Guest Professor - Starting, Monitoring, & Evaluating Chaplaincy

Dr. David Gibson will be teaching the course Starting, Monitoring, & Evaluating Chaplaincy on October 26-30, 2026.

Dr. David Gibson, has served as an ordained bishop in the Church of God since 1984. He retired from the United States Navy in 2013 after 29 years as a military chaplain endorsed by the Church of God. His assignments took him to bases across the United States, Italy, and Japan, while deployments expanded his ministry experience throughout Europe and parts of Asia. Before joining the Navy, he served churches in Georgia and Michigan. After retiring from military service, he pastored Covenant Church, a Church of God congregation in Pace, Florida, from April 2013 to June 2018. He currently teaches at Lee University, the Pentecostal Theological Seminary, and through an international training organization.

A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Gibson earned a Bachelor of Science in Christian Education from Lee University in 1980 and a Master of Divinity from the Church of God School of Theology, now the Pentecostal Theological Seminary, in 1983. In 2006, he completed a Doctor of Strategic Leadership in Strategic Leadership and Organizational Development at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

He is married to Tamara “Tami” Peterson Gibson, whose parents were longtime Church of God missionaries in Jamaica and Haiti. After more than 40 years of classroom teaching, she retired in 2023 and began serving part time as an elementary reading coach at a local Christian school. They have two adult sons. One is a major in the U.S. Marine Corps who is married and flies C-40 (Boeing 737) aircraft. Their second son is married and serves as provost, dean of students, and a faculty member at Worldview CRUX Bridge School, a high-school-to-college bridge program in Cañon City, Colorado. He and his wife have three children.

He has served as adjunct faculty at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary since 2008, where he teaches “Conflict Reconciliation and Peace Making” in the Doctor of Ministry program. Since 2012, he has also served as adjunct faculty at Lee University, teaching master’s-level leadership courses and reviewing master’s theses. At the U.S. Naval Chaplains School, he served as an instructor and director of professional development from 1998 to 2002 and again from 2006 to 2009. His assignments also included more than seven years of direct responsibility for chaplain training outside the school. In addition, he has taught in the Church of God Ministerial Internship Program (MIP), the Church of God Chaplains Commission’s advanced training in suicide intervention and prevention, and the Church of God Community Service Chaplains program.

Dr. Gibson also serves as vice president of Cornerstone Consulting Group, an education and training nonprofit that supports small churches, missions’ education, and other nonprofit organizations. He conducts funerals at the national cemetery in Pensacola and serves as chaplain for the Pensacola Chapter of the Navy League. Two evenings each week, he assists passengers who use wheelchairs at the local airport, where he is known as the “Chaplain at the Airport.”