Jeff became Northstar's second pastor in 2009 after the retirement of founding pastor Bob Jackson. He and his family are from southeast Arkansas where he served as a campus minister at the University of Arkansas at Monticello for eight years before planting Journey Church there and serving as its founding pastor for six years.
Jeff's wife, Carolyn, works at Blacksburg High School in the guidance office as the administrative assistant. Their son Sam is on YoungLife staff in Salisbury, NC and married to Sidney. Their daughter Adelyn is a senior at Christopher Newport University and helps lead youth at a local church as well as serving as a worship leader with Cru at CNU.
Jeff desires that Northstar Church continue to encourage others and build spiritual leaders. He blogs regularly at journeyguy.com, and his first book called Super Center Savior is available at the church office or through online retailers like Amazon.
Jeff is the Lead Pastor on the staff at Northstar. Visit our leadership page to get to know the rest of the team.
Connect with Jeff
We put up our Christmas decorations on Friday after Thanksgiving, even as our fridge was still packed with Thanksgiving leftovers. Even in a pandemic, days are slowly moving forward. I’m looking forward to celebrating the birth of our Savior with our church family in our 12th annual December Nights focus of Rest. Reflect. Rejoice. Renew. beginning this Sunday, December 6. …
Our Good Friday video was so moving and powerful. Here’s the Easter Sunday morning “part 2.” We are grateful to Matt and Emily Simpson, Tanner Blankenship, Joe Fabrizi, Lissa Brown and all of you who submitted cardboard testimonies!
Adam, Evan, Luke and Rex Card helped us see the story of Easter through Resurrection eggs!
Here’s the video we showed during our Good Friday livestream. We are grateful to Joe Fabrizi for his videography, editing and time!
Jesus answered them, “You are mistaken, because you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29) It was Tuesday. Jesus returned to Jerusalem with His disciples. On the previous two days, He had announced His authority by riding into town on a donkey, and then in righteous indignation, cleansed the temple by throwing out the money changers …
In January 2019, we announced our intention to lead every one of our members through an initiative last year that would intentionally nurture their walks with Jesus. We called it the Discipleship Initiative. The process 1. Membership The process begins with a church member. There’s a reason for that. We believe and embrace discipleship. We also believe that membership is …
On Sunday, March 29, 2020, we celebrated the baptisms of Susan Lindamood, Joshua Uliana and Joe Shifflett. Each of them had previously trusted Jesus Christ as Savior. We were overjoyed to be able to celebrate their faith with them during our third livestream!
On Sunday, March 22, Northstar hosted its second livestream worship event in response to the COVID-19 crisis. We encouraged our church family and friends to post, share and send us pics of them enjoying “being the church” in various ways. Here are a few of the pictures that were sent to us or that were tagged #dontgobe on social media:
On March 1, 2020, Erika Gresh shared her faith journey with us. It was a significant challenge for us to remember that we don’t share from a position of “having it all figured out” and to remain humble as we continue to pursue a love relationship with Jesus even in hard times. Erika gave us permission to publish her written …
