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
In December 2018, our kids got together to tell the Christmas story in their own way. We are thankful for their joy, and their video is timeless. It’s fun to see how much they’ve grown in the past year! Credits to Finley Petersen for reading the story for us:
The King is coming. Jesus Christ has come and will come again. This is the hope of the Church whom He purchased with His blood. It is the eager expectation and desire of His people. Advent, formed from a Latin word meaning “coming” or “arrival,” is about the coming of Christ. It’s the traditional celebration of the first advent of …
At our State of the Church Sunday in January, I announced my intentions as pastor to lead every one of our members through an initiative during 2019 that would intentionally nurture their walks with Jesus. I called it the Discipleship Initiative. A six-week curriculum was created that guided leaders and participants through an understanding that the root of faith in …
If our staff has heard me once, they’ve heard me 1000 times: “We need blog entries!” The strategic importance of web ministry: go where they are I am a firm believer in web ministry. I’ve been a personal blogger since 1997. When I was a pastor and church planter in Monticello, Arkansas, I was bivocational for several years, creating and …
We are so thankful for all our guests who visited Northstar on Easter Sunday! We’d love to see you again – and soon! Each of our ministries has planned some next events designed to get to know one another and be fun and informal. Here is the list: Youth Friday, May 3: Game Night College Friday, May 3: Connect Coffee …
On Sunday, April 14, we celebrated Emily Altland’s baptism and faith story. We are grateful to continue to see transformational joy in so many lives! May her story and witness encourage you!
Anticipation Devotion by Amy Hall, Member of Northstar Pulaski When I was a child, Easter was one of the most special times of the year. Spring had arrived and the coming of Easter meant that we could look forward to a visit from the Easter Bunny. The anticipation was thick – you could almost touch it! Waiting for Easter morning …
As they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus told them, “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill Him, and on the third day He will be raised up.” (Matthew 17:22-23) Weeks before Jesus entered Jerusalem for His final week, He had been repetitively predicting His betrayal, arrest, death and resurrection. …
We celebrated on Sunday, March 31 as we baptized Daniel Graves. Daniel attended Discovering Northstar last year and realized he had never embraced believer’s baptism. As he prayed and processed, he made the decision to be baptized and share his story with us.
