Mike Graham is the author of Cheer Up! The Life and Ministry of Jack Miller and the Founder and Director of The Jack Miller Project, an initiative devoted to exploring and advancing the life, teaching, and ministry of C. John “Jack” Miller.
Mike grew up in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, working in his father’s shrimp business along the Gulf Coast. He went on to play football for the Alabama Crimson Tide and graduated from the University of Alabama in 1988 with a B.S. in Marketing and International Business. It was in Tuscaloosa that he met his wife, Vicki. After college, the two moved back to the Gulf Coast, where Mike rejoined the family business.
In 1991, Mike and Vicki first encountered Jack Miller’s teachings through The Sonship Course, a leadership training program developed by Jack and World Harvest Mission (now Serge). The course would profoundly shape their lives, their marriage, and their understanding of the gospel — though that transformation did not come easily. They stepped away after just three lessons, during a season when their marriage nearly fell apart. It was not until 1994 that they picked up the course again, completing it in 1995 and joining the Sonship Mentor Network.
With a deepening sense of calling, Mike and Vicki moved their growing family to St. Louis in 1998 so Mike could attend Covenant Theological Seminary. He graduated in 2001 with an M.Div. focused on church planting and revitalization, and for nearly two decades served as head pastor of Hickory Grove Church (PCA) in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.
While at Hickory Grove, Mike began doctoral studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. During his seminars, he was struck by the widespread but largely unrecognized influence of Jack Miller — even in a Southern Baptist academic setting. Many of the assigned readings had been written by authors shaped, directly or indirectly, by Jack’s teaching. Yet few of Mike’s peers or professors recognized the name. When Mike shared the extent of Jack’s reach, the seminary’s president, Dr. Danny Akin, encouraged him to change his research focus and dedicate his Ph.D. to writing a comprehensive biography of Jack Miller. Mike earned his Ph.D. in 2019, and the research became both Cheer Up! and the foundation for The Jack Miller Project.
After nearly twenty years at Hickory Grove, Mike served as a Teaching Elder at New Life Vicenza in Italy through September 2025. He currently serves as pastor of Boatswain Bay Presbyterian Church (PCA) in the Cayman Islands. As Founder and Director of The Jack Miller Project, Mike continues to advance Jack’s legacy through writing, teaching, and initiatives like the A New Life app — a 10-session discipleship course built on Jack Miller’s A New Life gospel booklet.
Through it all, Mike’s work carries a single conviction: that the gospel Jack Miller spent his life teaching remains as urgent and as needed today as it was then.