Profile: Miles McPherson

Looking at Miles McPherson today, one wouldn’t think the 47-year-old pastor of San Diego Rock Church has ever had much strife in his life, but McPherson has experienced, and overcome, plenty. The former San Diego Chargers defensive back and self-confessed reformed drug user has taken an unconventional path to get where he is today as leader of one of San Diego’s largest churches and president of Miles Ahead Ministries.

McPherson was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on March 30, 1960. The second oldest of five children, he grew up in Long Island and, as with most teenage boys, had dreams of becoming a professional football player. After playing football in high school and at the University of New Haven, where he was the college’s first player to achieve All-American honors, the 5-foot-11-inch, 184-pound McPherson was drafted by the NFL and began playing as a defensive back for the San Diego Chargers in 1982.

While on the Chargers, McPherson began using cocaine with his teammates, spending thousands of dollars on the illegal substance and “robbing [him] of a great life.” It wasn’t until fellow Charger Sherman Smith told him about Jesus Christ that he began to turn his life around. After an eight-year struggle with drug addiction, McPherson quit both his habit and the team and became a youth pastor at Horizon Christian Fellowship in September 1986.

In 1992, McPherson founded Miles Ahead Ministries (formerly called Project Intercept), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission it is to “preach the gospel to young people, all young people everywhere,” says McPherson. In 2005, Miles Ahead took in over $500,000 in direct public support and funded the making of a documentary film called “Four Stories Tall” (priced at $155,271) to tell about the struggles youth go through with drug addiction, alcohol abuse and poverty.

McPherson has also established San Diego Rock Church, which held its first services on Feb. 27, 2000, with 3,364 people in attendance at the San Diego State University campus. In 2003, the church took in over $4 million in direct public support, spent over $2 million on “worship” program services and compensated president McPherson with $137,430. In August 2007, the church moved to a larger permanent home in the community of Point Loma and became the Rock Church and Academy, where over 7,500 people attend one of six weekend services.

McPherson currently lives with his wife, Debra, and three daughters (Kelly, Kimmie and Margaret) in the Poway, Calif., home they purchased with help from lender Citibank West in December 1998.

By Steve Paine