Craig Hendrickson, M.Div, Th.M
Craig has been serving as our lead pastor since August, 2010. He came to us from Long Beach, California with his wife Mary and their daughter Amaya, where he served five years with Church Resource Ministries (CRM) as the team leader for Urban Mosaic. During his time with CRM, Craig focused his energy on facilitating the development of multiethnic churches through coaching, training, and consulting with urban pastors and leaders in the Southern California area. He also brings six years of previous pastoral experience from his time in Long Beach and in Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as eleven years as a professional football player in the Canadian Football League (CFL). During his time in the CFL he served as a team chapel leader for nine years, and the National Player Representative for four.
Beginning with Living Hope and the community God has placed us in, Craig’s passion is to help churches and their communities across North America to experience spiritual transformation and to pursue racial healing and economic justice through multiethnic ministry. This passion leads Craig to stay involved in various endeavors that contribute toward this goal, including serving with the Arrow Leadership Program as leadership coach and trainer for their multiethnic cohort, coaching urban leaders in areas of intercultural and missional leadership, various writing projects for scholarly journals, and the pursuit of a PhD in Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary.
When he is not working or engaging in his other ministry and education interests (which is hardly ever!), Craig enjoys various other pursuits to bring balance into his life. He is an avid practitioner of Hapkido, loves to read, is a horrible but enthusiastic golfer, loves a good movie, and especially loves going to the beach or Coney Island on warm days in the summer with Mary and Amaya.