Jason Kennedy: A Student Spotlight
Who is Jason Kennedy? Hailing from Texas, but rooting for the Oklahoma Sooners, Jason Kennedy is the youngest of 3 children born to Dean and Sandie Kennedy. Jason grew up in a nuclear family where his mother and father have never divorced and instilled a work ethic into him. The Kennedy’s were pretty typical in their lower middle class neighborhood in Mesquite, Texas (a suburb outside of Dallas) devoting themselves to work, family and God.
As a son of a church deacon, Jason gave his life to Christ early, but it did not stick until the summer of his senior year in High School in 1994. From there, he felt a call to the ministry and has been pursuing it ever since and even preached his first sermon before he was nineteen, which he admits is the worst sermon he has ever heard, and led a small group and high school youth group before he was 20.
Jason is passionate about God, the church and education although education was pursued more vigorously in his late 20s. Jason has been in ministry for 20 years and has done everything from children’s ministry and youth ministry to being an executive pastor and now currently serves a small congregation in Grapevine, Texas (a suburb in the Dallas-Ft Worth Metroplex) as a senior pastor which is something Jason swore he would never do, but he now realizes this is truly what God has gifted him to do.
Along his ministry journey, Jason met and married a beautiful doctor who is way out of his league. Her name is Rachel and he met her while he was serving a church in Tulsa that her grandparents attended. They have been married for 13 years and have two of the greatest little girls on the planet, Clara age 9 and Ellie age 6. While Jason is not chasing his girls around the Metroplex, he is playing golf, reading, watching the Sooners, Stars, Cowboys, Rangers or Mavericks.
As Jason progressed through ministry, he realized that the church is the hope for the world. It is God’s primary vehicle that carries the responsibility to equip the saints to spread the Gospel to all the world. The church and God’s word has been Jason’s passion. He has a desire to teach and preach the Bible in a way that engages people’s hearts and heads as well as challenges them to spread the message of Christ to everyone they meet. He truly believes that the word does the work in people’s lives. It is for this reason that he takes the word of God as the authority and believes it must be preached.
In 2007, Jason began pursuing higher education. Interestingly, Kennedy never had a desire to attend college when he started ministry. It is his mother who reminds him quite often of this fact. Despite the slow start, Jason has received a Master’s in Organizational Leadership, a Master’s of Divinity equivalency and is now pursuing a doctor of ministry degree. The more Jason studies, the more he is thankful for not giving up on a higher education, and he has a desire to teach and train the Word of God to other ministers around the world.
While there are many more things that can be said about Jason Kennedy, the most important is that he has a deep desire to know God. He knows that Christ has saved him and redeemed him, and it is his faith that is at the center of all he does. Whether it is fun, family life or church, Jason earnestly attempts to make God the focal point of his life.
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