Men’s Bible Study Testimony

*Show pictures*

I was born in 1983 and grew up right outside of Nashville, TN in a town called Mt. Juliet.

My dad was a song evangelist, Gospel Singer and worked as the manager for a grocery store.

Momma worked in finance for the State of TN.

My brother Jeff and sister Gena were both teenagers by the time I came along.

From birth I attended Nazarene Churches in the Nashville area and I would also travel with my parents to churches throughout the southeast when my Dad would have concerts.

Going to church, being around people who loved Jesus and love others was what I knew.

I gave my life to Christ at 10 years old at Camp Garner Creek in Dickson, TN at a revival that my dad was singing at.

For the next 4 years or so, I followed Christ as well as I knew how to at that age.

Then High School came.

Different friends, environment, and different tempations.

And I also discovered that some of the people I knew at church and who sang with my dad weren’t for real about their faith.

They were faking it.

And I didn’t real know what to do with that.

I became disillusioned with the faith because the lifestyles I saw in some Christians didn’t add up with what they claimed.

They were fakers.

I still loved Jesus, but I couldn’t get those people out of my head.

And although my parents cared about me, they really weren’t building me up in the faith or checking up on my walk at all.

Then I remember one morning in 9th grade we were waiting to get off bus # 110 at the 9th grade annex at Mt. Juliet High.

It was my friends Scott, Brian, and this stupid bully named Zack Kersey.

Dude was a problem and would try to mess with me every day.

I would be patient and bite my tongue day after day, but he crossed a line that day.

He took the gum he was chewing in his stank nasty mouth and put it right in my hair.

And I had some nice hair back then y’all.

I lost it on ole’ buddy and remember choking him until he was about to pass out.

And in the coming weeks Zack wanting to keep talking crazy to me, so my buddy Brian convinced me to quote some line from an Adam Sandler movie and cuss Zack out with it. I didn’t cuss at all at the time, but that was about to change.

I gave this dude as many four letter words as I knew in just a few seconds, and it made me feel like I was the man because I told him off. I thought cussing dude out gave power to my words.

But I was wrong. It just made me weak, and I felt terrible about it.

And even though this act of sin may seem simple, that one action led to a downward spiral of sin in my life.

For the next seven years, I walked completely away from God.

I started drinking, messing around with girls, drugs, partying, clubbing.

You name it, I was about it.

Like Pastor Phillip said a few weeks ago: All that sin was a whole lot of fun… for about 30 minutes.

I had moments where I could have easily die because of my stupidity:

-I was at an apartment party where a riot broke out and some dudes that were coming after my friend Chris and I were pulling guns out of their truck to shoot us right as the cops showed up and arrested them.

-I was at Club La Vela in Panama City and forgot the entire night because I downed about a fifth of tequila.

-When I was still underage, I was at a club called Graham Central Station in Nashville when my buddy Brent and I found some used 21+ wristbands on the floor, took some chewed gum and put them on like we were 21. We drank a whole lot that night, and I decided it would be a great idea to drive from downtown Nashville to my house. I remember pulling on the entrance ramp next to the Tennessee Titans stadium, and don’t remember anything else until I pulled into my driveway… 35 minutes away.

God spared my life quite a few times, but I kept chasing sin and hoping it would fill me up.

It never did.

And eventually I went into a deep depression.

I was becoming more and more hopeless, and the sin in my life was slowly killing me.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving Weekend 2004.

I went out partying at a few places in Nashville, getting messed up like I always did.

But that Sunday morning I decided to go to church to make my Momma happy.

I was hungover that morning and soul was aching like never before.

I walked in late to this Sunday School class of around 20 people taught by someone I respected named Tony Allison.

I don’t remember everything he said that morning, but I do remember him talking about the reason why people chase after sin: Drinking, partying, sex, etc.

Basically all the stuff I had been doing.

Tony said people chase after this stuff because there’s a hole in their soul.

I was floored.

He could not have called out exactly what was going on in my heart and life and clearer.

I know now that was the power of the Holy Spirit speaking through him.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

The guilt and shame was weighing on me so heavy that it felt like I couldn’t move.

I said to God right then that I was ready either to end it and physically die right then, or give my heart to Him and die to myself.

I’m glad I chose the latter.

Later that morning during prayer time, I turned from my sins, turned to Christ and he saved me completely.

Immediately that weight of guilt and shame was gone… dropped off me like a ton of bricks.

Christ called me out of deepest darkness into His marvelous light.

Right away I started inviting all my party friends to church.

We had a whole row of college students sitting up front at this little church.

I got involved quickly leading worship for the youth group and teaching the College Class.

My soul was set free and I was having a blast serving Jesus.

Then something happened at the church.

It was called a split.

Some stuff had happened in board meetings, arguments were had, and two of the people I respected the most left our church: Tony (the Sunday School teacher I mentioned) and my brother Jeff, who was the strongest example of a Christian man in my life.

I was devastated and thought about leaving with them.

But God called me to stay.

I kept helping with the college and youth ministries until our Youth Pastor, Bubba, took a position in Kansas City.

I was his only adult helper, so guess who became the new youth guy?

