Pastor Jerry Eze Biography – Early life, Career, Family

Here is the story of a man that God is using to touch life in this generation. A man that God uplifted and showed favour. This is the story of Pastor Jerry Eze and all you need to know about him.

About Pastor Jerry Eze

Born on the 22nd of August, 1982, in Item, Bende Local Government Area of Abia State, Nigeria, Pastor Jerry Uchechukwu Eze popularly known as PJ is a passionate preacher, teacher, and a speaker.

He is the founder and president of the Streams of Joy International Ministries. PJ founded the Streams of Joy International Church in 2011 having the headquarters at Kilometer 4, Ikot Ekpene Road, Umuahia, and various branches across the country. He has over 5,000 worshippers across his branches.

Pastor Jerry was led spiritually to start the publication program, Streams of Joy Devotional in 2011, a bestseller which has gained so much popularity across 5 continents.

His devotional is widely talked about as there are lots of testimonies of lives it has impacted.

He is the convener of one of the largest online prayer meetings, New Season Prophetic Prayers & Declarations (NSPPD) which is watched by over a 100,000 people daily.

Early Life

Coming from an humble background, Pastor Jerry Eze grew up with his poor mother who was a single parent in the city of Umuahia.

Pastor Jerry had his secondary education at Ibeku High School located in Umuahia after which he proceeded to Abia State University (ABSU) where he obtained a degree in History and International Relations (HIR).

While studying in Abia state university, Pastor Jerry was appointed pastor of the school Chapel, All Saints Chapel. Upon graduation, Pastor Jerry proceeded to further his education and got a Masters Degree (M.Sc) in Human Resource Management.

Pastor Jerry Eze’s Career

After his graduation from Abia State University, Pastor Jerry worked as a broadcaster before his official call to ministry. PJ also engaged in community driven projects through his role in the World Bank project on HIV/AIDS, and  the United Nations. In 2009, he officially resigned following God’s instruction, and went fully into his father’s business. 

Pastor Jerry Eze Ministry

With a strong passion for seeing people achieve their God-given mission on earth, Pastor Eze was aware of his calling into ministry at a very young age.

His church, Streams of Joy International holds 6 services every Sunday at its headquarters in Umuahia, Abia State, with branches in Abuja, Nigeria, Nottingham, Texas, Canada, United Kingdom, and many others in Nigeria and abroad.

Many can testify that his teachings and messages gives them hope and help them become a better person.

With a passion for growth and pastoral effectiveness, PJ is a highly sought after speaker and has spoken on major platforms around the world.

Pastor Jerry Eze Family

Pastor Jerry Eze is happily married to Pastor Mrs. Eno Jerry, who has been a tremendous supporter of his ministry. They a beautiful daughter named Samara and a son named after the pastor, Jerry.

His wife Pastor Eno Jerry was born on the 22nd of February in Calabar, Cross Rivers State. Pastor Eno Jerry is the Resident Pastor of Refreshing Point, the Youth and Singles Church of Streams of Joy International Church. She is also the Convener, Pastors’ Wives and Women in Ministry Conference and the founder of Women on Fire Network, an organization dedicated to empowering and raising pastor’s wives, women in ministry and women on fire for God. Her network has thousands of members from all parts of the world including the United Kingdom, United States, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Canada and Nigeria.

Read also: “Homosexual acts should be condemned” – Nigerian Priest reacts to Pope Francis’ approval to blessing homosexual couples

In an interview PunchNG, Pastor Jerry said that he was raised by a Christian mother who instilled godly virtues in him. According to him, his mother introduced him to God by saying that he would become a voice in his generation and that he was going to serve God and that was how he grew up and continued his journey with God.

He told Punch:

“I grew up in a poor home; I must not forget to say that my mom was quite indigent. I already mentioned the fact that she is a single parent. That was how our journey started. Maybe, I would just say that poverty was one of the factors that made us seek the Lord because there was nothing else to hope on than to just cling to God. And the rest is history; that’s my journey to where I am right now.”

“My background actually brought me to a place of humility. So, till today, I don’t know any material acquisition or gift that could make me proud. My background also brought me to the place of prayers. People say, ‘Oh, he prays, he is known to be a man of prayers,’ it wasn’t accidental; it was something that started since I was young. God used my background, the issues, everything, to bring me to a place where I had an intimacy with Him. And also right now, it’s easy to be broken with God but it was situations that started breaking me down. It was the apparent (material) lack that we faced that broke me down.  Away from that, loving God and being into God come from my background when you know that nothing else mattered except God.”

