CHURCH GOVERNANCE

The main Scriptural texts that outline the requirements of leaders are 1 Timothy 3:1-3, Titus 1:5-9, 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12, Acts 6:1-6, and Exodus 18:21-22. The qualifications in these passages can be summarized as commitment, conviction, competency, and character. We never expect perfection, but we do want every leader to strive for excellence, integrity, and vulnerability. As church leaders, we are examples to everyone in the community in every facet of our life.

Mark & Marie Verkler

Mark and Marie grew up in Arkansas and got married at the end of college.  They have four grown children and have made Texas their home since 1987. They were introduced to a prayer room at IHOP-KC and loved it. The Verklers came to their first UPPERROOM prayer set on a Monday morning in October 2011 and have been part of UPPERROOM ever since—and they began serving as elders in January 2018. Marie helps Mark with his counseling practice in Richardson.  They enjoy their time with the ministry team and mentoring.  Both love being in nature, camping, and music festivals, and spending time with family and friends.

Joe & Kim Galindo

Joe and Kim Galindo have been walking with the Lord for over 50 years. They met in Dallas, got married in 1975, and have two sons who live in Dallas. Kim's favorite job was being a mom, but at 41, she became an Interior Designer and has been doing that for 30 years. Joe is a Professional Facilitator and Business Coach who works with Christian CEOs and business owners. His heart desires to coach and raise Kingdom Business warriors in the marketplace. They have been connected to UPPERROOM since the beginning and became elders in 2019. They have served in various ministries and love hosting people in their home. In their free time, they enjoy reading, traveling, exercising, and spending time with family.

Truman & Jane Spring

Truman and Jane have been married for 55 years and have a loving family of four children and four grandchildren. Jane has been following the Lord for 67 years, while Truman has been walking with the Lord his whole life, growing in intimacy since he was 21. Truman is a lawyer with his own firm in Rockwall, TX, and also serves as part-time staff cultural pastor with UPPERROOM. Jane is a retired school teacher.

Truman and Jane joined UPPERROOM from day one when they started the Prayer Room in Oak Lawn. They met Michael and Lorisa at their home church and were thrilled to support their vision for a Prayer Room. They have been affectionately known as the mom and dad of the house ever since. They both enjoy hosting and spending time with family, as well as the great outdoors and their East Texas cabin.

Jeff & Michele Hastings

Jeff and Michele have been members of the UPPERROOM community since September 2013 and began serving as Elders in early 2019. Both of them are native to the DFW metroplex and have four adult daughters and six grandkids. Their passion for the Prayer Room was ignited during their time at Shady Grove Church in Grand Prairie and their involvement with the All Nations House of Prayer in the late 90s.

Apart from their spiritual pursuits, Jeff and Michele love spending time outdoors and are passionate gardeners. They also have a newfound hobby of managing an apiary, which involves the care and keeping of beehives.

Phil & Melissa Smith

Phil and Melissa became part of the UPPERROOM family in January of 2014 and joined the elder team in the summer of that year. With their passion for the presence of God, family, and for sowing into the next generation, they serve on multiple weekly sets in the prayer room, as well as serving behind the scenes as shepherds, fathering and mothering many within the body and UPPERROOM staff, offering prayer, Biblical counsel, and Spirit-led wisdom as needed.

Phil and Melissa’s lives and their life together have been deeply marked by prayer and the joy of intimacy with God. They each carry a deep love for the Word and for the simplicity of the gospel, and they’ve taught extensively through the years on the importance of Sabbath rest and solitude in the life of a believer, in conjunction with the ministry, as well as the importance of cultivating a secret life of prayer, as Jesus taught.

Outside of UPPERROOM, Phil works as an accountant for a privately held investment firm, and Melissa is a full-time intercessor, homemaker, and closet poet/writer. For fun, Phil and Melissa love to play music together, garden, take walks, read, and host friends and family but their greatest joy is in spending time with their three children and two young grandchildren.

Shannon & Kimberly Stokes

Shannon & Kimberly Stokes and their two children have been a part of the UPPERROOM since 2013. Shannon is a cosmetic and family dentist in Plano, and Kimberly works as a life coach specializing in healing from past trauma and restoration of marriages. They’ve served as elders at UPPERROOM since 2015. In their free time, the Stokes enjoy worship, pickleball, skiing, and spending time with friends and family.

Heath Flock

Mr. Flock is an experienced business executive with a background in financial, strategic, and operational management. He has 30 years of business management and investment experience, primarily in the financial services industry.

He is the Chief Operating Officer of Dallas based investment banking firm Generational Group. In this role he provides executive leadership and oversight of finance & accounting, legal, human resources, client experience, and the corporate evaluation team. He is also is the executive head of Generational’s wealth advisory and growth consulting divisions.

