he is known for turning nothing into something significant.
The Story
Denver has made the appreciation official: October 16 was declared “Bishop Kevin Foreman Day” in Denver in 2009 and in Aurora in 2016, and he has been named one of Colorado's most influential African-Americans and its Pastor of the Year.
On podcasts and stages he teaches what he calls bounce-back power — belief, consistency and financial empowerment as disciplines, not slogans — and giving and philanthropy as the shift that changes a life. The boy from Orange Mound now spends his days teaching other people how to defy their own statistics.
Sources
Passion, Purpose, and Possibilities (Simplecast) — “Belief, Becoming & Bounce-Back Power with Bishop Kevin Foreman”
Harvest Church — “About Harvest”
Harvest Church — “Our Bishop”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Keion Henderson · Kimberly Daniels
Founder & Pastor, Spoken Word Ministries; Florida State Representative — Jacksonville, FL
Official links: Website
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Why We're Inspired
Kimberly Daniels titled her autobiography Delivered to Destiny, and the subtitle tells the story in one line: from crack addict to the military's fastest female sprinter to pastoring a diverse and multicultural church. Charisma's profile fills in the road.
Raised in one of Jacksonville's toughest neighborhoods, she got pregnant at 17 to escape her mother's house, became a track star in junior college, and made Florida State University's track team. In Tallahassee she fell in with a drug dealer, and selling cocaine became using it; she lost a baby to her drug abuse.
The Army came next — she became a staff sergeant — and in 1987, after watching the film A Thief in the Night, she accepted Christ and, she says, was completely delivered from addiction.
An Olympic track hopeful turned crack addict became the “Demon Buster,” a deliverance minister whose first ministry team, as Charisma reports, was built from the ex-prostitutes and drug dealers she reached on Jacksonville's streets.
She had begun a home for troubled girls after leaving the military, evangelizing some of the city's toughest areas with two other prayer warriors — the women the streets themselves named the demon busters. Education followed deliverance: a bachelor's in criminology from Florida State University and graduate degrees from Jacksonville Theological Seminary.
"I taught them Jesus, and they taught me warfare,"
The Story
Daniels pastors Spoken Word Ministries in Jacksonville and has written a shelf of Charisma House books on deliverance and spiritual warfare, from Clean House, Strong House to Breaking the Power of Familiar Spirits.
Then she added a second pulpit: elected to the Jacksonville City Council in 2011, she won a seat in the Florida House of Representatives in 2016, and after losing it in 2020 she won District 14 back in 2022 and was reelected in 2024. Delivered, in her telling, is not the end of the story — it is the assignment.
Sources
Charisma — “Setting Believers Free”
Logos Bible Software — “Delivered To Destiny: From Crack Addict to the Military's Fastest Female Sprinter to Pastoring a Diverse and Multicultural Church, Kim's Story of Hope is for Everyone”
Wikipedia — “Kimberly Daniels”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Kevin Foreman · Kimberly Jones
Senior Pastor, Limitless Church — Fayetteville, GA
Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: The Christian Post
Why We're Inspired
Kimberly Jones is a pastor's kid who grew up with a learning disability — and she will tell you plainly that divorce nearly finished her.
She walked through a divorce in 2006 after an 18-year marriage, and at 36 she found herself humiliated, depressed and financially destitute, with two young sons, ages 7 and 9, and no choice but to move back in with her parents. She laid in her bed for the first year, mad at God, she told The Christian Post.
Then came the turning point she has preached ever since: nobody was coming to get her up, so she got up herself, renewed her mind in Scripture and slowly rebuilt her life.
She preached her first sermon at 41, went into full-time ministry after one of her videos went viral, and became senior pastor of Limitless Church, with campuses in Fayetteville and Atlanta, Georgia.
As bestselling author “Real Talk Kim,” she turned her own wreckage into a message — in books like You Gotta Get Up — for anyone who has been knocked down, held back and left out.
"I had to get up and realize that nobody's coming to get me up."
