Johnny Carr

Find out more about Johnny at OrphanJustice.com or follow him at twitter @johnwcarr. Feel free to email Johnny at info@orphanjustice.com.

For 14 years, Pastor Johnny Carr was a full-time minister who served several different churches ranging in size from 100 to 1,700 weekly attendees. Before coming to Bethany Christian Services, Johnny was the Pastor of Ministry and Leadership Development at Hillcrest Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. While at Hillcrest, he led the church in establishing its first orphan care and adoption ministry, which sponsored mission trips and other events to encourage involvement from the congregation. Many children have been adopted in by church members as a result of this ministry.

Johnny married Beth, a deaf educator, in March 1993. The couple now has five children: Heather, Jared, James, Xiaoli, and Jerrell. James and Xiaoli were both adopted from China and are deaf. Jerrell (also deaf and a medically complex child) was adopted by the Carr's through the foster system. It was during the adoption of James that God began speaking to the Carrs about committing their lives to orphan care. In 2007 Johnny left the full-time church ministry to become Bethany's first National Director of Church Partnerships.

Johnny is a conference speaker and orphan care advocate to denominations, national religious associations and conferences including Saddleback Church, Catalyst Conference, The Idea Camp, Q, and others. He is also author of Orphan Justice that challenges churches to rethink how they have handled social justice issues directly related to orphan care.

Johnny understands the complexities of ministry and the demands of being a pastor, as well as a pastor's role in empowering and motivating the laity to do the good works of the Gospel. He believes that the Church must take the lead in the world's orphan crisis. His goal is to inspire the Church to truly understand and obey James 1:27, which calls believers to care for orphans.