Life Story
I was born and raised in sunny South Florida. I consider myself a mutt of religious Christendom because I was born and sprinkled/baptized Catholic. Then my mom was saved when I was five, and we attended a small Baptist church for a few months. After that we attended a Presbyterian church for eleven years, where I made a profession of faith at the age of nine through the ministry of a juvenile prison minister (no, I wasn’t in jail at 9). Finally, my last three years of high school we moved to a Methodist church.
Marine biology was my first college major, but this is where
God began to challenge my thinking. How can evolution be true if there is a God
as described in the Bible? I had come to realize that while in High School I falsely
reconciled this in what is known as theistic evolution. God called me into
ministry (not audibly though I wish He would) to reach students with the hope
and truth of Christ as revealed in the Bible. I found myself in a Baptist
Church with a voracious desire to learn how the Bible interacted with science and
life. The lead pastor, Dan Burrell, and assistant pastor, Kent Harralson, were
deep teachers that began to disciple me weekly.
March 2nd, 1997 I was baptized as a believer in Christ, and the doors of ministry began opening. Shortly after I became
the teacher of the singles group where I met my future wife, Sharon. However, in August of 1997 God first
sent me to a Bible college in Uchaud, France to learn God’s Word but also teach
a surfing class in Hossegor. It seemed like the best of both worlds for me, but
it was short-lived as God needed me to
concentrate better. That meant I went to study missions in the center of the
United States, landlocked, far from any
ocean.
I married Sharon in 2000 and finished Bible college in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in Missions. God reminded me that youth ministry was to be my first priority, so I began working with students from 2002 until the summer of 2015. I have been a youth pastor in Missouri, Florida, Montana, Wisconsin, and in 2009 I began here at Victory in good ole’ Murvul, Tennessee. While at Victory I went on to receive an M. A. R. in Pastoral Ministry and most recently an M. Div. in Apologetics. In 2015, I became the Associate Pastor of Victory.
Sharon and I have three amazing active boys that keep us running all over. I love working in the ministry and pride myself on always being available to receive a call, text, or email… unless I am in the water behind my boat!
Hope for Victory
My deepest desire is to see Victory grow organically through one-on-one discipleship and small groups. I believe this must happen ideally, not exclusively, through believing parents to their children who will shape our culture in the church, city, state, country, and world.