Alumni and Friends, Campus Wide, College of Christian Studies

Five CSU grads ordained on one day

By CSU Media | December 10, 2019

Left to right: Nick Ballenger, Seth Friend, Zack Sibrava, David Dyer, Hayden Jacobs, Jonathan Franklin and Jon Davis, teaching pastor of Summit Church. Photo by Ricky Reyes

Recently, Summit Church ordained five young men to the ministry, all of them graduates of Charleston Southern. Summit, which meets on the campus of Charleston Southern University, is a multigenerational congregation that disciples all ages.

Nick Ballenger, executive pastor, said, “We created an initiative called Summit Labs which offers practical pastoral training, along with opportunities to preach at Summit and other churches that may need assistance. Our aim is to disciple and develop pastors through practical methods to be sent out to help other churches in our state and across the world.”

The group meets weekly and receives training from Summit staff as well as ministers such as Randy Harling from Summerville Baptist, Jake Brown from Radiant Church, Steve McKinion from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Bobby Wood who works for the North American Missions Board in Utah.

The men are serving in a variety of positions:

Hayden Jacobs ’19 is the associate pastor of Portside Baptist Church in North Charleston.

Zach Sibrava ’16 is pursuing a Master of Education at CSU, and serves as a residence life coordinator at CSU and is the college pastor for Summit.

David Dyer ’19 is beginning a Master of Divinity at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and is the administrative assistant to the Christian studies department and campus ministries at CSU and also serves as missions pastor at Summit.

Jonathan Franklin ’15 is finishing his Master of Divinity at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a pastoral resident at The Church at Greer Station in Greer, and is hoping to plant a church in Nova Scotia with the North American Mission Board.