Pastors & Staff
Our team of pastors and staff are here to serve you. Each pastor has their own area of ministry, although they are available to support all the ministries of the Church.
A Pastor On Call rotation is set up so that you can reach a pastor by calling one number: (423) 236-7136. Leave a message and the pastor on call will return your call.
David K Ferguson Senior Pastor
Tim Cross Small Groups
Kris Eckenroth Discipleship & Community
Reginald Horton Collegiate
LeClare Litchfield Associate Pastor
Jim Moon Worship
Kircio Mota Youth Pastor
Cherie Smith Visitation & Prayer
Carole Verrill Children's Ministries
Vaughan Choudree Facility Manager
Jay Cole Church Administrator
Debbie Maupin Office Manager & Church Clerk
Sherrie Williams Communications
David K. Ferguson accepted the call to become senior pastor in the fall of 2016. He is an ordained minister with over 27 years of ministry experience including local church pastorate, conference level leadership, high school chaplaincy and teaching, creation of leadership development organization, and higher education program creation and direction.
He came from Andrews University in Berrien Springs, MI where he has been the director of the Undergraduate Leadership Program since 2009. In 2011 he was a cofounding volunteer pastor for One Place Worship Fellowship aimed at collegiate aged young adults at Andrews.
He and his wife, Caryl Lynn, have three children. Their oldest, Emily, is married and lives in Grand Rapids, MI. Alyssa, their middle child, is a nanny to three children. Their son, Isaac, attends Southern Adventist University.
Pastor Kris Eckenroth is the Pastor of Discipleship and Community.
Kris received his BA in Theology from Southern Adventist University in 1999 and later worked at Southern as an Enrollment Services Pastor from 2002 to 2005. He returned “home” to Pennsylvania in 2005 where he served as the Pennsylvania Conference Youth and Young Adult Ministries Director. Later he planted the Grace Outlet Adventist Church in Reading, PA where their mission is “Connect the Disconnected” (2 Corinthians 5:18). About 55% of the membership of Grace Outlet are made up of members/attendees who have come back to the Adventist Church after having ceased attendance for at least one year. Ten percent of the attendees are unchurched.
Through his years of experience with not only young people but working with people across the generations, connecting the disconnected, small groups, and outreach evangelism he naturally fits into the position of Discipleship and Community.
Kris and his wife, Kristie, have 3 children.
Tim Cross served as the youth pastor of the Collegedale Church from December of 2001 through July 2012. In August of 2012 Tim transitioned to the position of Pastor of Family Life and in September of 2019 he transitioned to Pastor of Group Life. Tim is a graduate of Southern Adventist University as well as Andrews University. Prior to arriving in Collegedale Tim served as a youth pastor for four and a half years in Northern California. Tim is blessed with a beautiful wife and three delightful daughters.
Jay is the Church Administrator, performing CFO duties and supervising the facility, office and communications. He joined the church staff in September of 2017 after spending 22 years in the publishing ministry, managing Adventist Book Centers and directing trade sales at the Review & Herald, and more recently performing the duties of Church Administrator at Kettering Seventh-day Adventist Church.
He’s Connie’s husband, Aly and Sarah’s dad, and enjoys reading, racquetball and food cooked over a campfire.
Kircio Mota, Jr is a God-family-people-food-fun-and-sports-loving guy. He was born to Dominican immigrants in New York. He moved to Miami a few years later, where he attended and graduated from Miami Union Academy. Pastor K completed his BA in Theology at Antillean Adventist University in the beautiful island of Puerto Rico. After serving as a youth camp director and a district pastor, he attended Seminary at Andrews University, where he completed his MDiv with an emphasis in ethics. Upon his completion, Pastor K served as youth pastor in West Palm Beach and was ordained shortly thereafter. Once he and his family accepted the call to serve in the wonderful Georgia-Cumberland Conference, Pastor K served as a district pastor in LaGrange and Carrollton, GA for a few years, before moving to Collegedale.
Kircio, Melissa, and their daughters, Amélie and Hannah, are happy and humbled to serve in our community. Their life’s motto is: “There’s always time for lovin’!”
