COGIC Bishop and WHC Director to Speak at 2025 WBS Commencement

Wesley Biblical Seminary is pleased to announce that our 2025 Commencement speaker will be Bishop John Mark Richardson, Sr., Jurisdictional Prelate of the California New Journey Jurisdiction of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and Executive Director of the Wesleyan Holiness Connection (WHC).

Bishop Richardson was born and raised in COGIC and is a third-generation pastor, having parents and grandparents who served as Superintendents in the denomination. In 1988, he followed his father as Pastor of Bethel COGIC in Los Angeles, California. In 1992, he planted the New Journey Church in Hawthorne, CA, which started with Bishop Richardson and his family and grew to over 1,000 members in fifteen years. Bishop Richardson and his wife, Renita, founded the New Journey Christian School from Preschool through 12th grade. New Journey Church operates a Camp and Christian Retreat Center in Wrightwood, CA, and a low-income Housing Development Organization. Bishop Richardson has started and supported 32 new church plants in the U.S. and internationally.

In 2015, Bishop Richardson started a District of Churches focused on unaligned and independent COGIC congregations, bringing them into full fellowship with COGIC. Richardson was consecrated as bishop of this newly formed “California New Journey” Jurisdiction in 2016, which now includes 70+ churches encompassing California, Arizona, Oregon, and Nevada. He is a member of the Senior Advisory Board to the COGIC Presiding Bishop and the Regional Bishop of Southern California overseeing 24 bishops.

Richardson has the distinction of having served two denominations simultaneously, serving as a pastor in the Church of God in Christ and the Free Methodist Church USA (FMC) from 1993 to 2003. He assisted the FMC with leadership development and church planting in urban communities.  Bishop Richardson founded the Free Methodist African American Pastors and Leaders Network, which is now called the African Heritage Network.

In 2022, Bishop Richardson was selected as the Executive Director of the WHC, a global relational network of denominations, colleges, churches, organizations, a Christian Credit Union, a publishing company, and leaders committed to bringing God’s holiness into full and transforming engagement with today’s culture. He has helped the WHC become the premier Holiness relational network with a global imprint and has worked to train and develop leaders for its Regional Networks.

Bishop Richardson has been a friend of Wesley Biblical Seminary, having recently participated in the inauguration of President Andy Miller III. “We are thrilled to have Bishop John Mark Richardson speak at our Commencement ceremonies,” said Miller. “He is not only a great leader, pastor, and preacher of the gospel, he also embodies the values that WBS aspires to, in his dedication to Scriptural holiness and his tireless work to connect Wesleyans and raise up a new generation of church leaders dedicated to spreading that holiness across the lands.”

WBS Commencement ceremonies will take place at 9 a.m. Central on Saturday, May 3, 2025, at Madison Methodist Church in Madison, Mississippi. The ceremony will also be live-streamed on the seminary’s YouTube channel.