When asked why he was always aggressive when praying, he said:

“That comes primarily from the fact that I’m angry with the devil. Every day of my life, I open messages, emails and I’m seeing that someone is down with cancer, someone just died; there is so much pain in the world. Half of the time, people are masking their pain; people are hurt and going through very difficult issues. Sometimes, I tend to believe that 90 per cent of people in the world are hurting. People are hurting in different ways, regardless of the big mansions and other material acquisitions.le, I want to see people set free. Every time I see God do all these miracles in the lives of the people, it just brings a new lease of life to my spirit.”

When what about other ways he helps people whose problems may not be spiritual, he said:

“We have what we call the Spring of Joy Foundation. As a ministry, we have built a house for a widow, we pay bills; we are constantly trying to do things to better the lives of people around us. It’s a part of our ministry and one project I’m going to be unveiling during my 39th birthday anniversary coming up on August 22, 2021, is a tuition-free primary school in a rural area. It would be manned by qualified teachers; we will feed the pupils.“

“I am a man of prayer: I make bold to say this; over the past 13 years of my life, there is no night that I slept all through the night. I have midnight prayers all through the morning over the past 13 years of my life.”

When asked if praying every night for the past 13 years didn’t affect his health, he said:

”It can never affect my health. The prayers were why NSPPD was birthed because for every move of God, He took his time to prepare the man behind it. So, I am a man who wasn’t prepared on the stage; I was prepared behind the scene. That’s why people are coming out to say, ‘Oh my goodness, where did this guy come from?’ and all that. All over Nigeria and all over the world, people are asking where he came from. I wasn’t made in a day; there were solid years when He was cooking me behind the scene; nobody knew about it.”

Speaking on how he started NSPPD, he said:

”NSPPD wasn’t intentional about putting the crusade on the social media. During the COVID-19 lockdown, I called a few of my church people and told them that there was a need to strategise on what we were going to do differently and they said they couldn’t come because of COVID-19. At that point, I became angry and said to my wife, ‘Let us go online and be sharing the word of God and encouraging people.’  At the time, I just concluded the Psalm 91 series, so I told my wife we would go online with the Psalm 91 I just concluded and we could use it to encourage others. That was the beginning of NSPPD. It wasn’t like God told me to use the platform; it was all in the programme of God. I was sensitive to the season I was in; God didn’t give me the full picture but He told me, ‘A time is going to come when I would shift the trajectory of your ministry.’ By the time we started, we discovered that people who had COVID-19 were healed. So, we started taking time to pray for those who had COVID-19, then other miracles began to happen in quick successions.”

Narrating how he found love, he said:

“I found love in the university. I had gone to a fellowship to preach and while I was about to preach, they were introducing the executive committee of the fellowship and they called my wife’s name and a voice just told me, ‘That’s your wife.’ So, I looked at where she was. I asked someone who is a member of my church about her and that was how I found love or love found me. I told her, ‘I want to marry you.’ I didn’t woo her or ask her out. That was how primitive I was in such things.”

Speaking on what he would have become if he wasn’t a pastor, he said:

”If I wasn’t a pastor, I would still have served my community in some ways. Prior to being called into ministry, I worked for the World Bank project on HIV/AIDS, and also with the United Nations. Community-driven work makes me come alive; I think it is just in my DNA.”

Pastor Jerry Eze sharing his view on feminism in marriage said:

”If feminism is all about a woman riding her husband, not being submissive, then it is a useless feminism. I don’t like the word, feminism, because it almost feels like somebody is pushing to be made equal with the man. For me, if feminism is about a woman actualising her fullest potential, live out her best life, be what God wants her to be, be submissive under her husband, that is it for me. But if it is social media feminism where they insult men; saying men are scum, no. Some of the people saying these things are products of bad marriages, and abuses. They don’t know they are hurting; they need to heal from their hurt. Maybe because of the way their fathers or husbands treated them, that’s how they became feminists overnight. So, they need to heal from that thing so they can actually know whether they are true feminists or situational feminists.”