It’s nice to meet you.
Dr. Jay Madden
Atlanta, Georgia
Jay grew up in South Carolina where he attended Furman University. After serving in the Army, he returned home to the business world. He said no to a blind date, but soon met Rebecca anyway at a Mexican restaurant, of all places.
He spent twelve years owning and operating a number of businesses. Jay sensed that God was calling him to serve the Church. He joined the staff of First Presbyterian Church in Greenville, SC as Evangelism Director before making the move to Chicago in 2003. While there, he served as an Area Pastor at Willow Creek Community Church. In this role, he was responsible for pastoral leadership and engaging the church in compassion and justice. He earned a Master of Divinity degree from Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, MN during that time.
In 2009, Jay began a role at Peachtree Church in Atlanta as Pastor for Mission where he is responsible for both local and global mission partnerships and serves on the leadership team. During his tenure, he completed his Doctor of Missiology degree from Fuller Seminary which focused on mutual transformation through mission. And in 2022, he began serving as the church’s Executive Pastor.
He is passionate about encouraging people to participate in God’s Mission and be transformed by their experiences. His other passions are quality time and traveling with his wife Rebecca, daughter Neale, and son William, Clemson football, and spending time in the great outdoors with his Labrador Retriever, Ranger.
Brainstorming Session - October 2020
The story behind the book.
For the last decade, Rebecca has felt a tug at her heart to write a book about God’s presence in the life of her family. Along the way, that idea was confirmed by friends and strangers as they encouraged her to share the stories that they had heard or witnessed.
In 2020, Rebecca was visiting her 97-year-old mother, and she read to her some of the initial chapters that she had written. During one of those reading sessions, her mother asked if Jay was writing his stories. Rebecca told her that he wasn’t, and she strongly suggested that he should. Jay was taken aback by this idea. He was very hesitant to begin writing again having recently finished his doctoral dissertation. After much back and forth discussion with Rebecca, Jay decided to join the effort. In October 2020, they began the writing journey with a brainstorming session where they outlined 14 chapters for the book and assigned writing responsibilities. Shortly after, they launched this website as a place to begin to share stories, devotionals and details about their book writing progress.
Their desire is to share stories of how they experienced God’s presence, movement and direction in their lives through circumstances, people, miracles, scripture, relationships, books, nature, prayer, journaling, and His still small voice. Their hope and prayer is that their words will inspire you to experience God’s extraordinary presence in your life.
In October 2022, Jay and Rebecca’s book, Breathless Haste: Finding God in Ordinary Life, was accepted to be published by hope*books. And in December 2023, the book was launched into the world!
Rebecca grew up on a farm in SC with three sisters, then attended Clemson University. She landed her first job in Greenville where she met her husband, Jay. After their marriage, they began to dream of starting a family and felt the need to find a church home. Their church family sustained them through their loss of their firstborn son and miraculous birth of their daughter and second son.
As Jay felt God’s call on his life, they moved with their two young children to Chicago to be a part of Willow Creek Community Church. While there, Rebecca had the joy of working for several years on the development and rollout of Listen to My Life to help people engage their life story— past, present and future.
In 2009, the Maddens moved to Atlanta for Jay’s next role as a pastor at Peachtree Church while Rebecca had the opportunity to be a part of a spiritual formation cohort with Renovaré. Soon thereafter, Rebecca was asked to join the staff of Peachtree as well. She currently serves as the Women’s Ministry Director. In addition to her passion for community & spiritual growth, she is most passionate about loving her husband and their two young-adult children, Neale & William.
Rebecca Madden
Atlanta, Georgia