Our Leadership
The Rev'd John Goodman II
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John is our lead church planter. In 2018, he began discerning a call to gather a diverse group of people into an intentional community. That led to Christ Church RGV, a multigenerational, multicultural community centered on meeting Christ in His word, sacrament, and service to one another and the wider community.
A native of Western Pennsylvania, John was a nuclear reactor operator in the U.S. Navy, serving in Charleston and Pearl Harbor. He came to the valley as a Teach For America corps member and taught English, social studies, and special education for four years. John is an ordained deacon in the Diocese of the Western Gulf Coast (ACNA), with seven years of public ministry experience in Pennsylvania, Hong Kong, and both sides of the US-Mexico border in South Texas. He holds a B.A. in political science from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, his M.A. in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and is a J.D. candidate at the University of Texas School of Law. He finds joy in traveling, composing music, and networking people together to get stuff done. For those interested in reading a sample of Deacon John's theological work, you can find a short paper below, written at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In it, he explores a potential role for the global Church in public health as we look to move beyond Coronavirus. 
In this unpublished paper, Deacon John argued in March 2020 that the global health crisis provides the Church with an opportunity to reevaluate her theology and missiology. The paper discusses 1) the Christological underpinnings of healing in the Kingdom of God, 2) several historical eras in which the Church has explored the meaning of living out her charge to the sick, and 3) contextualizes the modern COVID-19 pandemic within Luther’s pastoral theology and the practical reality of 21st century medicine. Deacon John concludes by proposing a new paradigm for understanding an evolving role of the Church in public health to include a framework for intentional cooperation among theologians, ministers, medical practitioners, and civil authorities, as well as the possibility of establishing a formal ecclesial office into which theologically trained medical practitioners are ordained (on par with bishops, priests, and deacons), grounded in an historical reasoning of what Paul might have intended by proistamenoi (Rom. 12:8) had he been writing in a 21st century context..
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Diocesan Leadership
Bishop:
The Rt. Rev'd Clark WP Lowenfield,
Diocese of the Western Gulf Coast
See below for Bishop Clark's latest pastoral letter.
The Rt. Rev'd Clark WP Lowenfield,
Diocese of the Western Gulf Coast
See below for Bishop Clark's latest pastoral letter.
