us at lower taquahmenon falls 2015

I was born in the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan.  I grew up in a rural area, in a small Baptist church.  My family heritage includes both Wesleyan and Baptist roots.  After getting married in 1990 I began to accept the call into ministry.  My wife Becky, whom is my copastor and partner in ministry, and I started work in our local church in 1992 as youth leaders.  By 1995 we had moved, so that I could attend classes at Indiana Wesleyan University.

While at Indiana Wesleyan I worked in two churches as a youth leader, and then took a solo pastorate in a rural farm town.  After two years leading this small independent-methodist church we moved to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  We spent five-and-a-half years in an attempted church plant in Marquette.  This was a great growing experience for us, as well as a very trying time.  We leaned a lot about people, reaching out, and pouring our lives into people.  We also learned the harsh realities that we couldn’t do it all, and not everyone responds as well as we hope for.

We spent three-and-a half years helping a small church about fifteen miles outside of Traverse City, Michigan.  We experience the good the bad, and even some of the ugly of ministry.  However, it was also a great time of maturing.  I knew after this time I needed more training, as well as a deeper walk with God to lead in the way He was calling me.

We arrived at our current home in the rural farming community of Central Illinois in April of 2006.  We have experience joys of watching families grow, seeing our son married to one of our local women, and seeing people grow in their faith and commitment to God. We have weathered the split of the church, as we called the church back to its Wesleyan roots.  We also overcame our own hurt, as we have helped the church to heal from some deep wounds of its past.

Since arriving here I went back for my Master’s of Divinity at Asbury Theological Seminary through extention. Becky finished on for her own ordination training through the Wesleyan FLAME pastoral training.  We minister together side by side believing that together we can better comple ministry needs of people.  We often say we minister together so the church family has two parents instead of one.

We have opened ourselves again to building close relationships after some past hurts.  We also lead our small-town church with the view that we are a family or a tribe.  Our call is to lead in building people’s lives and relationships on the foundations of Christ in everything we do.