Meet Our Crew

Our Pastor

Rev. Chris Rapko comes to us from his first appointment at Hapeville First UMC, where he was Pastor-In-Charge from 2020-2022. He and his wife, Cassie, who is also a pastor at St. Paul UMC in Grant Park, got married in 2012 after they finished seminary. She’s pretty amazing and he is her biggest fan. They had a daughter in November of 2019 named Jordan Elizabeth. She’s probably the most photographed child ever. Her nickname is #MiniRap. They have a dog, Soozie, short for Susanna, the mother of John Wesley. She’s 8 years old, and she’s a mix of border collie and what is clearly pitbull. Rev. Chris has one younger brother, Brian.

Rev. Chris is originally from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He lived there for 18 years, and then he followed God’s call to ministry by going to Harding University, in Searcy, Arkansas. Never heard of it? You’re not alone. It’s a Church of Christ University, which is his previous faith tradition. Think Baptist, you’re not far off. He majored in Bible and Religion and felt called toward seminary at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta. He graduated in 2011 with a Master of Divinity degree, which sounds pretty fancy, but just means he completed seminary over ten years ago. It seems almost like yesterday and also an entire lifetime ago at the same time.

Candler is where Rev. Chris met his wife, and it’s also when he started DJing. While he was still working toward completing seminary, he got a DJ residency in Buckhead at a hole-in-the-wall club. After that, he got the opportunity to DJ for Q100/Q99.7, a pop radio station here in Atlanta. Up until 2020, he mixed music on the radio and in nightclubs every weekend for 10 years. He misses some aspects of the industry, but not very many. He loves making and listening to music, is a video game lover, is a technology wizard and nerd, knows entirely too much about popular culture, and loves Eddy’s Strawberry Ice Cream maybe a little too much.