Suffragan Bishop Edward T. McGhee was the Pastor and Founder of Alpha & Omega Church of Jesus Christ (renamed Church of the Apostolic Authority), established in Champaign, Illinois in 1979. He was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. At the age of nineteen, he committed himself to a pastoralship at the All Nations Pentecostal Church in Chicago, Illinois during which time he attended Loop/Wilson Junior College and later transferred to DePaul University where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration. He also attended the Moody Bible Institute where he received Certificates of Achievements in the Old and New Testament Studies. Pastor McGhee went on to receive his Associate degree in Business Affairs at Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois in 1988. On July 22, 1989. Pastor McGhee married his lovely wife, Deena McGhee. To this union, three boys have since been added: Edward Timotheus McGhee, Edwind Timothy McGhee, and Edmond Titus McGhee. In 1990 he was elected District Elder of the Illinois District Council. In early 1994, he gave the invocation for the State of Illinois Eighty-Eighth Assembly of the House of Representatives. On July 8, 1994, he was elected Chairman of the Illinois District Council in which capacity he served for nearly four years (two terms). Pastor McGhee was promoted to the office of Suffragan Bishop in the Illinois District Council in April 1998 and was vested in July of the same year. He was appointed over the first Jurisdiction of the council, under the leadership of Bishop Arthur Brazier, Diocesan. In addition to pastoring Alpha & Omega in Champaign, Pastor McGhee also pastored a church in Bloomington, Illinois, Alpha & Omega Outreach Ministry, established in 1996.