Rev. Jack Phelps

Covenant Bible Church, PALMER, AK

Rev. Jack Phelps has been the Pastor of Covenant Bible Church since April, 1984. Originally licensed to preach the Gospel by Community Bible Church, Victorville, in 1973, he was ordained to the Christian ministry in August, 1984.

Pastor Phelps undertook his baccalaureate studies in geology at San Diego State College and Portland State University. He received his theological training at Multnomah School of the Bible, earning a ThB in 1978. While at Multnomah, he read extensively in the writings of B.B. Warfield, Charles Hodge, E.J. Young, Louis Berkhof, R.J. Rushdoony and other Reformed writers. This convinced him to leave dispensationalism and embrace covenant theology.

An Air Force veteran of the Vietnam war, Phelps has worked as a miner, a logger, a mechanic, a journalist, as professional staff for the Alaska State House of Representatives and the United States Senate and as an adviser to four Alaska governors. He has been married to Debra (nee Howell) since 1970. They have 5 children, 28 grandchildren, and six great grandchildren.

Pastor Phelps is the author of Baptism: Two Vital Questions (Seventh Trumpet Books, 1990), How Home Schooling Will Change America (Seventh Trumpet Books, 1994), Against Education Vouchers (Canon Press, 1994) and The Devil’s Diet (Kuyperian Press, 2023). His newest book, Preaching to Martians, is expected to be released in 2024. The Trumpet’s Call, a book of essays on social and political issues related to the Christian faith, is slated for release later in 2024. Phelps is also preparing commentaries on the Psalms of Asaph and First Corinthians 11-14.

In the autumn of 2008, Pastor Phelps was elected Presiding Minister of the CREC Council. He served a three-year term and was reelected in 2011 to a second term, which ended in October, 2014. From September, 2015, until September, 2018, he was Presiding Minister of Anselm Presbytery. Phelps was one of the founders of the Joint Eastern European Project (JEEP), and currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee.

Elder Jerry Allsup

Covenant Bible Church, PaLMER, AK

Gerald Allsup has been a member of CBC since 1991 and was ordained by the Session of Covenant Bible Church in August, 2009. Gerald moved to Alaska when he was sixteen. He is the owner of Dominion Propeller Corporation, a company which has been servicing and selling aircraft propellers for Alaska’s aviation industry for more than thirty years. Gerald married his wife Melissa in 1983 and they have 9 children (six girls and three boys). He and Melissa have home-schooled all their children, 5 of whom have graduated. Gerald served as a board member of Alaska Private and Home Educators Association from 1995 to 2000 and was President from 1998 to 2000.

Though Gerald has not graduated from a Bible College or Seminary, he has read and studied the works of John Calvin, Cornelius Van Til, R. J. Rushdoony, Francis Schaeffer, Greg Bahnsen, Jay Adams, Gary North, Benjamin B. Warfield, Herman Bavinck, Charles Spurgeon, Alfred Edersheim, and other theologians. He enjoys studying the Scriptures.