We are excited to announce that we have hired a new Teaching Pastor! Please join us in welcoming Pastor Jeff McCourt and his wife, Peggy, to Cedar Heights Baptist Church, and pray for them as they transition to a new home and a new ministry. Pastor Jeff will join the pastoral team on March 1.
Here is a little bit of information about Jeff and Peggy:
Pastor Jeff McCourt grew up in the Pacific Northwest and in Des Moines, Iowa. He graduated from high school in Des Moines and then attended Biola College in La Mirada, California from 1979-1981. He ended up at Northwestern College in St. Paul and graduated with Highest Honors in 1985. His wife Peggy grew up in Texas and also attended Biola, where they met. They married October 1, 1981. During his college years, Jeff was a director of youth and music at Burns Ave. Baptist Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
He went on to serve as Pastor of Music and Worship at New Life Church in Woodbury, Minnesota. Jeff and Peggy ministered at this church of 750 for 16 years. While there, he led their music ministry, discipled leaders, and engaged in wide-ranging pastoral duties as a member of the pastoral staff.
In 2001, Jeff became the Pastor of Worship Arts at New Hope Church, an Evangelical Free Church of over 2,000 in New Hope, Minnesota. This is where Jeff and Peggy have ministered for the last 16 years until the present time. He served as a member of the transitional preaching team for a year as the church was without a teaching pastor for that time. In addition to his job of pastoring, equipping, and preparing all musicians for weekly Sunday worship gatherings, he has also been involved in mentoring, discipling, and pastoral care of the church body through hospital visits and conducting weddings and funerals.
Pastor Jeff had others affirm his giftings in preaching and leadership, and he and Peggy believed that he was being called to a new season of ministry as a Teaching Pastor. In preparation for this, he pursued non-formal Biblical and Theological training at the Bethlehem Institute which is a part of Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis. He has also attended Worship God, Desiring God, and EFCA Theology conferences. In addition, he went through the three-year long ordination process for the Evangelical Free Church of America and became ordained in August of 2017.
Jeff and Peggy have four adult children and five grandchildren.