The Story
Getting up is now her whole ministry. Through the Real Talk Kim podcast, her books and her RTK Inner Circle mentorship program, she coaches people around the world through the same climb she made — and her television appearances, from Oxygen's Preachers of Atlanta to The Doctor Oz Show and ABC's Nightline, have carried that message far beyond her church.
Both of her sons now work alongside her in ministry: the family that walked through the divorce together now helps other families heal together.
Sources
The Christian Post — “Real Talk Kim encourages people to seek healing after divorce”
iHeart — “A Seat At The Table: Can God Trust You At The Table? - Real Talk Kim Podcast”
Warfare Parenting Podcast — “You Gotta Get Up: The Podcast That Will Change Your Life”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Kimberly Daniels · Levi Lusko
Founder & Senior Pastor, New Life Covenant Church Southeast — Chicago, IL
Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: John F. Hannah Ministries (johnfhannah.com)
Why We're Inspired
John Hannah's first pulpit was a probation office.
After earning a criminal justice degree from Alabama State University, he came home to Chicago and worked as a Cook County juvenile probation officer — sitting across the desk from young people the city was ready to give up on, and deciding he would not be one of the people who gave up.
Youth work became youth ministry: years as a youth pastor, and leadership of the Inner-City Youth Spring Break Conference, which grew exponentially under him. He hosted a Chicago morning radio show for 13 years, winning a Stellar Award as Gospel Radio Announcer of the Year.
The church he shepherds began with a Thursday night Bible study, moved through a high school gym, and bought its way into the Grand Crossing neighborhood — more than 44 pieces of property, The Citizen reported, including the largest daycare center on Chicago's South Side.
A congregation that began around tables now numbers in the tens of thousands, most of them young.
Hannah has also served on the Human Resource Board for the City of Chicago and with the Civic Consulting Alliance for Chicago Public Schools — the probation officer's instinct, that you change a city by showing up for its young people, carried into every room he enters.
"I am able to work well with young people because I’m relatable, approachable, touchable."
The Story
Hannah's signature ministry happens in the street. Prayer on the 9 lines thousands of people along two miles of East 79th Street to pray against violence — and it comes with follow-through: his church has funded mentoring for Black and Latino boys and after-school programs in low-income communities, and partnered with Chicago police on a gun turn-in.
He is also an author — What to Do While You're Waiting and Desperate for Jesus, the second of which hit number one on Amazon's new releases in its first week. The probation officer became a pastor, but the caseload never changed: Chicago's young people.
Sources
The Citizen Newspaper Group — “New Life Covenant Church SE Will Take to Streets of South Side Chicago With “Prayer On The 9” Demonstration”
The Citizen Newspaper Group — “Pastor John F. Hannah”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Jamal Bryant · Joseph Walker III
Pastor, Passion City Church; Founder, Passion Movement — Atlanta, GA
Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Why We're Inspired
Louie Giglio's ministry was a highlight reel — a campus Bible study at Baylor that drew more than ten percent of the student body, a move to Atlanta after his father's death, and the first Passion Conference in 1997, gathering about 2,000 college students.
Then, one day in 2008, he woke suddenly at 2 a.m., heart pounding, convinced he was dying. Months of doctor visits and tests found nothing physically wrong; the diagnosis was depression and anxiety.
He has said he probably had something close to a nervous breakdown, barely left the house for a long season, and needed both medical and spiritual help to fight his way back — a recovery he describes as taking almost six months, with worship as his weapon in the night.
He still calls anxiety a thorn he carries: it no longer dominates his thinking, but it has marked him, and he says so.
The man who built a movement for a generation chose to talk about his darkest season out loud, in books like The Comeback and Goliath Must Fall, so anxious people in his own pews would know they were not crazy and not alone.
"I literally woke up in a panic thinking I was going to die at 2 o'clock in the morning,"
The Story
Giglio leads Passion City Church in Atlanta and the Passion movement, whose gatherings continue to draw college students in the United States and around the world. He founded the sixstepsrecords label in 2000, and his books — including Not Forsaken, which debuted at number 3 on the Publishers Weekly trade paper list — keep reaching readers well beyond the conferences.
