OUR TEAM
Doing anything of value requires teamwork.
One of the big problems faced by the early church in the New Testament was how to handle all the ministry needs that were popping up as the community of disciples of Jesus were rapidly growing. The book of Acts (chapter 6, verses 1-7) tells us that to meet the needs of their faith community, more layers of qualified ministry leadership were needed, and so qualified disciples from the church at Jerusalem were chosen to be deacons - servant leaders - to support the work of the apostles/elders. At Northbridge we follow the same model of developing qualified layers of ministry leadership, with a special emphasis on raising up disciples from within our church to fill those leadership roles.
Northbridge is blessed to have a gifted and experienced Staff and Deacon Team who reflect that commitment, bringing a diversity of backgrounds, ages, and ethnicities to our work.
Joe Warring, Senior Pastor
Pastor Joe has been leading Northbridge since October 2015. His diverse leadership background included 15 years of executive management in business (from start-up to Fortune 100 levels), and the last 24 years (and counting) in faith based non-profit executive leadership positions at the local church, national ministry, and international missions levels of full-time Christian ministry. He holds a bachelors degree in Business Management from the University of Maryland School of Business, and a masters degree in Practical Theology from Regent University’s School of Divinity.
Joe is a passionate teacher and expositor of the Bible and the early church's contextual history, and he has a gift for making the Bible more "real”, understandable, and applicable for our lives today. His leadership experience and commitment to building disciples of Jesus has helped Northbridge enjoy a growth in the spiritual depth and maturity of its members, who are having Kingdom impact locally, nationally, and internationally.
Joe and his wife Kelly have been married for thirty-six years (and counting, praise God!). They have four adult children, and love being grandparents over an ever-growing flock.
Pastor Joe & Kelly Warring
Jamie Guzman,
Director of Outreach & Children’s Ministry
Jamie joined the staff of Northbridge June 2020 after being a long-term member and Children’s ministry volunteer. She leads our Children’s Ministry programs (to include Children’s Sunday School, Children’s Church, and AWANA ministries). She also leads our Outreach and Community Connection efforts and team, focusing on reaching our community with on-campus events, online evangelism and discipleship resources, and getting Northbridge members engaged in our community to help meet the felt needs.
Jamie is also an “Army wife” with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and decades of experience in Children’s Ministry as well as in Marketing and entrepreneurial business endeavors. These experiences allow her to bring great value to our ministry efforts, and our church community.
She is married to her awesome husband, Angel, and they love their three awesome kids: A.J., Elyssa, and Michael.
Jamie Guzman (and Angel)
Justin Palmer, Director of Administration
Justing joined Northbridge in 2020 as a member, and in 2023 he pursued a Pastoral Internship opportunity at the church, learning and serving under Senior Pastor Joe Warring’s mentorship. Then in early 2024, he was locally ordained for Pastoral Ministry, and joined the Staff of Northbridge while also continuing his work as an IT professional.
Justin holds a Bachelor’s in Religious Education from Covington Theological Seminary and an MBA from Grace Christian University, and he brings over fifteen years of IT Management and twenty years of church ministry experience while currently serving as a Director responsible for the Administrative functions of our finance, IT, and Communications efforts - while also occasionally preaching and teaching the Bible.
He and his wife, Melissa, are both South Carolina natives. Together, they’re raising two little girls in the admonition of the Word of God.
Justin Palmer (and Melissa)
Patrick Luke, Resident Missions Pastor
Pastor Patrick Luke, Sr., has served at Northbridge since March of 2007. Prior to that, he served as the first Senior Pastor at Bethany Baptist Church, and the founding pastor of Faith Christian Assembly, both in Charleston. Patrick graduated from the Morris College School of Religion Ministerial Certificate program. He earned a BSc in Civil Engineering degree from the University of Dayton, and a BSc in General Sciences degree from Wilberforce University.
Born in Arthington, Liberia (West Africa), Patrick had a long-held vision to return to serve his home nation. In 2017 the initial vision to launch a long-term mission to Liberia got traction, and “Agape Liberia Mission” was born. In 2019 Patrick launched ALM with the support of Northbridge and serving as a missionary sent from our church. In December 2023, Patrick transitioned off of Northbridge Staff to lead ALM full-time to build the ministry (see almission.org for more info).
Patrick remains associated with our staff as an At-Large Resident Missions Pastor, engaging at Northbridge between his work with ALM. He has been married to his beautiful wife, Angeleia, since 1982, and they have two grown children, and two grandchildren.
Pastor Patrick Luke
Our Deacons
The role of Deacon is drawn from the servant leadership model of the early church as described in the New Testament. In fact, the word deacon simply means “servant” in the original Greek language of the New Testament. The men in this qualified and elected position have exhibited a combination of a mature faith walk, commitment to serving others in the church, and play a key role as an extension of the Pastoral ministry.
(Left to Right): Andrew Horton (Chair), Jay Jenkins (Vice-Chair), Dave Golzari, Brian Connor, Matthew Clark, Ken King, Ronnie Sandifer, and Jerry Davidson.