About Me

I was born in Tulsa, OK but spent my "growing-up" years in Columbia, MO. For most of my high school days, I thought my life was headed toward a performing career on Broadway. I even took ballet lessons because someone told me it would help. Video evidence exists, but I'm sure you'll never see it. Then God got a hold of my life and everything changed.

I grew up Shi'ite Baptist. Not really, but I did grow up thinking that Christianity meant trusting Christ as Savior and Forgiver (which I did as a young child) and then keeping the rules for the rest of your life to make God happy. But I got fairly disillusioned during my teenage years because I started noticing that the people who made the rules didn't usually keep the rules.

When I went to college at Oklahoma State University (looking for my golden educational parachute in case Broadway didn't pan out), I kept going to church. I was, after all, a rule-keeper who didn't want to make God mad. On the first Sunday, I went to a church where the pastor was teaching from Colossians 2:6. When I realized I could serve God out of faith and gratitude rather than out of fear, my whole paradigm shifted. When grace "clicked," everything changed.

Over the course of my college years God completely changed my desires and transformed my life. The kid who once told someone "I will never be a pastor" all of the sudden couldn't think of doing anything else.

After graduation from Oklahoma State with a music education degree I headed to Dallas Theological Seminary where I received a Master of Theology but more importantly, where I met my wife.

Today, I'm the Lead Pastor at McKinney Church in Fort Worth, TX. I live in Fort Worth with my wife, our sons Casen and Cale, and our beagle named Sutton.