Bishop Carl H. McRae is the youngest of seven sons of Milbern and Thelma McRae. He also has five sisters. He is a graduate of Fort Valley State University (FVSU), Class of 1981, with a B.A. Degree in Criminal Justice and English. Carl returned to FVSU and received a Masters of Science in Rehabilitation Counseling. He recently completed the course requirements for a Masters of Divinity from the Gammon Theological Seminary at the Interdenominational Theological Center.

For many years Pastor McRae worked in the field of rehabilitation for the State of Georgia. He was appointed the first Statewide Program Director for Traumatic Brain Injury and developed a comprehensive system for providing vocation rehabilitation services to survivors of brain injury. This program became a national model for other states. From there he was promoted to the director’s office overseeing the Rehabilitation Cultural Diversity Initiatives, an internal ombudsman program and reconciled constituency concerns.

He left the field of rehabilitation to become the Executive Director of the Governor’s Office of Small and Minority Business under the Zell Miller Administration. After a brief stint as State Director of the NAACP’s Community Development Resource Centers, Carl returned to state government as the Executive Director of the Georgia Business Enterprise Program, later becoming the first African American male to serve as Director of the state’s Vocational Rehabilitation Program.

Simultaneous to his secular career, Carl also embraced his call to ministry. It was while running the Traumatic Brain Injury programs for the State of Georgia that God began to deal him in a very powerful ways. His first response to the call of God was to start an alcohol and drug ministry through Kelly’s Chapel United Methodist Church in Decatur, Georgia. Eventually, he could no longer resist the call to preach the gospel. He began his studies at Gammon Theological Seminary at the Interdenominational Theological Center while serving as a minister at Kelly’s Chapel United Methodist church, he began running towards his calling with the same fervor with which he had run from God.

During his second year at seminary, he was appointed the Senior Pastor of County Line United Methodist Church where he served for over six years. This ministry grew significantly under his anointed leadership. Even though he had grown up in a Methodist church named after his great-grandmother and now pasturing in the same denomination, Carl began to feel that this thing we call church was devolving into some sort of ‘bless me’ club that had lost her desire to meaningfully minister to the downtrodden, hurt or broken.

During his critical look at the state of western Christianity, Carl surmised that this “thing” we call church is rapidly degenerating into a harlotrous extension of humanity where maintaining status quo is the order of the day. He was convinced that the Body of Christ had an insatiable appetite for worship, praise fund raising, and the things of God, but they had little stomach for meaningful engaging ministry of reconciliation, transformation and deliverance where we witness addicts rising up to become preachers and prostitutes, evangelists, and the people of God.

Exousia would not be about maintaining things as they’ve always been, rather it would be about true ministry in a troubled world. They realized that the same God that called them into the boat of organized ‘churchanity’ was the same God who now called them out! They found it ironic that the denomination they were leaving was founded by a former Anglican Priest who had become disquieted in status quo and was lead by God to give rise to Methodism.

They started Exousia Lighthouse International Christian Ministries in the basement of their home on November 16, 2003. God has honored their boldness. In May of 2009 Pastor Carl McRae was consecrated to become our Bishop Elect. What began as a small group meeting in the basement of the Pastors’ home on Harvest Drive in Conyers, now worships at 10:00 a.m. at their own church home located at 2562 Bond Street, in the heart of Lithonia, GA.