Jesse Newman, now Pastor Newman, leads Eternity Church in the conservative US state of Iowa.
The evangelical church hosted a visit by Florida governor and potential US presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, causing the media to seek him out for interviews.
He knocked back most requests but apparently gave in to a former Australian journalist and US religious writer, Elle Hardy, because of her Aussie connections.
Her article was picked up by the Australian publication The Saturday Paper recently.
The journalist noted it was not surprising that Ron DeSantis chose a conservative Pentecostal church to visit, but “More of a revelation, however, was the man selected to lead the rally in an opening prayer: Jesse Newman, an Australian pastor with an accent as broad as the Nullarbor.”
The story goes on to say:
“Newman’s rise from obscurity to the national political stage in his new homeland isn’t something that has sat easily with the preacher. ‘Man, it’s just so distracting,’ he told me from his home in Des Moines. ‘We’re just tryin’ to run a church … and then there’s this world of news reporters. We didn’t see that comin’.’”
Through friends, Pastor Newman told us the article overstated his influence on politics, and although it was true he had met former president Donald Trump, it was for a fleeting moment.
Pastor Newman grew up in Kyabram and was, for a time, the youth leader at Shepparton’s Encounter Church. He and his wife, Lauren, and their two children moved to the city of Clive in the US in 2012, where they joined a church of just 30 people.
Eternity Church, in Des Moines, has a membership of about 4000 people and is affiliated with the Iowa Ministry Network, formerly known as the Assemblies of God in Iowa.
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