Mr. Flock received his B.S. in engineering at the University of Nebraska and his MBA from Harvard Business School. He has a passion for the body of Christ and His Kingdom, and serves on the Board of Directors of Orlando-based Jesus Image, and Dallas-based UPPERROOM Global.

Chris Seidman

Chris Seidman joined the UPPERROOM Global Board in 2022. His connection with the ministry of UPPERROOM has been since the very beginning.  Michael Miller and his wife Lorisa met at The Branch Church in Dallas, where Chris has served as the Lead Pastor since January of 2001.  Michael joined the staff of The Branch in 2004.  He and Chris became close in the years that followed as they pursued the Lord together. While at The Branch, Michael began to receive a vision for building a culture and community around the presence of God which would, in turn, transform lives.  Chris and his wife Tara have been privileged to have a ringside seat to the journey of Michael, Lorisa, and several others who were a part of the foundation of UPPERROOM. Chris and Tara reside in Coppell and have three adult sons, Skyler (wife Ale), Garrison, and Cooper. Chris continues to preach at The Branch Church (www.thebranch.org) and abroad. Wherever he is, his golf clubs are not far behind.

Dru Hammer

Dru Hammer is a devoted follower of Jesus who came to know Him at the tender age of five when her father introduced her to the Lord. She is a proud mother of two grown sons, Armie and Viktor, and a loving grandmother to Harper and Ford. Nine years ago, Dru moved to Dallas, where she discovered UR. She was drawn to their intimate days of worship and attended services there for seven years. Though she moved to Palm Beach two years ago, Dru is still honored to serve on UPPERROOM’s Global Board. Aside from her passion for her faith and service, Dru is also an accomplished house flipper with over 40 properties renovated under her belt. However, what she loves most is being creative, and this led her to start a new brand called "druville," which keeps her on the go all the time.

Peter Louis

Peter K. Louis is the founder and visionary leader of Braveheart Ministries. Based in Dallas, Braveheart is on mission to strengthen the entire global church through online discipleship resources that give every church and believer access to the joy and freedom of belonging to Christ and becoming like him. Peter lives in Dallas with his wife, Kristi, and five children. With a diverse and storied background as a professional athlete, businessman, consultant pastor and teacher, Peter carries with him a wealth of leadership insights and diverse skill sets. He has written four books to date: Back to the Gospel, Back to Pentecost, Keep the Blood Warm and Now That You’re Born Again. Peter is a teaching pastor at UPPERROOM; his family has been there since 2010.

Autumn Williams

Autumn and her husband Justin have been attending UPPERROOM since it first started as a "prayer meeting" in 2010. In 2014 they were on the church-planting team that was sent to Denver, Colorado, where they continue to reside. Autumn served on the Executive Leadership team and as the Denver Pastor prior to transitioning into her current role as the UPERROOM Global Director in 2018. She has a background in social work and a Masters in Public Administration. She oversees all the content that UPPERROOM exports to our Global audience--the music label, YouTube channel, events, traveling bands, merch, book publishing, Spanish expansion initiatives, and the deployment of our ministry school students.

Michael & Lorisa Miller

Michael and Lorisa Miller are the founding and Senior Leaders of UPPERROOM. In April of 2010, the Millers started a small prayer meeting in an office space overlooking downtown Dallas. From that initial prayer meeting, God birthed a movement of prayer and worship that continues to grow globally. Many lives have been impacted by UPPERROOM's house of prayer, as people online and from all over the DFW metroplex come together to pray and worship every morning, noon, and night. In addition to their ministry in Dallas, Michael and Lorisa travel internationally to support other UPPERROOM communities and houses of prayer in the U.S. and abroad. Michael and Lorisa live in Dallas, Texas, with their four beautiful children: Hannah, Salem, Freeland, and Truman.

MARK VERKLER

Mark Verkler is a devoted member of the UPPERROOM community, along with his wife, Marie. They both grew up in Arkansas and have four grown children and have called Texas home since 1987.

Their introduction to prayer rooms began at IHOP-KC, and they fell in love with it. They attended their first prayer set at UPPERROOM on a Monday morning in October 2011 and have been part of the community ever since. They started serving as elders in January 2018 and are passionate about mentoring and being part of the ministry team.

Mark runs a counseling practice in Richardson, and Marie assists him with it. They both love being in nature, going camping, attending music festivals, and spending time with family and friends.

JEFF HASTINGS

Jeff and his wife Michele have been members of the UPPERROOM community since September 2013 and began serving as Elders in early 2019. Both of them are native to the DFW metroplex and have four adult daughters and six grandkids. Their passion for the Prayer Room was ignited during their time at Shady Grove Church in Grand Prairie and their involvement with the All Nations House of Prayer in the late 90s.

Apart from their spiritual pursuits, Jeff and Michele love spending time outdoors and are passionate gardeners. They also have a newfound hobby of managing an apiary, which involves the care and keeping of beehives.