His most durable lesson may be the simplest one he teaches from his own 2 a.m. story: ask for help, take it day by day, and do not let a dark season define the rest of your life.
Sources
Guideposts — “Louie Giglio Gets Real about Battling Depression and Anxiety”
Outreach Magazine — “Louie Giglio: Passion for a Generation—Part 1”
Wikipedia — “Louie Giglio”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Levi Lusko · Medina Pullings
Co-founder & Senior Pastor, United Nations Church International — Richmond, VA
Official links: Website · LinkedIn · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: Marathi.TV
Why We're Inspired
Medina Pullings was born in the Bronx and raised by her mother, a single parent — one published profile places the family in the Bronx River Projects, with her mother raising six children while her father battled drug addiction.
She was not raised in church, and she says she was empty until she met Jesus as a teenager — and then she could not keep quiet about it. She told people about Him in grocery stores, barber shops, hair salons and schools, on the train, the subway and the street corners.
Preaching was never a career plan; she says she thought preaching was for “special people,” not people like her, until a pastor helped her recognize the call on her life.
That teenage street preacher became, with her husband, Bishop Orrin K. Pullings Sr., a co-founder of United Nations Church, and a pastor, television host, designer and songwriter known everywhere as a “Jesus Girl.” She and Orrin are parents of five — four sons and a daughter.
The girl nobody handed a platform built one, and filled it with women and girls she is determined to see rise.
"I want the world to know that I love Jesus and I'm serving Jesus and I'm loving it!"
The Story
From Richmond, Virginia, United Nations Church International has grown to additional locations including Atlanta and a location in Uganda. Through Medina Pullings Ministries she founded the Princess Club, designed to train and mentor young girls, and the Jesus Girl Summit for women and girls; her Jesus Girl line and Style & Grace boutique turn her message into fashion.
She has appeared on networks including BET, the Impact Network and Love World — a Bronx teenager who once preached to subway riders, now preaching to the world.
Sources
Famous Birthdays — “Medina Pullings - Age, Bio, Family”
PreachingWoman.com — “Pastor Dr. Medina Pullings: Serving Jesus and Loving It!”
Marathi.TV — “Medina Pullings Age Birthday, Brother Parents, Net Worth, Wiki Biography”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Louie Giglio · Michael Todd
Lead Pastor, Transformation Church — Tulsa, OK
Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: Lewis Howes
Why We're Inspired
Michael Todd did not come up through seminary. He came up through the music department — a musician and creative leader at Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who is described as self-taught in ministry.
Nobody handed him a preaching pedigree; what he had was a gift for music, a founding pastor who believed in him, and a message young adults actually wanted to hear. In February 2015, the church's founding pastor, Bishop Gary McIntosh, entrusted the church to Michael and his wife, Natalie.
A year later, his sermon series “Relationship Goals” went viral, gaining over six million views and reaching millions of people around the world with plain-spoken teaching on dating, marriage and sex. The debut book that followed, Relationship Goals, became a New York Times bestseller, and follow-ups including Crazy Faith and Damaged but Not Destroyed cemented his reach.
The congregation he and Natalie lead gathers over 5,000 people in physical attendance and over 20,000 people online every week — the former music director, now preaching his message of progression, not perfection, to a global audience.
"Greatness is fulfilling what you've been called to do."
The Story
Todd and Natalie still co-pastor Transformation Church in Tulsa, and he remains a sought-after speaker at churches and events at home and abroad. His teaching keeps circling the conviction he shared on The School of Greatness: that greatness means fulfilling what you were called to do, and that it is always about somebody else, not yourself.
The musician who once served the church from behind the scenes now spends his platform telling a generation that their past does not get the final word.
