The Rev. Dr, Jennifer L. Carner is the daughter of Pastor J.W. Carner and Brenda Carner. She served in ministry with her father for several years. Under his leadership, she was licensed to preach and bring authentic transformation to the Kingdom and the world in August of 2000. She was later ordained at Greater Travelers Rest Baptist Church, in 2008.
Jennifer has served as the first female Executive/Lead Pastor of The Greater Travelers Rest Baptist Church in Decatur, GA, where Dr. E. Dewey Smith, Jr. is the Senior Pastor. She currently provides preaching and teaching support to the Senior Pastor.
Jennifer has a passion for Homiletics, Communications Theory, and higher learning and has earned a Ph.D. in African American Preaching and Sacred Rhetoric from Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, IN. Dr. Jen’s dissertation centered on the history of African American preaching.
Dr. Jen has recently accepted a position as the Director the Preaching in a Post-Christian Age Initiative, at Pittsburg Theological Seminary in Pittsburg, PA. This initiative aims to resource pastors, new faith community leaders, and preachers to address the challenges of presenting the gospel in our nation’s current cultural, social, and political contexts.
Jennifer has also published her first book entitled, 31 Days of Winning, a Devotional Journal. She describes her first published work in this way. “Preachers, influencers, and creatives are human. Faith and spirituality do not exempt us from heartbreak. 31 Days of Winning is a compilation of the words that helped me find the will to show up in my own life. It is my prayer that these words will help others the way that they helped me.”
Dr. Jen has been inducted into the esteemed Morehouse Board of Ministers and Laity for her commitment to preaching, teaching, and ministry through a Christocentric and liberationist lens. She seeks to encourage everyone around her. She continues to live out the words of the first song she learned to sing, “I’m just a nobody trying to tell everybody about somebody who can save anybody.”