Leadership
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Joanna Cruz
I was born and raised in the Philippines where I was the oldest among four siblings. My mom exposed us to the Catholic Church's teachings while my dad expressed freedom of choosing your own belief.
The story of how I came to know the Lord is all about God's grace and Him patiently waiting. At seven, I attended a Baptist church and heard about Jesus and in my childish ways I fell in love with fun activities in the church but not in Him. After some unfortunate events, I stopped attending and lived a life of pursuing other things but Him. At 23, I migrated to Los Angeles to marry Robert whom at that time attended Faith Calvary Baptist Church. A few days before our wedding day, I accepted the Lord but mostly in fear of going to hell. In my new found belief, I started serving the Lord and His ministries. A few years later, the Lord called us to serve Him through the Foster Care and Adoption System; this season of my life opened my heart and my eyes to a deeper understanding of where I stand with the Lord. This made me understand how much I'm scandalously loved by Him. Becoming a foster parent, I realized how much it must have hurt God to give up his Son but then again because of His love for us.
It was 2011 when we decided to join Antioch. Since then the Lord has been teaching me so many things about Him and about myself through his body of believers, marriage, parenting and life. In every stage and season I'm at, the Lord has been faithfully revealing to me how merciful and gracious He is. I'm excited to see what His plans are for Antioch and for the city.
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Braven Greenelsh
Braven serves on the leadership team at Antioch City Church and is the CoFounder and CSO at AMP Los Angeles, a non-profit creative arts-based group mentor program. It’s mission: to transform the city by affording at-risk urban families with programs to help build social skills, foster better education in the arts, and access professional industry opportunities in the city.
Throughout his career, Braven has been afforded the privilege of working with brands like FOX, Sony Pictures, Discovery Channel, Toyota, Lincoln Motor Company, Omnicom, Intuit, Yahoo!, and WME | IMG.
Braven's passion is leveraging his business in the private sector for the Kingdom!
With over two decades of experience in design and the design of business, Braven has started several endeavors and continues to seek new ways of bringing the light of the knowledge of the glory of Jesus to the face of business.
On the home front, he has been happily married to his wife Anne for over 12 years and enjoys spending his time away from the desk surfing, snowboarding, playing basketball and golf with his four kids, Luka, Zara, Asha and Jaiah.
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Ki-Lee Pupchik
I was born in Seoul, South Korea, and was adopted at 6 months. I grew up in New Jersey in a Christian home, and prayed a prayer of salvation at 6. I struggled growing up with identity, loss, and guilt issues, mainly due to not understanding where I came from or why I was here. I grew up in a multi-cultural environment, which I am extremely grateful for. My parents separated when I was 10-11 and I rebelled in middle, high school and college, but am grateful for God's unending grace.
In 2014 I moved to LA and became a part of Antioch. I was drawn by the sense of family and the willingness of other guys to disciple and invest in my life. The fact that Antioch stressed racial reconciliation, adoption, multiculturalism, and grace was very important to me. I am amazed at God's daily forgiveness and grace through His Gospel, and His faithfulness throughout my life as evident in Phil 1:6- "And I am sure of this that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
I am love being a member of Antioch as a servant leader and to work with LAUSD as an 8th grade teacher. I am beyond blessed to be happily married to Missy (1 John 4:19) and a father to John Immanuel!
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Parvati Greenelesh
Parvati, was born in Guyana, South America to a Hindu family and grew up in Jamaica after her father moved the family there in search of a better life. When she was eleven years old, she and her two younger sisters returned to Guyana and it was during this trip that she attended church for the first time and accepted the call to receive Christ as the one true God and as her Savior.
She has a strong passion to see women and girls come to know Christ and have their lives transformed by the good news of His gospel. She also loves writing and music. After spending time in the private sector doing Research & Development and Project Management, in 2008 she graduated from Biola University, Los Angeles with a major in Organizational Leadership.
Parvati began attending Antioch in 2011 where she has been given the privilege to grow with many godly women and serve alongside them in ministering to the community in Highland Park. Her highest hopes are to see women in the area provided the privilege of accessing sound biblical teaching and vocational training so that they may be empowered as members of the community. She is married to her best friend Braven Greenelsh and has three children, Luka (11), Zara (8), Asha (6) and Jaiah (1).
