For nearly three decades, Todd Drayton has spent his life making a case — sometimes before judges and juries, and other times before people searching for answers about God, faith and life. As both a trial attorney and pastor, he has learned that people do not need empty promises or easy answers. They need truth they can understand, trust and actually use.
Today, Pastor Todd's greatest passion is teaching God's Word in a way that people can understand it, embrace it and actually live it. He believes the Bible should do more than inform us about God; it should help us know the Lord personally, transform the way we think and equip us to navigate our lives with a living faith. His teaching is biblical, practical and often conversational, connecting timeless truths to the everyday realities of family, relationships, work, finances, adversity and personal growth.
Pastor Todd's path to the pulpit, however, began long before the courtroom. He first sensed God's call to ministry as a young boy and later spent 15 years serving in virtually every area of ministry at The Love of Jesus Family Church. Twelve of those years were spent leading an expansive prison ministry, bringing Bible study, prayer, counseling, mentoring and practical support to men and women throughout New Jersey's correctional system.
Eventually ordained and sent with his wife, Trina, to establish LOJ Caldwell, Pastor Todd brought those years of ministry experience with him — but also a lifetime of “real life” experience beyond the walls of the Church. Indeed, much of that practical perspective has been shaped by his parallel career in law. A graduate of Virginia Tech and Temple University School of Law, Pastor Todd has spent almost three decades as a trial attorney while simultaneously serving in ministry. Those two worlds have given him a unique vantage point from which to understand people, address hardship, confront difficulty and communicate truth clearly — whether addressing a courtroom, counseling someone through a difficult season or teaching God's Word on Sunday morning.
But the titles of Pastor and Attorney are not the ones he values most. Todd is a husband and father. He and Trina met at their parent church, married in 2007 and soon became the parents of four beautiful children. Together, they have built LOJ Caldwell around many of the same values that govern their own home, such as faith, family, honesty, joy, laughter, serving others and helping the next generation get to know the Lord for themselves.
After nearly fifteen years as LOJ Caldwell's pastor, Todd remains convinced that the Church's greatest work is still about people — helping them know God, grow deeply in His Word, discover who they were created to be and then use what God has placed in them to be a blessing to someone else. For him, that is more than a philosophy of ministry; it is the life he strives to live himself.
