Rodney L. Graves is an Inner-city Missionary pastoring McCabe Roberts Avenue, a bi-racial congregation in Beaumont, Texas. Born in Baltimore, Md., he graduated from Howard University with a dual major in Accounting/Economics. Rodney co-founded a Certified Public Accounting firm which was once the largest Black owned CPA firm in a five-state area (Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arkansas). He left his thriving business to attend Wesley Theological Seminary majoring in Urban Ministry, becoming the Wesley Scholar, and upon graduation was awarded Church History Award. In a prior ministry appointment, Rodney led extensive community development resulting in a $5 million wastewater system, lavish affordable housing, irrigation at the neighborhood library, and an Enterprise Zone. In 2017, he graduated from Asbury Theological Seminary’s International Beeson program with an emphasis in Church Leadership and Preaching; his doctoral dissertation was Breaking Generational Poverty Through Collaborative Efforts currently being transformed into a book. Rodney and his wife Ava led congregational ministry which transformed the lives of at-risk youth and children. Rodney’s ministry praxis inculcates the prophetic witness of both the Old and New Testaments to affirm the sacred worth of all and empower the least, lost, last, and little.
