Our Leadership
The gospel ministry of Emmanuel is led by elders and facilitated by deacons, but the ministry is carried out by the members of our church.
Our Elders
Jonathan Worsley
Jonathan has family roots in the North-West, though a decade or so of living first in Sussex and then Cambridgeshire earned him the nickname "a posh northerner" from friends. Far more important than any of that geography, he grew up with Christian parents who took him to church.
One evening in November 1993, after a talk at his church youth group, ten-year-old Jonathan was struck by his own pride and became convinced of God's rule over his life. He ran home that night, and ran to Jesus Christ. He was baptised a few years later.
Jonathan read Biological Sciences at the University of Birmingham from 2001, and it was there, through a hunger to read God's Word for himself and the patient mentoring of older Christians, that his faith truly took root. He came to see the depths of God's love, and Isaac Watts' great hymn on the cross has stayed with him ever since as the clearest statement of what that love demands.
After university, he worked as a student worker at City Evangelical Church, trained as a teacher, and taught briefly at a prep school in Birmingham, before moving to Washington DC in 2009 to serve as a Pastoral Assistant at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. It was there he met his wife, Sarah; they married in 2011. He returned to London to study theology at Oak Hill Theological College, and went on to pastor a small Baptist church in south-west London while serving as managing editor of Evangelicals Now.
In 2020, he had the chance to serve Edgefield Church in Nashville, Sarah's home town, alongside dear friends. But increasingly convicted of the Gospel need in England, he returned to the UK with Sarah and their three children to plant Emmanuel, where it's his great honour to serve as Lead Pastor.
Greg Tarr
Greg is new to the south-west, having spent most of his life in the south-east. He grew up in Sutton, South London and became a Christian and was baptised aged 15, after his parents shared the Gospel with him, and took him to a Bible-teaching church. Summer camps were a formative time, too, when he thought more deeply about where he stood before God, and came to see that head-knowledge alone wouldn't save him. He needed to trust Jesus for the forgiveness of his sins.
Greg studied Computer Science at the University of Oxford, which was a time of significant spiritual growth, understanding more of what faith in Jesus meant for everyday life. Greg also served as the President of the Christian Union. A move to Guildford to work as a software developer got him thinking seriously about theological training, and, in 2019, he went to Louisville, Kentucky to complete a Masters of Divinity at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, always intending to return to the UK to pastor. He heard about the idea of a new church in Exeter around a year after graduating while working as a maths teacher in the US..
Greg serves our church as an elder and cares passionately about the cause of the Gospel in the United Kingdom. Outside church, he’s a season ticket holder at Exeter City, and enjoys football, mountain biking, skiing, running, working from coffee shops, watching films, and volunteering as a Parkrun Ambassador.
Grady Hester
Grady was born and raised in a family with no Christian faith or interest on either side for generations. Looking back, he can see clearly how those years before Christ were spent pursuing his own desires, with little thought of God. By God's providence, he met Sandi, now his wife, while she was at university, and the couple moved to Nashville when she graduated. It was there that he began attending a Baptist church, and as he sat under the preaching of God's word week by week, the gospel took root. In time, he was granted faith to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus.
Grady lived in Nashville from 1997 to 2024, working professionally in life and health insurance planning for individuals and employers. It was a long and fruitful season in which his faith and knowledge of the Lord grew steadily, shaped by the ordinary means of grace: gathering with God's people, sitting under faithful teaching, and serving the local church. He served for many years as a deacon and, more recently, as a lay elder at Edgefield Church Nashville where he and Sandi were members from 2013 to 2024. Those years of church life gave him a deep conviction about the beauty and importance of the local congregation and a love for shepherding God's people.
Grady and Sandi had long dreamed of finishing their lives on the mission field, and they are delighted that the Lord has answered that desire by bringing them to Exeter as part of the church plant. At Emmanuel, Grady serves as an elder, sharing in the teaching, care, and oversight of the congregation. He counts it a joy to see the church family grow.
In his spare time, Grady enjoys road cycling, hiking, and anything outdoors, though Sandi would say his enjoyment of good food rivals all three.
Matthew Bixler
Matthew grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. Although he attended church from a young age, it was during his childhood that the Lord began to work more deeply in his family. His parents became Christians when he was ten, and through their example he came to understand the Bible more clearly. Through the influence of youth pastors and teachers, he began to hear the gospel with greater clarity, and at fourteen he came to trust in Christ for himself, moving from simply knowing about God to a genuine relationship with Him.
After high school, Matthew spent a short period in the marines before studying history and education at university, where he met his wife, Amanda. They married shortly after graduating. He went on to work in administrative roles at two universities. He spent several years with a student ministry, while serving as a deacon and then an elder at his previous church, where he also helped to establish a missions ministry.
Over time, Matthew and Amanda developed a growing desire to support evangelism and church planting. Moving overseas was not something they pursued independently, but something they were sent into by their church as part of its commitment to the Great Commission.
In the summer of 2022, the family moved from Texas to begin full-time ministry in rural England alongside long-standing partners in the Peak District. During that time, Matthew completed a ministry residency through Crosslands focused on gospel outreach, cultural engagement, and theological training.
In July 2025, the Bixlers moved to Exeter to continue that work in a new context, focusing on relational evangelism, discipleship, and engaging the local community with the gospel. Matthew now serves as an elder at Emmanuel and counts it a privilege to be part of the church's life and ministry.
Matthew and Amanda have four children. As a family they enjoy hosting barbecues, watching the Premier League, and exploring Dartmoor and the beaches of Devon.
On Elders: The Bible teaches that each local church should be led by a plurality of godly, qualified men called elders. The apostle Paul lays out the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. Here it is clear that elders must be Christ-like and able to teach the Bible faithfully. Passages that evidence a plurality of elders in one local church include Acts 14:23, Acts 20:17, 1 Timothy 4:14, 1 Timothy 5:17, and James 5:14. God gifts churches with elders so that the church can be fed faithfully from God’s Word (Jn. 21:15-17). The elders don't rule the church (the church members are finally in charge), but they do lead the church and guide its members (1 Tim. 4:16; 1 Pet. 5:3, Heb. 13:7). As metaphorical shepherds, they also protect the flock from attacks of false teaching (Acts 20:27-29; 2 Tim. 4:3-4; Tit. 1:9).
Our Deacons
Deacon of Music
Stephen Law
I was born and grew up in Sacramento, California in the United States. My family are all believers and because of them I attended church and learned about the Bible. It wasn’t until I was 12 years old that the reality of Scripture hit me. It was then that God opened my heart to understand the severity of my sin and the saving power of the cross. Since then, God has taken me deeper into the joys of the Gospel and the delights of following Him.
I spent 5 years working as an operating room nurse in Tennessee and California from 2019 to 2024. It was at my church in Nashville that I heard of the opportunity to serve at Emmanuel here in Exeter. I got married to my wife, Cat, in May 2024 and then we both moved to Exeter in the summer. It has been a joy to see God work in and through the members of Emmanuel, and it is a privilege to be able to serve in this way.
On Deacons: Based on the New Testament, each local church should be served by a plurality of deacons. The role of the deacon is mainly to be a servant, since that is what the word means. The early church gives us the model of deacon prototypes in Acts 6 and character qualifications in 1 Timothy 3. The church needs deacons to provide logistical and material support so the elders can focus on the Word of God and prayer.