Gordon Zwirkoski’s passion is building life-giving local churches that make, baptize and teach disciples of Jesus Christ. He is devoted to helping pastors and elders in their work of shepherding.
Before founding FiveStone Churches early in 2010, he invested 20 years at Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows, Ill., as a small group leader, deacon, teacher and elder.
Gordon left a corporate career in 2001 to co-found Harvest Bible Fellowship. For the next eight years at the Fellowship, Gordon served as an elder and teacher for 35 church plants and church renewals in the U.S. and in Canada. He wrote the Harvest Church Plant Manual. He has created and implemented systems for pastor and elder assessment and development as well as tools for church ministry assessment.
Gordon and his wife, Joyce, initiated Elders Training Retreats for elders and their wives. They’ve led more than 50 couples through this biblical, practical training program.
Gordon created, organized and shepherded the Residency Program for new Harvest Bible Chapel senior pastors. He also served as a weekly teacher of senior pastors in residency in the Harvest Training Center for Church Planting.
In 2004, he initiated and developed Harvest University, an annual church leadership conference. The conference grew from its initial start of 30 attending in 2004 to more than 600 at Harvest University 2009. Each year at that conference, he led the Elder Topics track, which focused on building elders in the practical shepherding of the local church. Gordon used role plays and case studies to challenge elders to look at their work through the grid of the Scriptures.
He and Joyce have four grown children—Jason, Matthew, Rachel and Sarah . . . and Gordon loves his family. He enjoys motorcycling, camping, landscaping, reading and hanging out with family and friends. He has a bachelor's degree from Western Illniois University and a master's degree from the University of Illinois at Springfield. He's closing in on completing a master's degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill.
Brian Jones is the senior pastor of Calvary Bible Church in Ypsilanti, Mich. Brian delights in studying the Scriptures and helping people understand and apply them to their lives.
He began serving as assistant pastor at Calvary in 2007 and became senior pastor early in 2010.
Prior to coming to Calvary, Brian was teaching pastor at Wellspring Chapel—now Harvest Bible Chapel—in DeKalb, Ill. He previously had served as a senior pastor, interim pastor and a seminary staff member in other ministries. He has taught courses on both the college and seminary levels.
Brian has a doctor of ministry degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he studied preaching under Haddon Robinson. He has master of divinity and master of theology degrees from Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary.
Brian is married to Suzanne, a General Surgeon at Chelsea Community Hospital in Michigan. They have three children—Jeffrey, Hanna and Daniel. Brians enjoys NFL football, especially the Detroit Lions, and likes to travel, read and jog.
You can learn more about Brian and contact him through his website: http://brianjones.org, or you can follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jonesay
Joe Loss is a gifted evangelist and Bible teacher, and serves as an elder at Crossroads Community Church in Carol Stream, Ill. He and and his wife, Heather, have three children—Joey, Carly and Luke.
Joe is a senior managing partner of the Loss & Pavone law firm. He has extensive background in litigation before the Circuit Courts of Cook and DuPage Counties and before the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission. Joe is a member of several boards of directors, including the Katie School of Insurance at Illinois State University and the Illinois State University Foundation Board. Joe is a member of DuPage County Bar Association and is a past adjunct professor of law at Illinois State University.
He has been admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court and is a former sports agent for National Hockey League players involved in contract negotiations and arbitration hearings.
Joe has a bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University and a degree from Northern Illinois University College of Law.