THE MYERS PARK INITIATIVE

About the Salazar Family

God has called Greg and Christie to plant a new PCA church in Charlotte, NC, in Myers Park—a historic neighborhood just south of downtown/Uptown home to the PCUSA’s denominational university Queen’s University.

Greg and Christie fell in love in 2009 during Greg’s first year at Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando, FL) and were married nine and a half months later in July 2010. Christie is a  homemaker, and mother of five, who is also a certified birth and postpartum doula. They have five children—Catie-Claire (11), John (9), James (5), William (2), and Ellie-Grace (due summer 2024). They first had a sense that God might call them to church planting 12 years ago and are overjoyed that God has called them back to Greg’s home state to plant a PCA church.

Greg was raised in a non-Christian home, but became a Christian in June 2002 after hearing the gospel  at Young Life’s Malibu Club Camp. His passion for the Lord grew at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Go Tar Heels!) where he was a volunteer Young Life leader and Religious Studies major. Other formative experiences in college include living a “Mrs. D’s house” with other Young Life leaders and guys involved in Cru and Inter-varsity; working as a volunteer at Young Life’s summer camps four summers in a row; discovering the doctrines of grace through the sermons and writings of John Piper, Tim Keller, J.I. Packer, and James Montgomery Boice; and experiencing discipleship in his local church.

Following college he worked for two years at The Falls Church, a historic (founded 1734) Reformed Anglican Church in Northern Virginia, where he was a Falls Church Fellow and then Study Assistant to the Rev. Dr. John Yates.

Christie first embraced the gospel in Cru’s high school ministry, Student Venture. Christie graduated from the University of Florida where she was a chaplain in her sorority (ADPi) and majored in in Family, Youth, and Community Sciences. During and after college Christie served as an intern and then on youth ministry staff for Seven Rivers PCA in Lecanto, FL, the church where Greg and Christie were married. And she loves to remind Greg that the Gators won three national championships during her college years (one football and two basketball, “back to back to back,” as she says).

Following his graduation from RTS, Greg and Christie moved to England (just West of London) for him to work as a personal assistant for Rev. Dr. Greg Livingstone, the founder of Frontiers Missions—the largest missions organization in the world to unreached Muslim peoples. They then moved to Cambridge for three and a half years for Greg to complete a PhD in Church history.

Following Greg’s PhD studies, the Salazar family moved to Grand Rapids where Greg served as full-time Professor of Historical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. During his time at PRTS he served as an Associate Pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in the Grand Rapids, MI, before sensing a call to full-time pastoral ministry and accepting a call to serve as the Senior Pastor of a PCA church in the Savannah, GA area.

Greg has served as a Guest Lecturer at Reformed Theological Seminary and written for various ministries including Desiring God, Tabletalk, and The Gospel Coalition’s Themelios. He is the Founder and President of the James Fellowship, a non-profit (501c3) ministry that serves the Church by establishing intensive discipleship groups in local churches for men recovering from sexual addiction.

Christie loves to cook and is an avid reader. Greg loves to take his boys golfing. Greg and Christie are both “foodies,” and  believe date nights are best enjoyed trying a new hot spot. They are avid lovers of British culture (including most British desserts, fictional stories, and Masterpiece classic shows), college football and basketball, the PGA Tour, and spending time with their family and their goldendoodle “Honey.”

Greg and Christie’s greatest passion is to see men and women, boys and girls enter into personal relationship with Jesus Christ and experience the transforming and renewing power of the Holy Spirit in their daily lives.

For more resources by Greg check out his website GodwardGod.com and follow him on Twitter: @GregASalazar.