BIOGRAPHY Bishop J. Drew Sheard

J. Drew Sheard was born on January 1, 1959 to John Henry Sheard and Willie Mae Sheard in Detroit, Michigan. He was raised asa Pentecostal Christianin the Church of God in Christ with his younger brother, Ethan Blake Sheard, who is also a pastor in the COGIC denomination. Upon graduating high school, he attended the Wayne State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Education, and a Master of Education degree in Mathematics, and while balancing a career in Christian ministry as a clergyman, he also worked as a secondary school math teacher in the Detroit Public Schools District.

In 1984, he married Karen Clark Sheard, a Gospel singer and member of the famed Gospel vocal group, The Clark Sisters, who is also the daughter of the famed Gospel Choir director, Mattie Moss Clark, who served as one of the international music department presidents of the COGIC denomination. For several years, he helped Mattie Moss Clark manage the Clark Sisters' singing career throughout the 1980s until they parted their separate ways to endeavor on their own individual careers, and from then on became his wife Karen's personal music career manager.

Throughoutthe1980sand1990s,BishopSheardservedinvariouscapacitieswiththeCOGICdenomination under the tutelage of his father, Bishop John H. Sheard, including as a choir director, chairman of both local and state youth departments in the COGIC denomination, as a National Adjutant Overseer, and eventually as an Executive Secretary of the International Youth Department for the COGIC denomination. He also served in various civic capacities including Executive Director of the Michigan Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and as a board member of the Michigan Anti-Apartheid Council in 1988, he became the senior pastor of the Greater Emmanuel Institutional COGIC in Detroit, Michigan, which at first started out as a very small all-African American church parish in Detroit. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the church grew to become what is now one of the largest and fastest growing COGIC churches in the state of Michigan, and although it is still predominantly African American in membership, the church has also become a very widely multi-ethnic Pentecostal church as well in recent years.

In 2008, Sheard received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree, and in 2007 was inducted into the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers. In 2009, Sheard and his wife, Karen, founded Karew Records, a Detroit-based Christian music record label focusing on various forms of Gospel and Inspirational music.

In 1996, he was appointed by the late Presiding Bishop Chandler David Owens, as the International President of the Youth Department, He served from 1996 to 2000. In 2001, he was appointed by the late PresidingBishopGilbert Earl PattersonasViceChairmanoftheAuxiliariesinMinistry(AIM) Department. He served until 2004. In 2004, he was appointed as the Chairman of AIM by the late Presiding Bishop G.E. Patterson. He served until 2012, until he was succeeded by Bishop Linwood Dillard of Memphis, Tennessee. In 2009, he was ratified and approved by the COGIC General Assembly to become the jurisdictional bishop of the Michigan North Central Jurisdiction diocese of the Church of God in Christ. In 2012, he was elected to the General Board, the twelve bishops who serve as the Board of Directors of the church, where he served two four-year terms from 2012 to 2016, and 2016 to 2020 respectively.

The scheduled election for the denomination in 2020 was canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and was rescheduled as an all-virtual online election for March 2021, and on March 20, 2021, subsequently after being re-elected to the General Board of the church, the church had a run-off election between him and Bishop Jerry W. Macklin, of Hayward, California for the Office of Presiding Bishop. He defeated Bishop Macklin in the run-off election and became the Presiding Bishop of the Church of God in Christ worldwide, andthensubsequently appointed Bishop Macklin as his First Assistant Presiding Bishop, and Bishop Lawrence M. Wooten of St. Louis, Missouri as his Second Assistant Presiding Bishop. He was officially inaugurated and installed as the Presiding Bishop of the COGIC denomination on June 22, 2021.