Bio

Rev. Dr. Christian McIvor serves as the Minister of Worship, Music, and the Arts at Greystone Baptist Church, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship church in Raleigh, NC, and he is the Adjunct Professor of Trumpet at Campbell University in Buies Creek, NC. Christian is passionate about continually growing as an agent of compassion, justice, and reconciliation in the Way of Christ and helping others toward the same.  He currently serves as the chair of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of NC’s Music Ministry Advisory Team and he serves on the Baptist Women in Ministry of NC’s Leadership Board; the Christians Caring for Creation (C3) Board of Directors; steering committees for the CBF Environmental Stewardship Network, Alliance of Baptists Creation Justice Community, and Interfaith Creation Care of the Triangle; and he was a 2021 BJC Fellow.

As a trumpeter, Christian is equally at home in classical and jazz/commercial settings and he is a Carol Brass Artist. He is a member of Degrees of Brass, a brass quintet with a focus on education that performs a wide range of styles and genres at venues of all kinds. He also plays split lead trumpet for the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra and lead trumpet for the Latin dance band West End Mambo, and he appears frequently as a soloist and as a section player with various big bands, horn sections, symphonies, chamber orchestras, and ensembles of all types across the Southeast. Christian is a former member of Market Street Brass, a brass quintet that regularly toured throughout United States and internationally, and the Piedmont Triad Jazz Orchestra. As a jazz/commercial performer, McIvor has shared the stage with such artists as Branford Marsalis, Dave Holland, Robin Eubanks, Conrad Herwig, Bryan Lynch, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Konitz, Max Weinberg, The Temptations, and The Chairmen of the Board, and he has performed in show bands on several Carnival Cruise Lines ships. Also an avid composer and arranger, McIvor publishes with C. Alan Publications.

As a singer/songwriter/guitarist, McIvor has performed at venues throughout New England, New York, and North Carolina for over 20 years and he is a Breedlove Guitars Artist. He has been lead singer, rhythm guitarist, and backup vocalist for several different bands, and he continues to perform as a solo artist. He considers his main songwriting influences to be Jason Isbell, Nick Drake, Dashboard Confessional, Counting Crows, Ellis Paul, and Jeff Buckley, and his songwriting style might best be described as a mix of folk, rock, and Americana. In 2005, McIvor’s song “Fall for You” won the John Lennon Songwriting Competition for the state of Connecticut. In addition to his own material, McIvor performs acoustic versions of many “Top 40” hits from the past 50-60 years, covering a wide range of genres and styles. 

McIvor is also a prolific writer of progressive contemporary praise and worship music.  Since 2018, he has written theme songs and led worship at events across the country for the Alliance of Baptists and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and done the same for events across North Carolina for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina and Baptist Women in Ministry of North Carolina. He has also written theme songs for the podcasts of Creation Justice Ministries, C3 – Christians Caring for Creation, BWIMNC, and Greystone Baptist Church. In his position at Greystone, McIvor enjoys regularly writing and sharing new songs in worship. Several of his original songs are available through the Convergence Music Project, at christianmcivor.bandcamp.com, and on YouTube, and he would be happy to share them with you if you contact him directly. His most recent album, Living Stones, is available to stream on Apple Music and Spotify.

Before going into vocational ministry, McIvor taught music at Colleges, Universities, and K-12 schools throughout North Carolina, having held positions at Guilford College, High Point University, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Southwest Guilford High School, and The North Carolina Leadership Academy.  McIvor holds a Bachelor of Arts in music from the State University of New York at Potsdam and he completed a teaching certification program (K-12 Music) at Western Connecticut State University. He earned Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in Trumpet Performance (with a cognate in Jazz Studies) from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Master of Divinity degree from the Wake Forest University School of Divinity.

In his free time, Christian likes to spend time with his beautiful wife, Chrissy, their daughters, Juliette and River, their son, Thayer, their dogs, Sonny and Cash, and their cat, Dizzy.  He is a diehard Boston sports fan and enjoys the outdoors, running, biking, hiking, and reading.