SHANNON STOKES

Shannon Stokes is a cosmetic and family dentist from Plano who, together with his wife Kimberly Stokes, has been an elder at the UPPERROOM since 2015. The couple, along with their two children, have been a part of the UPPERROOM community since 2013. Outside of their professional and spiritual pursuits, the Stokes enjoy spending quality time with friends and family while engaging in activities such as worship, pickleball, and skiing. Kimberly works as a life coach specializing in healing from past trauma and restoration of marriages.

JOE GALINDO

Joe Galindo is a Professional Facilitator and Business Coach who has been walking with the Lord for over 50 years. Joe's encounter with the Lord happened after his freshman year at SMU when he was only 19 years old. Kim, his wife, also gave her life to Jesus at a young age of 15 while living in the West Texas Panhandle. Joe is passionate about raising Kingdom Business warriors in the marketplace, and he works with over 30 Christian CEOs and business owners at C12 North Texas, helping them build great businesses for God's greater purposes.

Joe and Kim have been connected with UPPERROOM since its inception, but they started attending full-time in 2012. They became elders in 2019 and have been serving the community ever since. When they're not working or serving, they enjoy reading, traveling, exercising, and spending quality time with their family.

PHIL SMITH

Phil Smith is a devoted member of the UPPERROOM community who, together with his wife Melissa, joined the Elder team in the summer of 2014. Both Phil and Melissa share a passion for God's presence, family, and investing in the next generation. They serve in the prayer room on multiple weekly sets and act as shepherds to many within the community and UPPERROOM staff, offering prayer, Biblical counsel, and Spirit-led wisdom whenever needed.

Phil and Melissa's lives have been deeply shaped by prayer and their intimacy with God. They both carry a profound love for the Word and the simplicity of the gospel and have taught extensively on the importance of Sabbath rest, solitude, and cultivating a secret life of prayer, as Jesus taught.

Outside of his involvement with UPPERROOM, Phil works as an accountant for a privately held investment firm. He and his wife love to spend time playing music, gardening, taking walks, reading, and hosting friends and family for fun. However, their greatest joy is spending time with their three children and two young grandchildren.

PETER SLOVER

After 32 years of success in the marketplace, both domestically and abroad, God called Peter to share his wealth of experience and expertise to raise up the next generation of leaders at UPPERROOM. Peter is passionate about coaching individuals to become strong leaders who lead from humility and excellence. He is committed to applying his organizational gifts to help UPPPERROOM create the "wineskin" that both stewards and prepares for greater outpourings of the Presence of God. Peter is married to his wife Nanette, and they have three beautiful daughters: Micah, Trinity, and Mary Bryton; three sons in laws-Christopher, John, and Nick; one grandson- Levi; and two granddaughters- Essie and Eddison.

Michael & Lorisa Miller

Michael and Lorisa Miller are the founding and Senior Leaders of UPPERROOM. In April of 2010, the Millers started a small prayer meeting in an office space overlooking downtown Dallas. From that initial prayer meeting, God birthed a movement of prayer and worship that continues to grow globally. Many lives have been impacted by UPPERROOM's house of prayer, as people online and from all over the DFW metroplex come together to pray and worship every morning, noon, and night. In addition to their ministry in Dallas, Michael and Lorisa travel internationally to support other UPPERROOM communities and houses of prayer in the U.S. and abroad. Michael and Lorisa live in Dallas, Texas, with their four beautiful children: Hannah, Salem, Freeland, and Truman.

Peter Louis

Peter K. Louis is the founder and visionary leader of Braveheart Ministries. Based in Dallas, Braveheart is on mission to strengthen the entire global church through online discipleship resources that give every church and believer access to the joy and freedom of belonging to Christ and becoming like him. Peter lives in Dallas with his wife, Kristi, and five children. With a diverse and storied background as a professional athlete, businessman, consultant pastor and teacher, Peter carries with him a wealth of leadership insights and diverse skill sets. He has written four books to date: Back to the Gospel, Back to Pentecost, Keep the Blood Warm and Now That You’re Born Again. Peter is a teaching pastor at UPPERROOM; his family has been there since 2010.

Michael & Lorisa Miller

Michael and Lorisa Miller are the founding and Senior Leaders of UPPERROOM. In April of 2010, the Millers started a small prayer meeting in an office space overlooking downtown Dallas. From that initial prayer meeting, God birthed a movement of prayer and worship that continues to grow globally. Many lives have been impacted by UPPERROOM's house of prayer, as people online and from all over the DFW metroplex come together to pray and worship every morning, noon, and night. In addition to their ministry in Dallas, Michael and Lorisa travel internationally to support other UPPERROOM communities and houses of prayer in the U.S. and abroad. Michael and Lorisa live in Dallas, Texas, with their four beautiful children: Hannah, Salem, Freeland, and Truman.