The Jerry Rushford Papers

Jerry Bryant Rushford, son of Jim and Wanda Rushford, was born in Arkansas on December 11, 1942. He moved to Detroit, Michigan when he was four years old and attended public schools there until his junior year in high school. Jerry completed high school and one year of college at Great Lakes Christian High School and College across the border in Beamsville, Ontario, Canada. For his sophomore year, Jerry transferred to Michigan Christian College (MCC), now Rochester College, and completed his AA degree. Next, he enrolled at Oklahoma Christian University and completed his bachelor’s degree, majoring in both Bible and history, two disciplines that would define his life. Jerry pursued graduate studies at Abilene Christian University, where he preached part-time in Texas churches. In 1968 he was accepted for personal tutorial studies under Dr. Elton Trueblood, one of the foremost Christian scholars and authors of his day, at Earlham School of Religion in Indiana. Jerry completed both the MA in religion and the master of divinity degrees at Abilene Christian. In 1968 he was also appointed preaching minister for the Hazel Park Church of Christ in Michigan and taught Bible and church history part-time at his alma mater, Michigan Christian. In 1970 he became the basketball coach, leading the MCC Warriors to two league championships.

It was at MCC that he met Lori Pfeiffer. But in summer 1972, Jerry was accepted into the PhD program in American church history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Turnpike Road Church of Christ in Santa Barbara also offered Jerry the position of pulpit minister. Just months after the move to California, Jerry and Lori were married in 1973. After six years of ministry and with a completed PhD, Jerry accepted a position with the Seaver College Religion Division at Pepperdine. The University Church on the Malibu campus also asked him to be the minister, and he served in that capacity for three years.

In 1982, Jerry became both director of church relations and director of the Bible Lectures. Dr. Rushford now has the longest tenure in these two roles in Pepperdine’s history. He was also successful in helping to organize, recruit for, and teach in the successful off-campus MS in ministry program that has benefited ministers in many American cities. Jerry and Lori have two grown daughters, Hilary and Ashley, both Pepperdine graduates. Jerry has now turned his attention to the challenge of overseeing the important work of the Rushford Center, which opened to the public in 2012.