Leadership at New Covenant Church

Douglas O’Donnell, Senior Pastor
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Jonathan Edwards once wrote, “I should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can provided that they are affected by nothing but the truth.” This well summarizes the goal of Pastor O’Donnell’s teaching ministry. He wholeheartedly desires that the hearts of God’s people would find great joy when the Word of God is opened, understood, and applied to their lives.

Born and raised in the western suburbs of Chicago, Doug was the second child of five. And while he grew up as a devout Irish-Catholic, where he learned something of sin and the fear of God, it wasn’t until the age of nineteen that he was truly convicted of his sin and wondrously converted to Christ. From the time of his conversion, Doug has studied for the ministry. After graduating from Wheaton College with an Associates of Arts degree in Bible/Theology and a Master of Arts degree in Evangelism, he completed another Masters degree in Church History from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

Before starting New Covenant Church, Doug has served at three other churches—College Church in Wheaton, Holy Trinity Church in Chicago, and Christ the King Church in Batavia. Doug is ordained in the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA), a member of the North American Patristics Society, the U.S. Board of the Irish Bible Institute, Fellowship for Theological Training, and Evangelical Theological Society. He is also an instructor for the Charles Simeon Trust.

Doug and his wife, Emily, have five children—Sean, Lily, Evelyn, Simeon, and Charlotte. They live near the campus of North Central College. Together they enjoy reading, music, sports, and walks to downtown Naperville.

Publications

Doug is the author of Walking on “the ashes of Gods saints”: John Donne’s Interpretation of the Song of Songs and the Origenist Exegetical Tradition (thesis—Trinity, 2001), God’s Lyrics: Rediscovering Worship through Old Testament Songs (P&R, 2010), and he contributed the entries to The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man and The Flight of Peter Fromm for the book, Pastors in the Classics: Perspectives on Life in Ministry from World Literature, Leland Ryken, Philip Ryken, and Todd Wilson, eds. (Baker, 2011). He also has a number of forthcoming books, including The Beginning and End of Wisdom: Preaching the Foolishness of the Gospel from the First and Last Chapters of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job (Crossway, 2011), The Song of Songs, Preaching the Word (Crossway, 2011), and The Gospel of Matthew, Preaching the Word (Crossway, 2013).

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