LEADERSHIP
The Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the church in a supreme and sovereign manner. While Christ established the Church through the Apostles, He entrusted the leadership of the local church to elders. These men are responsible to administer the Word and the sacrament and to lead the church spiritually, so that it grows in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ and is more and more conformed to His image. In addition to elders, or pastors, other men, called deacons, which means "servants", were appointed to help the elders by taking care of the material needs of the people and the ministry of the church. In accordance with Scripture the commissioning families of Christ Church called Jody Anderson to serve as its first elder and Pastor in August 2020.
Additional elder candidates are in prayerful and thoughtful examination currently. Our heart is to have a plurality of elders as the Lord provides such qualified men. In the meantime, the commissioning men are serving in the role of Leadership Council for the church. Likewise, we are in partnership with the G3 Church Network, a group of churches committed to biblical principles as summarized in the 1689 London Baptist Confession. These partnerships provide practical support and accountability in the multitude of decisions related to church government.
Jody Anderson
Pastors are not called to the culture, and we’re not called to the unconverted. We have been mandated to feed our flocks so they can grow spiritually. We’re called to serve the redeemed people of God as an agent of sanctification and protection. The measure of a man’s effectiveness in ministry is not the number of people in his congregation every week—it’s the Christlikeness of his congregation.
- John MacArthur
Name, Title
Background
Having been saved in his early teenage years, Jody experienced the call of God on his life to full-time ministry in college. However, it would not be until a few years after his marriage to his wife Allison in 1996 that Jody accepted the call to ministry. Soon afterward, he began to further his education as a means of preparing for a lifetime of pastoral service. He received his Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2002, and in 2009 earned a Ph.D. in Christian Theology from Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. Jody pastored Solid Rock Church in Stephenville, TX during his final two years at Southwestern, and, while completing his doctoral studies at Mid-America, Jody pastored Harmony Baptist Church in New Albany, MS. He remained at New Albany for six years, at which point the Lord led him to become the first pastor of Grace Covenant Baptist Church, a new church plant in Arab, Alabama. Jody, his wife, and four children moved to Arab in December of 2009. In July 2020, he accepted the call of Pastor at Christ Church of Guntersville. His family now resides in Guntersville, AL.