I was blessed to grow up in a Christian home in Bay City, MI, and I praise God that when I was 4 years old, my faithful mother led me to faith in Jesus Christ. She has prayed with and for me all the way back to my earliest childhood memories. When I was 17, I moved to Greenville to attend Bob Jones University, and there I came to be convinced of the Reformed faith through providential connections with some wonderful Reformed Christian brothers and sisters. I will never forget the euphoria when I first understood that God Almighty had set his eternal love upon me—apart from any condition in me! Amazing Grace indeed. It was also at BJU that God began to work in me a desire for gospel ministry.
However, a call to gospel ministry never materialized, and in my early adult years my Christian faith grew inconsistent, largely due to a gradual neglect of the weekly means of grace in a local church.
Sometime around 2007, at the invitation and gentle influence of faithful Christian friends, my wife Mariah and I began attending Second Presbyterian Church. I still vividly recall knowing immediately that we had found our home. It was through the ministry of this precious church that God was pleased to revitalize our Christian walk—and to grow and bless our family. And in God’s goodness, it was in this place that He graciously called me into pastoral ministry.
I received my M.Div. from RTS Charlotte in 2017 and have since been pleased to minister to the saints at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Statesboro, GA. In 2018, God clearly and persuasively and graciously called us back home to SPC Greenville, and we could not be happier that He has seen fit to do so!
I write this even now with tears in my eyes, as I consider the wonderful blessing of coming home to minister in the church I love with all my heart. I have richly experienced the patience and love and mercy of God in Christ throughout all my life, and I look forward with great anticipation to watching Him continue to work in our family and in our church family for many years to come. “’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”
