Meet the Pastors
andy gray
Andy Gray was an electrical engineer before he became a pastor at Evergreen Community Church-Bloomington in 1997. As a pastor his primary responsibilities in serving God include leading, teaching, discipleship, and shepherding. Since 1999 Andy has lead, the annual summer events of Mission to the City. He breaks down typical social, economic, and racial barriers through his compassion, genuine kindness, and heart for all of God’s people and nations. Andy co-founded and pastors the Urban Refuge in Minneapolis, which opened its doors in January 2003.
As pastor, Andy desires to see God continually grow the Urban Refuge into a multi-cultural and multi-generational congregation that develops relationships and partnerships with other multi-cultural churches for God’s glory. Andy has been married to his wife, Laura, since 1992 and is a father of three children: Isaiah, Simon, and Elizabeth.
chad oltman
Chad Oltman is most often characterized as an artist which may be a nice way of saying that, at times, he can be a bit odd.
In the early 90’s Chad decided to go look for the meaning of life by traveling across Europe with nothing but his backpack and a guitar. After looking into numerous things throughout Europe, he ended up staying at a Christian Youth Hostile in the heart of the red light district of Amsterdam. There he witnessed Christian missionaries authentically loving the people that nobody else seemed to care about. Chad was moved by this experience but still skeptical that he had found what he was looking for. After returning home from his journey there was nagging in his soul that wouldn’t go away.
A couple years after that experience Chad received a flier to attend Evergreen Community Church in the mail. The nagging returned with a vengeance. Following the pull, he attended the service that next Sunday and that’s when everything changed. While listening to the message he realized that Jesus Christ is the true meaning of life. He put his faith in Yeshua (Jesus) and he entered into the upside kingdom where the greatest will be the servants.
A couple of weeks later, he felt a distinct calling to be a pastor and he began pursuing the character qualities of that title… 15 years later that calling came to be. God has done amazing things and has molded Chad into the man that he is today. Chad got married in 1997 and has been heard to say “I won the lottery of life when I married Carol”. He’s been blessed to have three children whose names are Cayden, Cora and Cohen. He believes parenting may be the best seminary training of all.
In 2006 he felt called to learn about Jesus in His context. He traveled to Israel 3 times following that leading which has ignited a passion for the Word and its many treasures. God has grown Chad in ministry by allowing him to be a part of planting two churches in the Minneapolis area: The Rock and The Urban Refuge. In 2003 Chad was brought on full time as a music director. In 2007 he began speaking on a regular basis and in January 2009 he was raised up as a Pastor.
As a pastor, Chad’s main responsibilities include: Teaching, worship director, counseling and overseeing the Kids Against Hunger program which was started in March 2008. Chad has deep passion for serving Christ by being a part of reweaving what has been unwoven in the world.
