For more than 10 years, Pastor Mark Byrd put his call to be a church leader on the back burner, feeling God wanted him to wait. Instead he worked in the corporate world for Colgate-Palmolive as a sales representative while doing ministry outreach on the side and waiting patiently for the Lord to reveal His timing.
In 1986 Mark and his wife, Donna, moved to Atlanta from Macon, GA. A friend invited them to attend a church that had just started with five families, and did not yet have a pastor, called “Calvary Chapel.” That night they unexpectedly asked him to be their pastor. After teaching for a couple of months, the Byrd’s decided that this was where they needed to be and in January 1987, they started regular Calvary Chapel Gwinnett services on Sunday mornings in Lawrenceville.
Pastor Mark and Donna, along with their four children Jeremiah, Grace, Rachel and Hannah, reside in Talmo, Georgia.