Sources
Lewis Howes — “Mastering Relationships, Marriage, & Sex (The Spiritual Keys)”
Celebswiki — “Pastor Michael Todd Biography: Age, Wife, Kids, Books, and Church Leadership”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Medina Pullings · Mike Signorelli
Senior Pastor, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church — Lithonia, GA
Official links: Website · Instagram · X
Image: Black Enterprise (Paras Griffin / Getty Images)
Why We're Inspired
Start with the school record, because Jamal Bryant does. Kicked out of two high schools and a failure in the eleventh grade, he earned a GED — and then became, as Black Enterprise tells it, the first person ever admitted to Morehouse College with one.
Morehouse was only the beginning: a Master of Divinity from Duke University, study at Oxford, and a doctorate followed. Before the pulpit came activism. As the NAACP's national youth and college director for six years, he helped mobilize more than 70,000 young people worldwide in nonviolent campaigns.
Then he built a church from scratch: Empowerment Temple A.M.E. in Baltimore, which he founded and which was acclaimed as the fastest-growing African Methodist Episcopal church in the denomination's 200-year history. A third-generation minister, Bryant has spent his whole career proving that the kid the system wrote off can out-study, out-organize and out-last the system.
Born in Boston in 1971, he proudly says Baltimore raised him — and it was Baltimore that gave him his proving ground, first in the NAACP's youth work and then in the Empowerment Temple pulpit, where his mix of biblical teaching, business acumen and political insight, as the Star of Zion describes it, propelled people to action.
"We’re done with Target, and then our next focus will be around Dollar General."
The Story
In December 2018 Bryant took over New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia — a famous congregation reeling from scandal and loss, deep in debt with its sanctuary almost in foreclosure — and set about reviving it.
The revival comes with a megaphone: Black Enterprise chronicles his economic boycotts, launched as a 40-day Lenten “fast” from Target over its rollback of diversity programs, and Project 5-5-5, his Georgia voter-education drive built with Divine Nine organizations and faith groups. His podcast, Let's Be Clear, carries the same message: policy, not personality.
Sources
Black Enterprise — “Elevating Your Excellence: The Unyielding Vision Of Pastor Jamal Bryant In The Fight For Economic And Civic Justice”
The Star of Zion — “Pastor Jamal Bryant to deliver Livingstone College’s Founder’s Day message”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Guillermo Maldonado · John F. Hannah
Founder & Lead Pastor, V1 Church — New York, NY
Official links: Website · LinkedIn · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: MikeSignorelli.com
Why We're Inspired
Mike Signorelli knows the bottom. Raised in poverty by a single mother of five, with multiple abusive stepdads in and out of the home, he grew up, as he tells it, to find himself in the grip of alcoholism, separated from his wife, Julie, and out of purpose.
At that lowest point, a stranger in a grocery store parking lot told him God would use him in a film that would bring revival — a word he laughed off at the time. His fractured marriage was restored, and in 2016 he and Julie founded V1 Church in Ridgewood, New York, with just 18 people.
Then he made the film. The Domino Revival, released in theaters nationwide in 2023, grew out of revival services held in 13 locations and footage of his church's beginnings, built to lead viewers not just to an experience but into discipleship.
It is a long way from a parking-lot prophecy to a national church — and Signorelli tells the story without skipping the years when none of it looked possible.
"The Domino Revival is more than a movie; it’s an invitation to experience deliverance, discipleship and destiny."
The Story
V1 Church has grown into a multi-campus church — Long Island, Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Chicagoland area, Miami and New Jersey — and was ranked No. 26 on Outreach Magazine's 2023 list of fastest-growing churches.
With Julie, he founded V1 Community Impact, a nonprofit that distributes food monthly to families in need, provides disaster relief and supports shelters in Brooklyn and Long Island during the holiday season.
He also hosts The Narrow Way on TBN and wrote the book Inherit Your Freedom — a filmmaker-pastor still betting that one falling domino can start a chain reaction.
Sources
Charisma Magazine — “The Domino Revival”
VelvetJobs — “Mike Signorelli”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Michael Todd · Miles McPherson