History

Dr. J. L. Williams, Founder and Chief Ministry Officer

Dr. J.L. Williams was born in Greensboro, NC, graduated from Asbury College with a pre-med major, from Duke Divinity School with a Master’s of Divinity degree in comparative world religions and from Luther Rice Seminary with a Doctor of Ministry degree in contemporary counter-Christian cults. Dr. J.L. Williams is the founder and Chief Ministry Officer of New Directions International (NDI), a non-profit 501(c)(3) Christian organization that began in 1968 in Burlington, NC.

During the early years, New Directions, lead by Dr. Williams and his wife, Patt, was an interdenominational, interracial, evangelistic singing group of high school and college students. They were pioneers in using contemporary Christian music to share their faith in churches and “in the market place”, i.e., schools, prisons, street corners, malls, beaches-anywhere they could find an audience. Traveling on weekends during the school year and throughout the vacation months, they ended each summer with a cross-cultural mission trip. Those intense and varied experiences of discipleship, practical evangelism and mission outreaches became the training ground for many young men and women who went on to actively minister in various denominations and para-church organizations. Eventually, the focus shifted from American teenagers and college-age young people to national pastors and Christian leaders in the Third World.

Dr. Williams and his wife Patt live in Burlington, NC, have four married children and 10 grandchildren.