Jennifer Carner
Jennifer Carner was born in 1983 to Pastor J.W. Carner and Brenda Carner. She
served in ministry with her father for several years. Under his leadership, she was
licensed to preach and bring authentic transformation to the Kingdom and the world in
August of 2000. She was later ordained at Greater Travelers Rest Baptist Church, in
2008. Jennifer has served as the first female Executive/Lead Pastor of The Greater
Travelers Rest Baptist Church in Decatur, GA, where Dr. E. Dewey Smith, Jr. is the
Senior Pastor. She currently gives leadership to their Membership Care Department and
daily ministry operations. In addition, she provides preaching and teaching support to
the Senior Pastor.
Jennifer has a passion for Theology and higher learning. She has earned a Master
of Divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta,
GA, and currently, she is completing the requirements for her PhD. in
African-American Preaching and Sacred Rhetoric at Christian Theological Seminary in
Indianapolis, IN. Pastor Carner has worked as an adjunct theology professor for Barry
University’s ACE program in Tampa, FL for several years teaching Theology, World
Religions, and Epistemology.
She recently published her first book in 2019 entitled, 31 Days of Winning, a
Devotional Journal. She describes her first published work in this way. “Preachers,
influencers, and creatives are human. They are people just like everyone else. Faith and
spirituality do not exempt us from heartbreak. 31 Days of Winning is a compilation of
the words that helped me conjure the will to show up in my own life. It is my prayer
that these words will help others the way that they helped me.”
Jennifer seeks to encourage everyone around her. She continues to live out the
words of the first song she learned to sing, “I’m just a nobody trying to tell everybody
about somebody who can save anybody.”