A. R. Bernard
Alfonso R. Bernard, Sr. (born August 10, 1953) is the founder, CEO and pastor of the Christian Cultural Center Megachurch in Brooklyn, New York. In the 2020s, the CCC is a 37,000+ member church that sits on an -acre campus in Brooklyn, New York. Early life and education Bernard was born in Panama, the son of an Afro-Panamanian mother and a Castilian Spaniard father. His father disowned him and in 1957, he and his mother moved to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. As part of the 1960s desegregation movement in the public school system, he was bused to school in Ridgewood, Queens and then attended Grover Cleveland High School. Bernard worked after school in the garment district pushing racks for $2.00 per hour to assist his mother in their single parent household. He landed a clerk position with Bankers Trust Company during his senior year of high school. Bernard gained a Master of Urban Studies and a Master of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary. He has been awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Wagner College and an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Nyack College/Alliance Theological Seminary. Career As a young man, Bernard was a part