DR. HEATHER ENTREKIN is the Senior Pastor at Prairie Baptist Church in Prairie Village, Kansas. She grew up in Medina, New York, where her father was an American Baptist pastor. She graduated from Bucknell University in 1972 with a B.A. in Japanese studies.

In 1981, she felt a call to ministry when a woman served as a guest preacher. “Suddenly it occurred to me that God was calling my name, and that maybe I should take a seminary course or two to figure out what it meant.” She received an M.Div. at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in 1986 and a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Kansas in 1999.

She and her husband, Peter, were married in 1988. In a most unusual honeymoon, they went to China for two years, where they served as English language teachers through American Baptist International Ministries and the Amity Foundation.