Rev. Jennifer Carner

Jennifer Carner was born in 1983 to 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 gives leadership to their Membership Care Department and daily ministry operations. In addition, she provides preaching and teaching support to the Senior Pastor.

Jennifer has a passion for Theology and higher learning. She has earned a Master of Divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, and currently, she is completing the requirements for her PhD. in African-American Preaching and Sacred Rhetoric at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, IN. Pastor Carner has worked as an adjunct theology professor for Barry University’s ACE program in Tampa, FL for several years teaching Theology, World Religions, and Epistemology.

She recently published her first book in 2019 entitled, 31 Days of Winning, a Devotional Journal. She describes her first published work in this way. “Preachers, influencers, and creatives are human. They are people just like everyone else. Faith and spirituality do not exempt us from heartbreak. 31 Days of Winning is a compilation of the words that helped me conjure 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.”

Jennifer 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.”