St Louis – March 6, 2010

The United Pentecostal Church International inaugurated the Reverend Doctor David K. Bernard as general superintendent of the 3-million-member organization Friday evening. The ministers of the organization selected Reverend Bernard at their 85th annual General Conference held in St Louis last October.

The inauguration service was held at The Sanctuary in Hazelwood, Missouri, with a reception that followed at New Life Center in Bridgeton, Missouri. There were five speakers: Reverend Rodney Shaw, Austin, Texas; Reverend Darrell Johns, Atlanta, Georgia; Reverend Ken Gurley, Pearland, Texas; Reverend Bernard’s father, Reverend Elton Bernard, Gonzales, Louisiana; and Reverend David K. Bernard gave his inaugural address.

David K. Bernard founded New Life United Pentecostal Church of Austin, Texas, out of which sixteen additional churches were started under his leadership. He is also the founding president of Urshan Graduate School of Theology. He earned a doctor of jurisprudence with honors from the University of Texas, a master of theology from the University of South Africa (where he is also completing his doctoral dissertation), and a bachelor of arts magna cum laude in mathematical sciences and managerial studies from Rice University. The author of thirty books with over seven hundred fifty thousand copies in print, he has been published in thirty-six languages and has ministered in forty-six countries on six continents. He and his wife, Connie, have three children—Daniel, Lindsey, Jonathan and his wife, Sara—and one grandson, Elijah.

The United Pentecostal Church International, headquartered in St Louis, has 30,000 churches in 192 nations around the world and a ministerial membership of 27,000. It was formed in 1945 from the merger of two previously established organizations. The UPCI emerged out of the Pentecostal movement that began in Topeka, Kansas, in 1901. It traces its organizational roots to October 1916, when a large group of ministers withdrew from the Assemblies of God over the doctrinal issues of the oneness of God and water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ. Reverend Bernard is the seventh general superintendent in the church organization’s history.