About Me

When I was very young, my parents became Christians, so I was raised in a Christian home.  My parents took me to church ever since I can remember.  At the age of five, I remember the pastor of my church preaching a message that scared me so badly that I asked my mother about the pastor’s message.  At that time, I remember praying with her and asking Jesus into my heart.  In retrospect, I am not sure that I understood what was happening at that time or if I even understood what I was doing.  I believe that it was more of an emotional experience than anything else.  However, my childhood was fairly standard for a person growing up in a Christian home.  My parents would take me to church and I would participate in the various children and teen programs that the church offered.

In my teen years, I was quite rebellious and turned away from the things that I had learned in my parent’s home and in church.  Without going in to great detail, I did many things that would cause me to question whether or not the salvation experience I had at five years of age was, in truth, a life changing decision.  Through some traumatic circumstances, I came to the counsel of a man named Jim Catoe.  He showed me what was missing in my life and I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.  I know that at that time my life was changed forever and Jesus became real to me in a way that I had not previously known.

I was enrolled to Bob Jones University.  I continued to grow in the Lord at Bob Jones University, where I accepted the Lord’s prompting into His service.  I interned at Grace Bible Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland.  I graduated from Bob Jones with my Bachelor of Arts in Youth Ministry with a minor in counseling and was married to a beautiful woman named Karen.  We moved to North Carolina where I had taken a position to teach Bible at Wake Christian Academy.  I attended a church plant named Family Baptist, but that ministry did not fully mature.  During that ministry, my wife, 2 friends, and I formed a Christian band, 5 smooth stones.  In the formation of this ministry, the Lord led us to a church that was in need of music ministry help.  Plymouth Baptist was a place that the band was able to function as a worship team and aid in the worship of the church.

After a brief stint in the business world, I took a position at Cresset Christian Academy that would allow me to further my training for the ministry.  During this time at Cresset, we began helping a pastor friend in a ministry.   God then moved us (while Karen was pregnant with our first child) to West Virginia where I took a position as Youth Pastor and Worship Leader for Elkview Baptist Church.  Karis was born shortly thereafter and God blessed us with another child, Kyle during our time at EBC.  In 2009, I completed my Master of Divinity from Liberty University and began work on a Doctor of Ministry degree at Liberty University.

After five years at Elkview Baptist Church in the youth and music ministries, I accepted the call to go to Temple Baptist Church in Newport News, VA to serve as the Associate Pastor of Discipleship and Music.  I began ministry at Temple in December of 2010 and am continuing to serve the Lord through Temple Baptist Church.