About

I have a HOT wife whom I love very much! Together we have two awesome boys who teach us more about life everyday. My passion is to become all that God has created me to be. Therefore, I am learning how and trying to be a devoted Christ Follower, a loving Husband, great Father, and good Friend. I received my BS degree in Religious Education from Southwest Baptist University in 2000. Currently, I serve as the Student Pastor at Grace Community Church in Plano, Texas and as a state mentor for the Purpose Driven Youth Ministry Community. I have a heart for students and other youth workers and am in the beginning stages of writing for, and sharing resources with, various ministries that desire to inspire, train, and resource these two groups.

Feel free to contact me via email by clicking here!

My Journey So Far . . .

Born in Springfield Missouri in 1977. Grew up in a church going family. Mom and Dad were Sunday School Teachers, and my Grandfather was a pastor. Experienced the loss of a loved one very early in life when my younger sister, Kristy, died at the age of four when I was only six.

This made me an only child. The winters were lonely and the summers were great. With both parents working, my Grandfather watched me in the summers. In the spring after my eighth birthday, my grandfather led me in a prayer to receive Jesus as my Savior. At eight years old I understood that Jesus forgave me of sin and the only way to Heaven was through him. We prayed driving down Chestnut Expressway in Springfield MO. I was then baptized to show everyone that I had accepted Christ as my Savior.

Later on in that year my parents began the process of adoption. This was cool because now I would have a brother and two sisters. The adoption was final when I was nine years old and our family went from a family of three to a family of six.

In my teenage years I was a good kid. At least that was the way people would describe me. I went to church, occasionally, but it wasn’t that big of a deal to me. In fact, besides doing the activities, no one ever really told me about how to grow as a believer, it was simply, “hey, we are going to do this . . . do you want to go.” This caused me to be a Sunday and Activity Driven Christian.

In High School relationships became my focus and church took a back seat. In fact, I would purposely work on Saturday Nights so I had an excuse as to why I wasn’t going to church. Then everything started changing!

It was my Senior Year, supposed to be the best year of my life, wrong. In October of 1994 my Grandfather died of a heart attack. I took this really hard . . . harder than I let on. I simply remember having this feeling that my grandfather was going to see the real me, and that scared me. I always respected him, and if I ever had a question about God, he was who I would talk too. Now he was gone!

This caused me to really begin to ask questions. Questions like, “What am I doing?” “God, if you really are real, show me!” There’s got to be more to God and being a Christian than what I have experienced!” For the first time in my life I was asking deeper questions and searching for answers, so I made a commitment to start going to church more. Lucky for me, our church had just hired a youth pastor named Mike Frazee.

For some odd reason, Mike took and interest in me and began to show me what it meant to be a Christ Follower. It wasn’t that easy for Mike, because I still had a girl friend and she had all my attention and basically was my life. Well, that’s what I thought until she broke up with me a week or two after prom and a week of two before graduation. I felt as if I had lost everything.

As I look back on it now, God was removing my distractions so I could focus on Him. It was in this time that Mike and I started hanging out more. Mike taught me that being a Christ Follower was more than going to church on Sunday, and if your were really good, Wednesday Night. He started showing me how to read the Bible and challenging me to get to know God like you would a friend. He didn’t just say it, but he modeled it for me. It was here that I started to develop a closer relationship with God and began to follow him and spend time with Him on a daily basis.

It was awesome, God was doing things in my life I never thought possible. In 1995, while attending a Promise Keepers Event in Dallas, I surrendered to God and told Him that I would serve Him in Ministry. It was a weird moment for me, as a kid I remember getting aggravated at my mom when she would say, “I hope you grow up to be a Preacher.” To be honest, I wanted nothing to do with that. I guess God does have a sense of Humor.

As I went back, I started to volunteer in the Student Ministry at First Baptist Nixa. I began to pray for my dad, and in 1996, at another Promise Keepers event, I heard my dad pray for the very first time with my brother and I. He was so nervous; but I will never forget that prayer. That weekend changed my dad and me forever. My Dad is now faithfully perusing a college degree with hopes of being in Ministry. This is much different from the Mechanic I knew as a kid.

In 2000, I graduated from Southwest Baptist University with a BS degree in Religious Education with an emphasis in Youth Ministry. That year I also started dating my future wife, Stephanie Greene at the time.  What a blessing.  At the beginning of the year I was hired by First Baptist Church in Nixa MO, as a part time Youth Pastor. What a great time!  I had the privilege of serving in my home church.  God did some neat things while we were there.  I was licensed and ordained as a full fledged Minister of the Gospel and could now put Rev. in front of my name.  Have never done it yet and don’t know that I ever will.

In the spring of 2001, I received a phone call from Bob Ingle, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Warrensburg MO. He asked me to pray about being their Youth Pastor.  I didn’t know what to say at first, but after praying about it and visiting the church.  I felt it was where I was supposed to be.  I moved there a couple of months later.  It was hard saying good bye to the good people at FBC Nixa, but it was exciting to see what God was going to do at FBC Warrensburg.

I served with great leaders and volunteers at FBC Warrensburg for six years.  We saw a lot of things happen.  We saw our ministry grow in incredible ways and saw many lives changed!  It was awesome!  My wife and I got married in the church in August of 2002, and had our first child in 2004 while serving at FBC Warrensburg.

In 2007, My family and I moved to Texas to serve as the Student Pastor at Grace Community Church.  Grace had been perusing us for almost 6 months before we said yes about serving with them.  In fact, we had said no once before, and planned to say no again when the church brought us down for a visit.  Needless to say, things went much different than we had planned or thought they would.  Once we were there for a visit God began doing the unexpected in our heart.  We flew back to Missouri knowing that we were supposed to be in Plano TX.

With my wife being 8 months pregnant we made the move to a place we had never been; from a place that was so dear to our heart.  We have now been here just over a year. Aside from the challenges with our youngest son, things are going really well.  And we are excited to see were God takes this ministry.  The potential is so great.

Jackson, our youngest son born on mothers day 2007, was born with a virus called Morganella.  Not a lot written about it, and from what we have been told, he is only 1 of 2 survivors out of 5 cases.  He spent 10 days in the NICU and was released a healthy baby.

In November of 2007 Jackson started twitching, almost like you do when your muscles relax as you fall asleep at night.  The doctors determined after a 24 hour EEG, that is was seizures. Little did we know that this would lead us down a stress filled year.

In September of 08 Jackson started a monthly battle of seizures which would either be the onset of a cold, Pneumonia or Bronchitis.  We have seen almost every hospital within 20 minutes from our home.  In October he had his tonsils and adenoids removed because he would stop breathing at night.  This was very scary!  We have learned a lot over the last 7 months.  We are thankful for Jackson and realize how precious every day is.  It has been scary but we trust that the Lord will continue to be our provider.

This is much longer than I thought it would be.  Life is a journey and everyday is different.  I have experienced some very good things, like, marriage, the birth of a child, seeing lives changed, the joy of raising kids . . . when they behave, having close friends, and serving in ministry.  But I have also experienced some bad things like, divorce (parents and others), affairs (close friends and other leaders), sick kids, death, bitterness, lying, illness, betrayal, and selfishness.

Regardless of the situation, God has been faithful.  I just need to trust Him instead of trusting myself.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,” Ephesians 3:20 (NIV)