David Perez

David Perez, a proud New York native, graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in English Literature. He officially began his ministry career as a Campus Crusade for Christ director in 1988, serving at the University of Texas in Austin and the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

In 1993, Perez moved to the Chicago area and served four years as director of Single Ministry and Small Group Pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, where he planted the "Real Life" singles ministry, overseeing the creation and development of hundreds of small groups for singles, and helped produce Willow Creek's church service reaching some 15,000 people each weekend.

David and his wife Liz were called to Broomfield, Co., a Denver suburb, in 1997 to help launch Colorado Ridge Church (CRC), a fast-growing and innovative church regarded for its development of original films, musical worship and creative teaching series; a short film called "One Life," produced by David and the CRC creative team, won critical acclaim from the Aurora, Accolade and Alesis awards, all national video awards.

An international speaker and trainer, Perez has appeared in Sharing Christ Together, part of Zondervan's Life Together DVD teaching series, has spoken at national church leadership seminars, and spent time as an NFL chaplain for the Philadelphia Eagles. Those who have known David describe him as: a visionary leader; a developer of people; extremely creative; and passionate about relationships and discipleship. He is currently working toward a Master's of Divinity at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and has done additional graduate work at North Park Seminary in the Chicago area.

Perez and his wife Liz met during their work together for Campus Crusade for Christ. They have been married for 15 years and have two children, ages 9 and 7.

"Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure." - Eph. 1:4-5 (NLT)

"Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of Him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man. If the holiness and awful power and majesty of God were present in this event, this birth of a peasant's child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there also. And, this means that we are not safe, that there is no place where you can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart because it is where he seems most helpless that he is most strong and just where we least expect him that he comes most fully." -- Frederich Buechner