Randy Nabors served for 12 years as the senior coordinator of the New City Network along with his wife Joan who is his side-kick, fellow fighter of crime and injustice, and serves as his credibility! Randy also served as the Coordinator of Urban & Mercy Ministries under Mission to North America, is the Pastor Emeritus at New City Fellowship Chattanooga, and is a retired Army Reserve Chaplain.

Randy and Joan were called to urban and cross-cultural ministry from a young age. They both grew up in the same low income housing project in the inner city of Newark NJ and came to Christ through the ministry of Calvary Gospel Church.

In God’s mercy both Randy and Joan were able to attend and graduate from Covenant College in Chattanooga TN where Joan was one of the first African-American students to integrate the school. While at Covenant College, they became involved in a little mission Sunday School known as Third Street. This ministry was focused on a poor African American neighborhood in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
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During Randy’s junior year the mission added worship services and he began to help with the preaching. Randy and Joan moved into the neighborhood after getting married and continued serving there after graduating college. In 1973 they moved to St. Louis MO to attend Covenant Theological Seminary and served at Grace & Peace Fellowship and Sutter Avenue Presbyterian Church in urban youth ministry.
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Joan worked as a social worker in St. Louis, and when Randy was called back to Chattanooga to organize the mission as a church (now called New City Fellowship), she worked again for the State of Tennessee Department of Human Services. Randy served as the lead pastor of New City from 1976 until he stepped down and became the Pastor Emeritus in 2012. While serving as senior pastor of New City Fellowship Chattanooga, the church gave Randy and Joan a leave of absence to pastor a church in Nairobi, Kenya for two years. Randy was involved with Prison Fellowship, doing in prison seminars and then serving for one year as the interim Prison Fellowship International Director for Africa. He served as an Army Reserve Chaplain retiring as a Colonel in 2007, and has written two books: Merciful and Insufficient.

Joan has served at one time as the only African American MTW missionary, on the advisory board of Covenant Theological Seminary, an assessor of church planters for MNA, a presenter of cross-cultural worship seminars for the Network, and with various musical teams and groups for both worship and missions.

Randy became the Coordinator of Urban and Mercy Ministries for Mission to North America in 2012 and also was the Coordinator of The New City Network until 2022. The New City Network is an affiliation of churches and ministries that are urban, cross-cultural, inclusive of the poor, sound in biblical teaching, with joyful worship. In God’s providence other New City congregations were begun around the country. The Network is an attempt to bring them together for mutual support and encouragement.

In 2022 Randy and Joan were given a leave of absence from Mission to North America and served in London, UK with a Serge church plant, New City Shepherd’s Bush. While in London Randy was offered a call to the 1st Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga to be their Pastor for Missions, where he has served as of 1 October 2022. Randy and Joan have four children, and as of this writing have fifteen grandchildren, and one great grandchild.