You guessed it.

I WAS TERRIFIED.

Not into public speaking, had never preached a message, and a week after Bubba leaves I’ve got to preach to a group of teens.

First Wednesday night I got up to speak, and this kid Michael walks through the doors, takes one look at me up their speaking, and walks right out.

Made me want to quit right then… but I didn’t

I filled in and did the best I could for a few months until my friend Thomas Crummer came to try out to be the next Youth Pastor.

He was a student at Trevecca (our Nazarene University in Nashville) and was an engaging, knowledgeable speaker.

He said he would come speak four Wednesdays and then pray about whether he should come or not.

First three weeks went great. Kids listened, were engaged, and I thought he was gonna be the guy.

Then the fourth week happened… and it was a DISASTER.

I don’t know what came over those kids, but they acted like complete TURDS that night.

Thomas prayed and felt God leading him to another church, and there I was leading these kids again.

I was just trying to fill in again and do the best I could, when one night I remember talking to one of our teens in the youth room, and God told me “this is what you’re supposed to do with your life.”

Now I already had my career planned out… I had a great paying job at the Nissan Car Plant, was going to work there for thirty years, retire early and go live on the beach.

But God was like “NAH, you’re gonna be a Youth Pastor.”

Now my brother-in-law was a youth pastor at the time, and I know how broke he was, so I was like “You sure God?”

19 years later I know he was sure about that.

Since Youth Ministry is my calling, I decided that I needed to learn a little about ministry.

So i got something called a “Local Minister’s License” and started pursuing ordination in the Church of the Nazarene.

I was having a blast and we were reaching out to troubled kids and getting them involved in church, taking trips and growing together with these kids while learning from wise teachers in my ordination classes.

And on one of those trips called “NYI Convention,” I met a little 5’1 cinnamon sugar hottie named Kayla Keller.

She was a youth leader at her church in Sparta, TN and was totally single like me.

In 2009 we got married.

15 months later we had a boy named Brayden, and then 8 months after that we were called to our first full-time pastoral position in Charleston, WV.

I was so excited and had a great group of kids in Charleston.

But then something happened that rocked my world: Momma got sick and passed away 6 months after our move.

I’m a total Momma’s boy, and her death was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through.

God’s grace was sufficient and he got me through it all, but I dealt with depression off and on as I continued ministering to teens and their families.

There were also some really hard things that happened at our church in Charleston and people who hurt us and our ministry.

In 2014, my daughter Ava was born and when she was six months old we moved to Somerset, KY where I became the Youth Pastor at Science Hill Nazarene.

My parents and my brother and sister were raised in KY, so this place felt a lot like home bc the people their act so much like my blood family (the good, bad and ugly!)

It wasn’t always perfect there, but we had almost 10 wonderful years in that place reaching troubled students for Christ and raising our babies in a small town.

But the church was comfortable and I was starting to get that way too.

Fast forward to this year.

We lost some more family and friends.

My wife Kayla’s grandma passed away in mid-January.

My Dad passed away January 31 after dealing with years of bad health and being in a nursing home his final years.

On the way to my Dad’s burial, Kayla got a call that her boss at the small orthodontic practice she worked at was braindead and being kept alive until they could harvest his organs.

It was a lot to take in in a short amount of time.

But God’s Word reminds us that “all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”

And even in these moments of hurt, pain and tears for our family, God was paving the way for us to come here to Amplify.

You see, one benefit of living in Southern KY was that we could hop down and see my Dad in Nashville.

When he went on to heaven, I felt a release to go into a new place to continue fulfilling my calling.

Two months later, I found out the Youth position here at Amplify was open.

Full disclosure: I had been spying on y’all at this church for a few years.

You see, I ate lunch with the Amplify Staff at a conference called the Holiness Partnership back in 2019.

We had a great time, laughed and goofed off, and I thought, “they seem like great dudes.”

I checked out the website and thought “that seems like a really cool church.”

So I would spy and check out what y’all were doing from time to time.

And in that time, God was doing some incredible things here.

The stuff of legend in the Church of The Nazarene.

So I emailed Pastor Phillip back in March when I found out about the position. came and visited and all I could say was

“the hype is real! God’s moving here like crazy!”

I am honored to be here as the Youth Pastor with some amazing students, leaders and and incredible congregation.

I’ll finish with this:

I would have been one of the last people in my youth group growing up that anyone would think would become a Youth Pastor.

But God uses broken, messed up, broken, drunken party people like me when they turn from their sins and turn to Him.

They no longer live for the world and it’s ways, but their minds are transformed and they live for Christ the King.

Romans 12:1–2 NIV

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

“I have seen the dark and desperate place where sin can take you

I’ve felt loneliness and pain.

BUT I have seen the blinding light of grace come through with a sweetness only tasted by the forgiven and redeemed.

I can’t fly, at least not yet.

I’ve got no halo on my head.

And I can’t even start to picture heaven’s beauty.

But I’ve been shown the Savior’s love.

The grace of God has raised me up.

To show me things the angels long to look into.

I know things angels only wish they knew.

-Steven Curtis Chapman, Angels Wish