EMBER LEADERSHIP
The staff and leadership here at Ember is comprised of men and women who love, care and pray for every single person in the church. If you have any questions for any of our staff, feel free to reach out and email them or call our church office to speak with them. You can contact the church office at connect@churchname.org.
JOHN BENDER
Lead Pastor
John grew up near London where he worked in the business world for five years before moving to Los Angeles and deciding to become a pastor. After attending seminary, John moved to San Diego where he planted Ember Church. Read More
WILL BRETT
Campus Pastor
Will moved to Santa Fe directly from Philadelphia, where he lived and worked until he was 22. Before moving, Will led outreach programs on the streets of South Philly, working mostly with the homeless to provide them with food and other necessities.
LISA SMITH
Student Ministries Director
When Lisa began working with our youth group, it consisted of only a handful of high schoolers and a dozen junior highers. Less than a year later, we have had the privilege of seeing this small ministry grow and flourish under her direction.
Our Mission Statement
Our mission statement says, “We believe that we are sinners saved by grace, commissioned by God to impact every man, woman and child with godly vision, passion, and wisdom, to be living reproducers of the life, nature and character of Jesus Christ”. With that we design our worship services on Sundays for the purposes of stimulating and encouraging men and women to want to hunger after God.
Every ministry that is started here is started with the idea that God is bringing it and we don’t just do it because we are supposed to. We want to know where our people are and how we can encourage them. No ministry is begun or kept just for the sake of the ministry. It must accomplish the goals of equipping men and women with vision, passion, and wisdom for Christ so that their character becomes conformed to His image.
Also, we believe that the judge of our ministry being effective is in this statement. “Effective ministry changes communities.” When the newspaper says, “crime is decreasing, divorce is decreasing, robberies, rapes, burglaries are all decreasing”, our ministry is effective in our community.