RON ZAPPIA

Lead Pastor

After spending 7 years in the business world, Pastor Ron and his wife, Jody, felt called to plant a church. He quit his job, went to seminary, and in the year 2000, stepped out in faith with Jody and a handful of people to plant Highpoint Church. What started as a small gathering of people in a high school auditorium has grown to be a multi-site church reaching thousands in the western suburbs of Chicago. Pastor Ron has since raised up and sent out church planters to plant vertically oriented, gospel-centered churches around the country.

Highpoint Ministries, the teaching ministry of Pastor Ron, was launched in 2013 to provide comprehensive teaching from God’s Word through weekly and daily radio broadcasts, conferences, and resources. Highpoint Ministries currently airs on over 400 stations around the United States.

Pastor Ron is a graduate of Bowling Green State University and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. He and his wife Jody live in Wheaton, IL and have three daughters Allie, Erin, and Emily.

ED STETZER

Teaching Pastor

Ed Stetzer, Ph.D., holds the Billy Graham Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College and serves as Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism. He has planted, revitalized, and pastored churches, trained pastors and church planters on six continents, holds two masters degrees and two doctorates, and has written dozens of articles and books.

Stetzer is a contributing editor for Christianity Today, a columnist for Outreach Magazine, and is frequently cited or interviewed in news outlets such as USAToday and CNN. He is the Executive Editor of The Gospel Project, a curriculum used by more than one million individuals each week. Stetzer is also Executive Editor of Facts & Trends Magazine, a Christian leadership magazine with a circulation of more than 70,000 readers.