Pastor Horton was introduced to the Adventist message in his early young adulthood life. Soon after joining the Adventist church he attended Southern Adventist University. At Southern he met and married his wonderful wife, the former LaShawn Powell. He and LaShawn have two beautiful blessings from God, Christa and Alonzo where the both of them are attending Oakwood University.
After graduating from Southern Adventist University, he and his wife served two years as student missionaries in South Korea. Upon completion of his studies at Andrews University He has served in numerous conferences: Arizona Conference, South Atlantic Conference, Northern California Conference, and South Eastern California Conference. He is a graduate of Lee University. Currently, he serves as the Collegiate Pastor at the Collegedale Church, overseeing Merge Worship, Marriage ministries, and “The Experience” Sabbath school class. In addition to his duties as Collegiate Pastor, he is an adjunct professor for two different schools at Southern Adventist University.
As the Pastor of Worship Jim leads worship planning and the Adoration and Renewal worship services in authentic worship that honors and glorifies God. He is the Church liaison with the university music department, GCSS music personnel, and member, community and guest musicians.
Jim came to us with a strong pastoral experience. He also has been and will continue to be significantly involved in North American Division prayer ministries. Most importantly, Jim brings us a heart for God and a passion for worship to lift us to God. He has been leading worships for various church organizations for many years.
Jim joins us with his wife Ingrid and three children: Jay Jay, Maggie, and Sam.
Pastor Cherie Smith began her pastoral ministry in 1996 when she was invited to serve as Community Chaplain at the Collegedale Church. The summer of 1998, Cherie, along with husband David, moved to Lincoln, Nebraska where Cherie continued in ministry for 13 years as the pastor for Spiritual Nurture and Prayer at the College View Church at Union College.
In 2011 Cherie returned to Collegedale and began her ministry as Pastor of Spiritual Care, Visitation and Prayer. Pastor Cherie’s passion lies in finding ways to support those who are ill, home bound, or who are dealing with grief because of loss and/or transitions. She is fervent about connecting with God through prayer and loves the blessing that comes from joining with those who intercede on behalf of others.
Cherie loves spending time with her husband and family which includes their married daughters, Jacie and Kim and six grandchildren. In her spare time she enjoys reading, scrapbooking, walking, entertaining people in her home, and finding creative ways to connect with her grandchildren in Texas and Missouri.
Vaughan Choudree arrived in the States in August 2011 from South Africa. “It had been our dream to educate our children in the United States,” says Vaughan. He and his wife, Lee-Ann, have three children: Tamika, Saskia, and Reed. Besides enjoying his wife’s amazing cooking, Vaughan describes his family as an outdoor family, who enjoy playing sports as a family and hiking.
Vaughan’s background includes engineering inspection, projects, sales, financial services, health care and nonprofit work. He has proven ability to build strong coalition between cross functional teams and is an adaptable team player serving as the Church Facility Manager.
Pastor Carole Verrill joined the Collegedale Pastoral team in 2008 on a part time basis as pastor for children's ministries. She came to us from the Florida Hospital Church where she served as the Children and Families Pastor.
She and her husband, Tom, have three children.
She enjoys spending time with family, reading, singing, and traveling. Carole loves everything and anything to do with working with children and families! "One of my most treasured memories was having the privilege of baptizing my son, Andrew on his 12th birthday," says Carole.
Debbie joined the church staff as Office Manager in 2007. She has lived in the Collegedale community since 2001, at which time she joined our Church family. She has one daughter who lives in Baltimore. Debbie and her husband, Owen, enjoy traveling, being out in nature, and spending time with friends.
Sherrie joined the Collegedale Church staff in 1993.
Sherrie's job includes producing Churchbeat, the bi-weekly newsletter, and the bulletin, sending out news releases, and whatever else the pastors need produced. Although not falling under the title of Communications, she records the weekly tithe contributions. Sherrie is also heavily involved in SonRise for which she is the Pageant Assistant Director.
Interests include photography, scrapbooking, genealogy research, Civil War reenacting, and traveling.
Sherrie is married to Baron Williams, a commercial photographer and videographer. They have one son.