Jean Marais

I had the privilege to grow up in a home with parents who loved the Lord and were sold out to Jesus. I gave my life to Jesus when I was nine years old and was baptized when I was 13. I was very involved in our local church which had a vibrant youth ministry. I was involved in youth leadership and began leading worship in the church when I was 15 years old. Even from this young age, I knew that I was called to ministry and I was passionate about worship. After school, I went into IT – retail for three years, but all the time I had the nudge in my spirit that God would lead me into ministry. The opportunity opened three years later when my home church in Welkom, South Africa called me to be their worship leader. While working at the church I did my Pastoral Degree through distance learning and finished in 2002. In the same year, I was called to a church in Nelspruit as Worship Director. This is where I met my wonderful wife, Rhiete, and six months later we were married. After three years we were blessed with our firstborn, Jaden, and Mecayla and Owen followed in quick succession as we had all three of them between 2005-2009. We ministered at that church for twelve years where I eventually served as the Associate Pastor.

During this season, I was blessed to sign with a record label through which I released one solo worship album, “Saam met Engele” (“With the Angels”), and had the privilege to co-lead on two men’s conferences, “Duisend Daniels” and “Duisend Daniels Aanbid” that were recorded as live-worship recordings released nationally. This sparked a movement that toured South Africa and I was privileged to tour ad-hoc with this worship movement for three years while still serving full-time at the church.

In 2014, Rhiete and I started a children’s ministry with a mascot and children’s character, Ronnie the Rhino, which grew into a national ministry with programs airing on television and us doing outreaches to schools and pre-schools throughout South Africa. In 2017 I accepted the position at Alberton LewenSentrum where I served as Associate Pastor and Worship Director, and Rhiete as the Director of the Children’s Ministry.

In 2021, we moved to Hillsboro and I accepted the position of Associate Pastor at Calvary Chapel Worship Center. We are blessed to be part of this wonderful team and church and are excited to see what amazing things God has in store for the future.

I was born into a military family and consider Fairfax, VA my home. I graduated from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill and it was there that I met the Lord in 1980. Three years later I met my wife, Sherri, at UNC and we were married in May of 1983. Sherri and I have been blessed with seven children, with grandchildren being added to their family every year.

We moved our family to Oregon in 1996 to continue my business executive life at Nike. In 2009, we started a local family business.

We began Cord-of-Three Ministry to “Young” Married Couples in 2008; focusing on couples married 7 years or less or engaged to be married. I was ordained as an Associate Pastor Calvary Chapel Hillsboro in 2011 and later ordained as an elder at Calvary Chapel in 2012.

I am passionate about mentoring and disciplining couples to be better together; with Christ central to their personal lives and marriages.

If you would like more information or to get involved with Cord of Three please email Shawn and Sherri Dean.

On a Sunday morning in the summer of 1986 I heard the gospel presented simply and clearly in a small Calvary Chapel in Arroyo Grande, California, by the soft-spoken pastor, Steve Carr. He said, “It is not what you do for God; it is what God did for you.” Having been raised Roman Catholic with the mindset of doing good and going to confession to get to heaven, I was struck by how simple the gospel message was. That morning I finally made the decision to put my faith in Jesus Christ and trust Him for salvation.”

There was no great emotion that came over me that day, and if someone was to look at me on the outside they probably would not have noticed much difference between the day before and the day after. It was more of a relief and joy to finally understand the good news of the gospel after “trying” to be saved for the previous couple of years.

Looking back, I can now see how the Holy Spirit was preparing me for that moment in the years leading up to it by the Christians God put in my life, with the most important person being my wife Katie. Since that time I have grown so much in the Lord and have experienced what a faithful and loving God we have as our Heavenly Father. It is a privilege to serve him in ministry and, not surprisingly, I now find myself getting emotional very easily when I think about what a Wonderful Savior I have!

As a child and youth, I believed God existed and desired to be right with Him, but it was not until my senior year in high school that I asked Jesus Christ to be my Savior. Through the efforts of my dad and the outreach of my high school friends, I placed my faith in Jesus Christ in March of 1984.

I graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice and was later accepted into law school, but I declined the offer because I felt the Lord had called me into pastoral ministry. I served as an assistant pastor of a church in a Seattle suburb for three years and then moved to Hillsboro, Oregon to attend Multnomah Biblical Seminary. While in Portland, I served at Calvary Chapel Worship Center (CCWC) for three years as an assistant pastor and then relocated to Dallas, Texas to continue my education at Dallas Theological Seminary. During my stay in Dallas, I started a Calvary Chapel and served as the senior pastor for eight years. In 2013, I returned to the staff at CCWC and currently serve as an associate pastor. I earned my Master of Arts in Religious Studies in 2018 and my Doctor of Ministry in Apologetics in 2022 from Southern Evangelical Seminary.

The Lord has blessed me with a beautiful wife, Heidi. We enjoy raising our daughter and working together in ministry. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve the Lord and His people at CCWC.

I started my Christian service as an Elder of an evangelical church back in 1980. Later with my wife and assistant, Georgette, we started serving the Lord together in Southern California in 1985.

In 1987 our family moved to the Portland area and in 1990 on a Sunday morning we visited a small Calvary Chapel meeting in a junior high school in the Beaverton area, pastored by Rich Jones. Observing his teaching of God’s Word and his sound doctrine, we soon decided that Calvary Chapel would be our church.

In November of 1992 I was ordained as a Pastor and Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through Calvary Chapel and since then I have been serving Christ as an Associate Pastor and Elder in our church.

By God’s grace, may we continually love and serve our loving God and the people He loves, in and through Calvary Chapel Worship Center, for His glory which He deserves.

I accepted the Lord when I was eleven years old in a Southern Baptist Church. If I recall correctly it was during the 47th verse of “Just as I Am.” And it changed me. I started reading my Bible on the bus and talking to people about the Lord. Soon after I began feeling that I should become a pastor, but I dismissed it, thinking that surely everyone felt the same way. There were certainly many challenges growing up and I was far from perfect, but those were also days when I was growing in faith. During this time I played guitar and led worship in my small country church, and realized that this opportunity to lead and be useful to the Lord made a great impact on me.

After high school, I went to Oregon State University and majored in Business Management. After college I held various management positions in the restaurant business. I was single and living alone at the time and the Lord began to move in my life in a wonderful way. I started reading through my Bible like I had never done before, chapter by chapter, book by book. I also spent many hours worshiping alone on the piano. I began to have a sincere desire to be in ministry, first, by starting a Christian band and then feeling a strong call to become a pastor and to teach God’s Word.

I met my wife, Jordi, in the first Christian band I started and soon discovered that she felt called to ministry. We have now been married 32 years. We have three daughters born naturally and two sons adopted from Russia. We are blessed with beautiful grandchildren. 

I studied at Multnomah Bible College and received a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology in 1990. I also studied at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon, and was youth leader for four years during the late 80’s.

In 1990 we began a Bible study in our home, which was the beginning of Calvary Chapel Worship Center. The church has been such an incredible blessing to our lives as the Lord has brought pastors, leaders, elders, and servant-leaders who have served in so many ministries. It has been such a joy to lead a church where there is unity in the Spirit, as well as a hunger and thirst for God’s Word.