LEADERSHIP
PASTOR BRETT CHAMPION
I was born in the Birmingham, AL area to Christian parents and grew up in a Christian home. We went to church regularly and I’m thankful for this because I did hear the Gospel presented. I made a profession of faith when I was 8 years old. I believe I was sincere in my intention and meant well and I believe I had a very emotional experience at the time. But as the years progressed, it became apparent that my heart was far from God and that my conversion hadn’t been genuine. It wasn’t until my college years that the Lord truly got a hold of me and I surrendered my life to Him. During my junior year of college, I began attending a local church in Birmingham near where I lived at the time. I also started attending the Baptist Student Union meetings at The University of Alabama at Birmingham {U.A.B.}, where I was a student. The Lord used this, plus an intense desire He had given me to read His Word, to draw me to Himself.
After receiving Christ during my junior year of college, I began to contemplate what the future held for me after graduation. I was majoring in psychology, which generally requires graduate study to continue in that field. I knew I wanted a break between undergraduate and graduate study, so after I graduated from college, I went to visit a former
pastor and his family who were missionaries in Hong Kong. I spent two months with them and learned about a 2-year missionary program through the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and I met some of the people there in Hong Kong who were part of this program. I came back to Alabama and applied to this program. I was accepted and spent 2 years in equatorial Brazil.
When I returned from Brazil I had no desire to pursue psychology as a career and no peace about continuing down that path. I had met a godly young woman (Justyna) 3 months before I left for Brazil and we had kept in touch while I was there. Upon my return, we began dating and both felt the Lord was leading us together. We were married in 1997, shortly after she graduated from the University of Alabama with an engineering degree. She had a job offer in Tennessee and we moved there after getting married. It was during this time in Tennessee, through the Lord’s use of His preached Word at the church we attended and through our times of praying and talking together that we both began to discern that God was calling me into full-time vocational ministry. This eventually led us to move to Louisville, KY where I completed a Masters of Divinity degree (M.Div.) from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2003. I also eventually completed a Masters of Theology degree (Th.M.) from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC in 2015.
I have served churches in Kentucky, Idaho, South Carolina, and North Carolina, as well as having some time away from pastoral ministry, when I worked primarily doing social service case management for non-profit agencies. Through it all, God has been faithful and maintained a strong desire in me to serve Him through pastoral ministry at the local church level. I’m immensely grateful for the opportunity to do that at Bloomingdale Christian Church and am excited to see how the Lord will use us in this community and beyond as we serve Him together.