目前身份:
Central Christian Church reaches an average of 10,000 people through services on five church campuses each week. Senior Pastor Cal Jernigan is a 1978 graduate of HIU, and he says he never imagined a life in the ministry when he was growing up in Arizona.
“I came from a broken, dysfunctional home,” said Jernigan. “I lived in a non-Christian home with my mom and my sister, and I was headed for trouble.”
He was befriended by teammates who ran track and field with him, and they invited him to a Christian summer camp during the summer after his junior year in high school. He said that summer rocked his world and he never looked back after meeting Jesus at camp.
Jernigan’s educational goal was admission to Arizona State University (ASU), 他打算在哪里学习工程学, but something told him he needed to look elsewhere. Some of his friends were connected with HIU (then Pacific Christian College), and he decided to go to PCC for one year for the purpose of getting a Bible background. His mother told him that she had saved for ASU and wouldn’t fund a move to California for him to attend PCC.
Shortly after the beginning of his first semester, the business office staff informed Jernigan that he needed more money if he wanted to remain. 沮丧, 杰尼根漫步到游泳池坐下, 决定他必须离开学校. 一个女人经过，问他为什么不高兴. He told her his story and they talked for a while. 第二天, when he went to tell the business office staff that he would be leaving HIU, the staff told him that his tuition had been paid in full and, 在接下来的四年里, the woman who had spoken with him next to the pool and her husband, 露易丝和哈罗德·雷伯恩, 洛斯阿拉莫斯的, 新墨西哥, 支付杰尼根的学费.
在他大二到大三的时候, Jernigan was hired to work as a PCC recruiter at the same camp where he met Jesus. 再一次, his summer camp experience proved to be life-changing, as he recognized his call to ministry during those months. He credits a number of PCC influences with his preparation during those years and said that his life and ministry wouldn’t be nearly as rich without his preparation at PCC.
“John Rowe (late Administrator) was like a dad, and Gary Tiffin (retired Dean) confronted me on some stuff… I really wasn’t much to work with,” he said “ Professor Mont Smith (现在 deceased) encouraged me in my future ministry by teaching me that being a pastor is working with fantastic people, 执行一项奇妙的任务, 侍奉一位奇妙的上帝.”
Back in his home state, Jernigan served as Youth Pastor at Central Christian. University President Leroy Lawson was serving as Senior Pastor at Central Christian years later, after Jernigan had served for nearly two decades. One day, Lawson asked him how long he had thought he would serve as a Youth Pastor.
“我以为我要被解雇了!杰尼根笑着说.
On the contrary, Lawson had chosen Jernigan as his successor as Senior Pastor. Jernigan spent some time as Lawson’s apprentice and earned a master’s degree from Fuller Seminary. 他自1999年起担任主任牧师.
“Those apprentice years helped me understand who I am and what I was made for,” he remembered. “It’s perfectly clear, in hindsight, where God was leading me.”
His role as Senior Pastor and in his community has been instrumental in the 增长 of Central Christian Church, and has also led to great spiritual adventures, which he calls “moving into the difficult realms of leadership.”
“We are building a bi-partisan church,” he said. “Our love of Christ is greater than our affiliation with a political party. We are learning how to love those who are different.”
This particular aspect of his calling began with Jernigan’s epiphany that he had to learn to love the “other,” not just the tight-knit group with shared values, and he says that he has learned to “speak a language I didn’t k现在 existed and, 现在, I’ve been invited into realms I didn’t even k现在 existed.”
He recently traveled to Abu Dhabi to meet with other evangelical pastors, 以及穆斯林伊玛目和犹太拉比. The forum focused on creating peace among Muslim countries.
Jernigan was also invited to the Vatican with a group of clergy to discuss unity between Protestants and Catholics.
“God is taking me on a journey to see what He is doing in the world,” he explained. “This stuff matters, and the only way to introduce Jesus to people is to be their friend.”
杰尼根自己的生活经历, 增长, and ministry serve as a perpetual motivator to continue support of HIU.
“My life has far exceeded what I could have asked or imagined,” he said. “We are committed to provide the means for those who do not have them, 他们准备在HIU听从神的呼召.”
