Pastor Benton, an academically high achiever, offers a much-needed blend of southern hospitality and urban edge. He is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina, and a proud graduate of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University with a degree in business education and administrative systems. He completed his Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary (Princeton, New Jersey), focusing on homiletics and pastoral care, and has a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Eastern University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

Pastor Benton’s gifts extend beyond the classroom and the sanctuary. He is a gifted percussionist who served as Chaplain of the N.C. A&T State University Band, also known as The Marching Machine.  As an undergraduate student, Pastor Benton instructed an urban charter middle school drumline. While serving as the Associate Pastor at Berean Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, he founded the award-winning Berean Community Drumline (BCD) through the Berean Community and Family Life Center. In 2012 Pastor Benton became one of the founders and later that year the Pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. There he became a founding Board member of the Berean Community Center and was the Vice President of the Garden on Millbrook Catering Company, Inc.

Pastor Benton works closely with public and private organizations, having served as a chaplain intern at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey, and Chaplain of the Association of Black Seminarians at Princeton Theological Seminary. His time at Princeton was rewarding and life-changing. Pastor Benton was awarded the Aaron E. Gast Award in Urban Ministry, the Jagow Award in Homiletics and Speech, and the Ray Lindquist Award in Pastoral Care.  The Amsterdam News (New York, New York) featured Dr. Benton as the “Black New Yorker,” and he was awarded a congressional record for his community involvement.

Passionate about the abundant life and holistic health accessible through Christ, Pastor Benton has committed his life to empower others to live spiritually, mentally, and physically healthy lives. Living by example, he completed the TCS New York Marathon and has run countless other competitive races and challenges, such as the Tough Mudder. Pastor Benton truly believes that the transformational power of Jesus Christ can change any circumstance and renew all mindsets.

Pastor Benton is married to his best friend and soulmate, the former Yasmeen Hadaway, and they have three beautiful daughters – Arianna, Mayara, and Zaya. Pastor Benton looks forward to watching his family continue to grow in love for God and each other.

patients to prostate cancer clinical trials. She is the principal investigator of the Michigan Prostate SPORE as well as for a Department of Defense grant in the nationally-recognized Prostate Clinical Trials Cancer Consortium.

Dr. Heath is a member of the Prostate Cancer Foundation Research Awards Review Committees and Department of Defense prostate and kidney cancer study section. She has served as president for the KCI Medical Executive Committee, has served as member of the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate at Wayne State University School of Medicine, and is currently on the board of directors of the state-sponsored Michigan Cancer Consortium.

Dr. Heath was honored with the inaugural Michigan Cancer Consortium Champion Award for 2016. In addition, Dr. Heath was also the recipient of the National Cancer Institute Clinical Investigator Team Leadership Award in 2010. She has also been awarded the Wayne State University School of Medicine College Teaching Award in 2007, 2011, 2015 and holds the Top Doc designation in Hour Magazine from 2010-2021. Dr. Heath served for 10 years as the Faculty Advisor for the Gold Humanism Honor Society and has been the recipient of the Leonard Tow 2009 Humanism in Medicine Award. She was the recipient of the Wayne State University School of Medicine Physician’s Golden Heart Award in 2011. Dr. Heath is a dedicated clinician-scientist, researcher, and teacher at Wayne State University School of Medicine.

She earned her medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA, completed her internal medicine residency at Georgetown University Hospital, Washington, DC, and completed her medical oncology fellowship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD.

Paul Baptist Church, Montclair, New Jersey; with a focused ministry on congregational care and ministerial outreach.  In 2013 and 2015, for the CME Church Ninth Episcopal District Mid- Winter Councils, Mr. Backus lectured and led workshops on, estate planning and church giving.  From 2014-2016, Mr. Backus served as Assistant Dean for the Rutgers University higher education prison degree granting program in 9 prisons through-out New Jersey.

Adrian’s other experience includes serving as; general counsel for an information technology company and as, a U.S. Department of State diplomatic escort officer and country director in Rwanda and Senegal Africa, for Africare. Adrian is married for 41 years, to Abiola. Their children and grandchildren include, his daughter, Sikira, husband Sidiki; two grandsons, Cody and Maddox, and one grand daughter, Jocelyn Eliana; his son, Joel and grandson Jeremiah, and his daughter, Adria Joi.