About the Founders
Pastor Drew and Melissa East are the founders of The Rise Up Culture, a Christ-centered movement dedicated to helping people rise in their God-given identity, purpose, and freedom. Married in 2009 and parents to three incredible sons, they live in Orlando, Florida and lead with humility, boldness, and a deep dependence on the Holy Spirit. Their story is marked by God’s faithfulness through seasons of healing, loss, transformation, and powerful encounters with His presence.
In October 2025, they launched The Rise Up Culture with one clear mission: to help people rise into who God created them to be and activate them into the calling God has placed inside them.
About Drew
Drew has served in ministry for more than twenty years in roles including Youth, Worship, Care, Prayer, Freedom, and Associate Pastor. During his ten years at illuminate church, he pioneered a Freedom Coaching model that reshaped the pastoral care culture of the church. This training equipped Holy Spirit-led leaders to walk people through Biblical healing, freedom, deliverance, identity restoration, and spiritual breakthrough.
Freedom Coaches were trained to guide people directly to Jesus, the true Healer. This approach multiplied healthy leaders, reduced pastoral burnout, and created a culture of freedom that brought transformation to the church from the inside out.
As Drew watched this ministry grow, he sensed a greater calling to help the larger Body of Christ experience this same level of wholeness, empowerment, and activation. The Rise Up Culture was born from this vision to see healing multiplied, leaders empowered, and churches strengthened across the world.
His passion is rooted in his own journey of receiving the Father’s love and experiencing personal healing and deep friendship with the Holy Spirit.
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About Melissa
Melissa has served in ministry roles including Communications and Creative Director as well as Director of Discipleship. She is passionate about strengthening leaders, encouraging women, building family discipleship, homeschooling with purpose, and helping people rise whether they are in the valley or on the mountaintop.
Melissa believes deeply in wholeness and integrated healing, recognizing that true transformation involves our physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental health. Melissa carries the voice of a fierce shepherd, nurturing with compassion while fighting for people to walk in freedom, identity, and purpose. She speaks with authenticity and hope, inviting others to rise above fear, step out of old patterns, and embrace the fullness of who God created them to be.
Her desire to help others rise is deeply personal. Melissa experienced the loss of her brother at a young age and later walked through one of her deepest valleys as she lost her mom to cancer. In her final days, Melissa’s mom spoke words that became a prophetic seed in Melissa’s spirit, a simple but powerful encouragement to Rise Up. Those words would later confirm and inspire the heartbeat of The Rise Up Culture.
Melissa has weathered seasons that tested her faith and revealed God’s nearness, yet each one became a place where Jesus met her, strengthened her, and taught her what it truly means to choose hope, rise again, and live with resilient faith. These experiences shaped a deep compassion for the hurting and a strong belief that with Christ, anyone can rise again.
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Together, Drew and Melissa lead The Rise Up Culture with a unified vision to see people healed, activated, and launched into the God-given calling on their lives. They believe activation is an essential part of discipleship. Healing is not the finish line. It is the doorway into purpose. Their desire is to help the Church raise up healthy, empowered, Holy Spirit-led leaders who carry the heart of Jesus and the authority of Scripture into every sphere of influence.
This vision is fueling the future development of the Rise Up Activation and Healing Center, inspired by the Hebrew word Ruah, meaning the breath of God. Their hope is to create a place where the Spirit breathes life, healing, boldness, and purpose into all who walk through the doors. A center where identity is restored, leaders are trained, hearts are healed, and callings are activated.
The Freedom Coaching model Drew pioneered became the blueprint for this movement. The Rise Up Culture exists to help churches train teams, support pastors, protect their capacity, and build cultures where freedom thrives and burnout is replaced by empowered leaders who rise together.
Their message is simple and unchanging. You were created to rise. You were created with purpose. By the breath of God, you can step into the calling He has placed inside you.
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