Derrick Puckett
Derrick Puckett was born in Indianapolis, IN and was raised in Gary, IN as well as Indianapolis. He accepted Christ at the age of 18 at a Student Venture Conference, a high school conference in which Kaley, his girlfriend at the time and beautiful wife now, invited him to. He attended Indiana University in Bloomington, IN where he originally planned to play football and study business. God continued to mold his heart, and soon after he arrived at football camp his freshman year, he suffered a career ending injury and his mindset began to change. He then pursued a double major in African American and African Diaspora Studies and Communication and Culture.
While in college Derrick got involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, and through his involvement noticed that there were not enough African Americans involved. The Lord grew a burden in his heart to see the African American community reached with the Gospel and to see disciples made for Christ that were African American on his campus. As a result of the burden, he and Kaley started the Impact Movement, a sister ministry to Campus Crusade that reaches out to African Americans on campus with the truth of Jesus Christ. They were also able to keep the two ministries together in certain ways and to help them look more like the kingdom instead of two separate black and white ministries.
After college Derrick and Kaley joined staff with Campus Crusade and were given the task of designing a new way of reaching Ethnic students and seeing the community, including high school students, college students, people, and churches, working together as a whole. Derrick has also preached at various high schools, college campuses, and churches across Indiana.
While in ministry Derrick’s passion to see the local church truly equip, shepherd, and make disciples grew tremendously and gave him a passion to learn more about pastoral ministry as well as church planting to fulfill his call of being a pastor. He currently serves as a pastoral resident at Fellowship Memphis and will be attending Mid America Baptist Theological Seminary in the fall to pursue his Masters of Divinity.