Rev. Alex Perednia
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Alex has been serving in full-time Pastoral ministry for over 20 years in both NJ, where he pastors now, and PA. Alex went into full-time ministry after working his first ten years after college in the retail banking industry.
He earned his B.A. from Gordon College in Wenham, MA (1989), and a M.Div. from Evangelical Seminary (2003) in Myerstown, PA. Alex is a firm believer in pursuing continuing education in all things “Pastoral leadership” and “church revitalization”; he regularly participates in a local Pastor fellowship & prayer group and has met monthly for almost 2 years with a virtual peer mentoring group. Alex is a tech-junkie and loves to see an integration of technology and ministry. He is a faithful NY Mets fan, whether they are losing or winning. |
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Rev. Carol Ross-Irwin
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Carol has served as a pastor and health care chaplain for over 30 years. She is currently serving as a chaplain at Trinity Health Systems in Steubenville, Ohio. (it isn’t that far from Pennsylvania- at least not the Western part of PA where Carol and her husband Howard live.) She has been the chaplain at Canonsburg General Hospital, Baptist Homes of Western PA, UPMC and pastor of Franklin Baptist Church. Howard is the pastor at Woodlawn American Baptist Church, and they are the parents of three adult daughters and one very spoiled basset hound. She holds an M.Div from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and has completed five units of Clinical Pastoral Education(CPE). She is also a Regional Ministry Associate with the Barnabas program.
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Rev. David Waldo
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Dave was raised in an American Baptist home in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He says
“we were at church every time the doors were open and I was 9 years old when I began my relationship with Jesus.” God called him to be a pastor early in his college career. He attended Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary and took his first pastorate(s) at two small ABC churches in Livermore Falls, Maine in 1989. Pastor Dave lists his areas of primary strength as preaching, teaching, pastoral care, casting vision and mission education that results in missional action. Other areas of focus include leadership development, spiritual life development, and equipping believers to be used by God. |
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Rev. Eric Kraihanzel
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Eric has been serving in church and camping ministries since 1991 as a youth pastor, camp director, lead pastor and professor. He served on the ABCOPAD staff from 2004 - 2016, serving as the Regional Pastor for Youth Ministries. Currently, he is the lead pastor at the First Baptist Church of Lansdale.
He started teaching at Eastern University in 2006 as an adjunct instructor. In 2012, he was hired as the full-time program director for the Online Youth Ministry Leadership Degree program. The Youth Ministry Leadership program was created to serve adult learners looking to finish their youth ministry degree. In his 15 years of teaching at Eastern University, he taught various courses in youth ministry, theology, bible and general studies, and had the privilege of advising over 170 students. |
Rev. Jeff Johnson
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Today evangelism needs to be genuine and authentic. The primary focus of my ministry is evangelism, vision formation and implementation, and congregational transformation. I love to work with pastors and churches to do ministry in complement to the way God has put them uniquely together to share the Gospel in their community in both relevant and contextual ways. I believe Christians individually and congregationally will do well to share the Good News in the 21ST Century the way the early church did it in the 1ST Century by creating conversational, building relationships, telling our stories, and doing incarnational ministry; truly being the hands and feet of Jesus! The world then and the world today are not that very different. Besides being with my family which I really enjoy, that includes my wife Karen, daughter Jonae, and son Judson Adoniram, I am all about ancient coins, antique cars, and lifelong friends!
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Rev. Kelly Legg
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It is both a privilege and an act of obedience for believers to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). To understand and apply God’s word to our life and the lives of those we counsel, teach, and encourage, we must learn how to cut a path from the ancient world of the Spirit-inspired human authors to our own. That journey from original meaning to present application is called biblical interpretation and is one we will embark on together in this course. Exegeting scripture and applying it in powerfully relevant ways is one of my greatest passions and I am excited to share it with our students.
I earned my undergraduate degree at Washington & Lee University and Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. It has been my privileged to serve within ABCOPAD for more than a decade, initially as the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Norristown and now as the senior pastor of the West Shore Baptist Church. |
Rev. Mark Mahserjian-Smith
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Today, more than ever, it is crucial for congregations to go beyond the walls of their church, being the hands and feet of Jesus in their own communities and beyond. A primary focus of my ministry is coaching pastoral leaders and church families on how to be missional in their ministries. I love to work with congregational leaders to create missional endeavors in their own neighborhoods, in our country and around the world, providing opportunities to experience new cultures. Hands on mission offers many great opportunities to see the world and interact with people outside the walls of the church. When I am home, my wife Susan and I enjoy watching movies and spending time with our children, grandkids and our large extended family.
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Rev. Mark McCallion
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Mark is the fourth generation of his family to belong to the First Baptist Church of New Castle, PA. He states, “it was a blessing and an impediment in that I felt that my lineage somehow gave me standing with God. As a result, I was 19 years old before I personally accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord. A very rapid implementation of what I knew to what I believed and practiced occurred over the next several years. I became active in a college aged Bible Study/Sunday School Class which ministered to shut-ins through visitation. Because of this ministry and the mentoring of my pastor, I felt called to go to seminary. I graduated in 1982 from Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, MN.”
Mark recently retired as the Pastor of Wesleyville Baptist—Erie, PA. where he served since May 1998. He served several ABCOPAD congregations throughout his ministry career |
Rev. Randy Powell
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Pastor Randy has been married to his beautiful wife Nicole since 2001, is the father of amazing Clara since 2015, and the pastor of First Baptist Church of Franklin since 2012.
He founded Mustard Seed Missions of Venango County in 2012 as an ecumenical para-church ministry that partners with our local government to help those in need, and helped create the Venango County Christian Ministerium. He has also created a number of educational seminars for his church and is happy to share them at other churches, including: History of the Bible, World Religions, and Church History. A native of Saranac, Michigan, and graduate of Cornerstone University (Grand Rapids, MI), Pastor Randy has a passion for ecumenical ministry, both within ABCOPAD (the American Baptist Churches of PA and DE) and the larger Christian community, trail running in the wooded hills near our home, and all things geek/nerd related. |
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Rev. Scott Jones
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Rev. Scott Jones is Pastor of First Baptist Church, Greensburg (Laurel Association). He was raised in Iowa and South Dakota. Ordained in 1997 (M.Div., Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Lombard, IL), he has served churches in Iowa, Kansas, Illinois and Indiana. He has spent most of his time, though, ministering in Western Pennsylvania, where he has served in New Bethlehem, Worthington and his present ministry. Along the way he has served as Association clerk and Moderator (Clarion), an LLC leader, and assisted Dr. Jeff Johnson with congregations searching for pastors. He has substituted teaching ACTS classes in the past, and was invited to teach the New Testament Survey class beginning in 2022.
He has been married to his wife, Carolyne, for 27 years. They have two adult sons, Nathanael and Simeon. |
