On their first date, Shannon Jennings informed her future husband: “The Lord has called me to be a minister’s wife.”
They met while playing in the Western Region band at Furman University when they were sophomores in high school. They lost touch after six months but were reunited by a mutual friend while she was a student at Clemson University and he was attending North Greenville University. That was 1996. They were married on May 30, 1998.
After that first date, Josh, who served on the staff at McCall Royal Ambassador Camp from 1994-1997, told his roommate, “I have just gone out with my wife.”
Today, the couple and their three children — Caleb (11), Eli (9) and Anna Grace (7) — are preparing to plant a church in Sedona, Ariz., a place Josh calls “one of the major New Age strongholds in the world.” They plan to be settled into their new home in Sedona by June.
Josh and Shannon Jennings on their wedding day in 1998.
In their journey together, they agree that the “best thing for our marriage was when we moved to Louisville to attend Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.” During their time at Southern, they forged friendships that continue today and discovered there was “no going back to Mom and Dad if things were tense.”
As they plan to make the transition to a new and challenging culture, they carry with them some practices that have helped them maintain a good marriage, like family nights on Fridays and a weekly date night. “Planting in Sedona affords us a unique opportunity to show our children the significance of missional living,” Josh said. “Our desire is that as they grow up they will have no question that their parents are committed to the Lord’s calling on our lives.”
Jennings has served as a pastor for 12 years in Kentucky and South Carolina. He said the move to Sedona is different from any previous move they have made as a family. “Like no other move we have made in ministry, each of our children has a unique and personal sense of the Lord’s calling to Sedona,” he emphasized.
When Jim Goodroe, director of missions for Spartanburg County Baptist Network, discovered Josh’s interest in planting a church in Sedona, he contacted the Arizona Baptist Convention and the director of missions for the association that includes Sedona. “I got to know Josh pretty well during monthly meetings of our ‘Thrive’ group,” Goodroe said. “Shannon has a passion for Vacation Bible School and helped coordinate our associational VBS. They seem to be very close and have a positive relationship.”
Shannon says God impressed on her heart a verse that has been a source of encouragement for the couple as they prepare for life in Sedona, Isaiah 58:11: “The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”
Josh and Shannon Jennings’ journey together began with her disclosure that she had been called to be a minister’s wife and his sharing with his roommate, after their first date, that he has just been out with his wife. Now that journey leads the family of five to a place that has very little gospel influence. Their mission, he says, is to “plant a Christ-centered, gospel-driven church by diligently and intentionally making and multiplying disciples for the Lord Jesus Christ.”