Recognizing obstacles and overcoming

At the age of 14, Trajean Jadorette, confessed his sins to the Lord and accepted Him as his savior. Twenty-five years later, that young man is now the new senior pastor at New Covenant Baptist Church. But his path to the pulpit has been one in which he admits he's had his fair share of challenges — like most people, but he said he was able to overcome those challenges because he never wavered in his belief in God.

The biggest of his challenges through the years he believes was when he was not married.

"I never had the time to really invest in a relationship at that stage of my life," said the pastor at the church on the East-West Highway, in a recent interview with The Nassau Guardian.

Like most young men, he was more interested in ensuring that he had a car to drive, making certain he looked good and being single, dating — but without marriage as the end result uppermost in his mind.

The good thing he said was the fact that he never had to battle with gambling, alcohol or drugs.

"My problem was I wasn't married as yet and if you are faithful to your faith, then you have to maintain that not just by word, but by deed as well. Getting married was my challenge. I never had the time to really invest in a relationship at that stage of my life."

Pastor Jadorette said he came to the realization that in order to be faithful to his faith, that he had to maintain his faith not just by word, but by deed as well. He said that the challenge first had to be recognized, and then he associated himself with people who could lead him in the right direction.

Pastor Jadorette admits that overcoming challenges is not something that a person can do overnight.

"It's not something that you're going to wake up and say I'm going to fly straight. It is things that you start to practice that eventually become habit. Looking at your company (friends) is important and critical in my opinion. Developing a strong prayer life and just being real with yourself helps. When you become real, you start to look at life differently. When you look at life differently, your choices in many ways you start to change them. But as long as you're not realistic, whatever you're doing is fine," he said.

Pastor Jadorette changed the way he looked at relationships when he found the woman of his dreams. They are three years into their marriage during a time when he was elected to serve as the new senior pastor at New Covenant. He assumed the post at the retirement of Bishop Simeon Hall, who retired after 30 years as senior pastor.

Like most people he has made his fair share of mistakes in life. But he believes the journey that brought him to the pulpit at New Covenant Baptist Church was God-orchestrated.

Pastor Jadorette accepted the Lord as a tenth grade student while working as a busboy at a restaurant on Grand Bahama, after he was witnessed to by one of the waiters on staff — even though he had been a member of Faith Temple Church of God in Freeport all of his life.

"Delano Williams witnessed to me one evening and I confessed to Christ at the age of 14. That journey was not a straight journey. I hung out ... some of my friends were not the most savory of characters — they were not saved, and I hung out with them quite a bit. Luckily for me though I never used drugs, and never drank and to this day I don't smoke or drink," he said.

The young Jadorette had one driving passion — he yearned for education and to attend college. And he believes that God stepped in to assist him when things looked bleak.

"I was a young lad, 19-20, had a car, traveled quite a bit, but I knew God had some other things in store for me. But I just got tired doing the same thing over and over so I started really seeking God and would go by the beach by myself sometimes until the wee hours of the night talking to God and listening to Him talk to me. One day He said, 'You have the access granted, you're going to go off to school.'"

Jadorette did not know where the money was going to come from to make it happen. But he believes that because of his altruism to others it was returned to him when Pastor Reno Smith told him about American Baptist College in Nashville, Tennessee. Jadorette packed his bags and the rest is history as they say.

The pastor said an extremely kind God helped him to graduate in three years. He then used the remainder of his visa time to obtain a master's degree at Fisk University. And at the same time get his first taste of life in the pulpit.

"While at Fisk, (at) the church I attended, the pastor resigned and by this time I was an ordained, trained minister. I came in as acting pastor for a year and after that year they voted me in as the senior pastor of First Community Church in Nashville, Tennessee, where I spent five years."

It's that wealth of knowledge that Pastor Jadorette, 39, took with him to New Covenant. He was elected to serve in an event-free process by the 359 persons in a process that took less than 15 minutes.

He has taken a hands-on leadership style to New Covenant. He believes in autonomy when people are given tasks, but Pastor Jadorette said he still likes to be hands-on.

"Not necessarily to micro-manage, but I like to be hands-on. I?like to be a hands-on leader who is very practical,"?he said.

And while a number of churches encounter friction when it's time to elect a new leader, the pastor said the event-free process that gave him the senior role showed that the membership had confidence in him. It's his goal to have that confidence strengthened over the years.

"I?think they have quite a bit of confidence in me and I pray that I continue to lean on God as I?would have in all my years in ministry since I've given my life to Christ, so that that confidence can be strengthened over the years as well,"?he said.

"I?think our young people strayed quite a bit and even some of our older people... society has really become overly materialistic. My hope is that we can make church exciting again, a?place where folks can come and get closer to God. If we can do that, and that spreads like a virus in society, we can get the kind of spiritual underpinning that we once enjoyed in this country,"?he said.

"My vision for the next 30 years if it be that long, is to once again point people back to Christ. And we're going to do that using several mediums — the different ministries that we have in the church, it is my goal and vision to strengthen those different arms of the church so we can bring folks in to bring them closer to Christ,"?he said.