Rev. Koch (pronounced Cook) was born and raised in New York, but he has also lived in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. He felt called to Pleasant Grove Presbyterian as soon as he learned about our search for a new Pastor.
MIke attended Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia graduating with a BA in Religion and Ethics. He earned a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 2003 and now is a candidate for a Doctor of Ministry degree at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA. While at Princeton, he served as an intern at the maximum security New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, NJ with particular attention to ministering to those in Administrative Segregation and the “Hole” where inmates are only allowed to be out of their cells for one hour per day. His other internship while at Princeton was at Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church in Basking Ridge, NJ, serving in family ministries.
Mike served as Pastoral Assistant with a focus on youth and family ministries for three years at Cranberry Community United Presbyterian Church in suburban Pittsburgh, PA until he was ordained and called to a solo pastorate at the Memorial Presbyterian Church in Wenonah, NJ. Most recently Mike served as an Associate Pastor at Sharon Presbyterian Church here in Charlotte.
Mike’s passion is family-based and intergenerational ministry. Mike rejoices when all families, both traditional and non-traditional, come to worship and minister together with generational connection rather than disconnect. Mike seeks to provide opportunities for all generations to minister together in unity while providing appropriate means to equip those respective generations for ministry to the glory of Christ.
Mike and his wife, Claudia, are proud parents of son Nikolas, 4-years old and daughter Carina, 3-years old. The Family has relocated to a new home just off of Sunset Road in efforts to become immersed in our community.
As a servant of God and humanity, Mike feels it is his role to encourage the church to walk by faith and not by sight as well as to see God’s work in the day to day. In all times, he seeks to worship God in spirit and in truth through word and deed and in the power and ministry of the Holy Spirit to display the light of Christ to all people.
He seeks to equip the saints to go out into the field through preaching, teaching, Bible study, and small group ministry; lead them into the fields regardless of how unfamiliar they may be in evangelism, outreach, local and world missions ; join with them shoulder to shoulder in our common mission by being a fellow laborer in the field; supporting and encouraging them in the heartache, pains, and storms of life through expressions of compassion, visitation, and love; to marvel at the Lord who has done such a wondrous thing through our daily and corporate worship of the Lord, prayer, and quiet times .
