Dr. J. Kie Bowman has served as Senior Pastor since joining the Hyde Park Baptist Church staff in 1997. In this position, he serves as the pastoral leader of all ministries of the church.
Born in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1956, Dr. Bowman accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior at the age of 14, recommitting his life at the age of 19. Dr. Bowman holds a Doctor of Ministry degree in New Testament Interpretation from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, where he also received the Master of Divinity degree. He received the Bachelor of Arts in Religion from the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Kentucky.
In 1981, he and his wife, Tina, married. They have three children: Amanda Bowman McArthur, who works in advertising in New York City where her husband Stephen graduated from Columbia University Law School and works as an attorney; Laura, who currently attends the University of Texas at Austin, and Joseph, who is a University freshman.
Personal Testimony:
I received Christ at First Baptist Church of Fairbanks, Alaska as a teenager. At the same time the Jesus Movement broke out among the hippies at my school and I watched students transformed from the drug culture to the “Jesus Freaks” of the early 1970’s. Before long however, I rebelled against my commitment to Christ and lived as if God were not a part of my life. Yet, during that time of rebellion, I could not ignore two things. First, the consistent witness of my Christian parents and their obvious happiness in life which was a huge witness to me. Second, those born again hippies from the Jesus Movement impressed me because of their bold evangelistic witness in our school, their commitment to prayer and Bible study, and their joy in the Lord. When I was 19, the Holy Spirit began to convict me of my sin and while sitting in a room full of unsaved friends, unnoticed by anyone, I prayerfully recommitted my life to Christ. In that instant, God transformed my life and I have never looked back, and I have never been the same.