Contact her at: parvati@antiochhp.com
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Robert Cruz
Robert was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. He moved to L.A. as a teen and became involved in a Filipino gang downtown. He continued living a defiant lifestyle, moving back and forth from L.A. to Manila. After eight years of wandering through life he moved back to L.A. to marry the love of his life Joanna. This is when God grabbed ahold of his heart. He has been following the Lord ever since studying His word, serving in the local church, and telling people about Jesus. Robert loves seeing people understand who God is and begin to follow Him. He also loves the Lakers. He met Josh in 2010 and found out that he's planting a church in his own neighborhood. He knew right away that God crossed their paths for a reason and after much prayer and deliberation, Robert & Joanna joined Antioch.
Contact him at: robert@antiochhp.com
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Jeannette Martinez
Jeannette was born and raised in Los Angeles. She comes from a Latin family that was “culturally catholic”, as she likes to call them. Her and her older sister went to a catholic elementary school and followed all of the catholic traditions, but was never introduced to God. When the family moved to the Downtown/Silverlake area of Los Angeles, the family underwent some very difficult times as they lost the baby of the family, at 3 years of age, to leukemia. This changed the course of all of their lives… however, through the years, unbeknownst to them, God kept them together, because He had a greater plan…
As she got older, Jeannette started to feel a desire for something/someone greater than herself. She believed in God but didn’t have a relationship with Him and didn’t know that she could. Her search went on for many years, she read books on other religions and beliefs and decided she was just going to be “spiritual” not “religious”. But that didn’t last for long, she found herself attending Catholic mass in the hopes of hearing or receiving what she was missing but couldn’t quite put her finger on. Sunday morning mass was the closest she was getting but it wasn’t enough. Her older sister came to the Lord first and ultimately God used their closeness and love to bring Jeannette to Him. Jeannette attended service one day at the church her sister was attending and felt like God was waiting for her, right there, in that theater building. She was saved the following Sunday!
Jeannette came to Antioch through a coworker & friend 3 years after being saved! She later found out that that friend and other members of Antioch Church had been praying for her salvation years before as well as her sister and her sister’s in-laws had been. Now she is part of the Leadership team serving as a Deacon and works full-time as a Medical Interpreter at our very own Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. God continues to work in her life and on her heart.
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Missy Mapue Pupchik
Missy grew up in the Philippines with a close-knit, loving, Catholic family. Despite being in church almost every Sunday, her faith was all based on tradition and her relationship with the Lord was practically non-existent.
In 2008, her family immigrated to the US to start a new life. To her dismay, in the same year her parents separated due to unforeseen events. But God in his wisdom and mercy, used something that may seem tragic to bring her to faith and knowledge of the one true God. Through her local church in the Bay Area, she grew in faith and served in their youth ministry.
By God's grace her parents reconciled and in 2012 she decided to live with them in Los Angeles. It was difficult leaving her first church but she knew God would provide a new family of believers in LA. In the following year, God answered that prayer through Antioch City Church.
Through the humble, wise and God-centered leadership of Antioch, Missy gained a fuller understanding of the Gospel and fell more in love with Jesus. She started working on staff for Antioch in 2015 and currently serves as Operations Director, while also as a co-founder and board member for the non-profit PAX. She lives in NELA with her loving husband Ki & sweet baby boy John.
Her prayer is to see the local church equipped with God's Word, humbled by his Spirit, using their gifts to build up one another and serve the community.
Contact her at: missy@antiochhp.com
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Will Quay
Will was born in New York and grew up in Cincinnati from his early childhood up to his college years. He is a “happa” that has been deeply formed by his loving and biracial parents (Caucasian and Korean) as well as two brothers (one being his twin brother). While initially attending a Presbyterian church out of routine and family tradition, he began to wrestle with existential questions related to meaning, purpose, and death as he entered into high school. At the age of 15, he attended a Young Life camp where he heard the gospel and shortly after began a relationship with Jesus Christ. He continued serving in Young Life as a youth leader alongside close friends and mentors that provided discipleship until the end of college.
Passionate about “business as ministry,” particular to serve those in poverty, he served as an inner-city missionary and spent four years working with non-profit organizations serving the needs of homeless individuals and families in Los Angeles. He has since worked for World Vision International in various capacities: living in India conducting HIV/AIDS program research with children, audit/consulting, and now with the Global Faith and Development department.
Will holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Business Finance from Miami University and an M.A. in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary. Since 2012, he has been a part of the core planting team at Antioch City Church and is deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve Christ and His church as a deacon.