My Story

Background/Highlights

Small Town Rural Indiana

Show some pictures?

Very Small School

Molly and I have known each other for a LONG time - went to church, YG together

Family, mine and Moll’s, Long hair

I love sports - football, baseball, soccer, but basketball is my favorite

Colts, Purdue, if I had to pick Pacers, Tottenham Hotspur

I love

I love movies and tv shows

Star Wars, Avengers, Batman Trilogy, The Office, Parks and Rec, Stranger Things, Friday Night Lights

I love all kinds of food!!!

Burgers are probably my favorite. But I love Mexican, Chinese, Thai, PIZZA, Wings

Pretty much anything EXCEPT ONIONS. I can’t stand onions

Playing xbox

I can’t stand onions

playing guitar

High School

Very small school!

Very much focused on myself

Lived two separate lives - one at school, one at church - grew up in church my whole life, but never made my faith my own; didn’t get the gospel

Life was about me, about sports, I was the center!

I knew I needed God; that was always in the back of my mind, especially from my upbringing. I knew God should be important, but that But I never really had a desire to pursue Him.

Grant

Grant came to YG with me and Jesus grabbed ahold of his heart like I had never seen before; he instantly understood what it meant to have a relationship with Jesus that literally changed not just his life, but mine

He was the first person who I saw what a life-giving relationship with Jesus looked like, and in that moment I knew that wasn’t just what I needed, it also became what I wanted

It is easy to say that we need Jesus, but I think it’s a lot different when we say that we want Jesus

**You should always bring your friends whether you want to be here or not - you never know how God will use it not just to change them, but you as well!**

This changed the direction of my life forever

Priorities Changed - Who I chose to hang out with, how I spent my time; became closer to friends at YG in 6 months than I had with friends at school in 10 years

there is NOTHING like a community that is centered around commonality in Jesus

Identity Changed - I wasn’t perfect, but I became increasingly less and less absorbed with myself; it wasn’t about me being seen as an athlete, or as popular, but as a belonging to Jesus

This had a huge impact on me as I began thinking about college and why I chose IWU

College

**What happens when you become a disciple and follow Jesus is that you learn to live the life that God has for you and not your own. **

Went to college as a nursing major, not even a month in I was like “Nope!”

Went into it because I wanted to help people, but I knew I could make good money, and IWU had a great program

When you are following Jesus, you begin to ask questions like “Lord, what do YOU want to do with my life? How are YOU calling me to live my life?”

No doubt this is where some of you are right now - let me just say, you don’t have to have that figured out now. More than what we do with our lives for God, I believe that God is more concerned with who we are becoming in your relationship with Him

Place your relationship with Jesus over what you are supposed to do, and He will make clear to you the life He has for you

As we are growing and deepening in our relationship with Jesus, then Jesus begins to reveal this to us

For me, and I believe for you, it was a matter of learning how God made me and wired me, what I enjoyed doing, and how God led me as I asked for His guidance

I love people - I love relationships, making new friends, developing and growing old ones - I knew what God was calling me to was with people

I love God’s Word - I love learning about God’s Word, and I love teaching God’s Word; as I learned more about my love for people and my love for God and His Word, I began to think more about ministry

As I began to pursue this, God kept affirming it and opened the doors I sense He was leading me through

This is not to say that discerning God’s will is easy, or that He will always lead you in ways you expect. Sometimes Jesus works in really unexpected ways, sometimes He allows things to happen that we don’t understand in the moment - yet His ways are always trustworthy and always with purpose

Jesus asks us not to understand, but to be faithful, to surrender to what He wants, to say “not my will be done, Father, but Yours”

One day I was home, and I was having some devotional time. I was reading or journaling, I’m not sure what. But I was home alone, and I needed some background noise - normally I do this in quiet, but for some reason I turned on the tv this day. I turned it on, and naturally I put on SportsCenter. When I turned it on, SC just started telling the story of a guy named Wilson Holloway.

WH was Blake Griffin’s best friend. They grew up together, they played basketball together, you get the picture.

I really wasn’t paying attention, I was trying to read and have my quiet time, as you know, until they started talking more about WH’s story. You see, when Wilson was only 20, he was diagnosed with NHL, a cancer of the lymph nodes. As soon as they said this, my eyes and attention jumped to the TV to listen to this story.

The reason this caught my attention was because I had been sick for the past several weeks - I had to leave college my sophomore year because of this, and I was in and out of the hospital as drs. were trying to figure out what i had. I had just come back from the drs. office only a couple days before this, and the news they gave me was was scary, but hopeful.

The doctors said that, based on their tests and procedures they had done in the past weeks, they were almost 100% positive that I had NHL. All they needed to do to confirm this was one last surgery to find the cancer cells - and once they did this, we could then move on to doing chemo therapy to fight it. Because of this, they told me I had to drop out of school to get ready for this.

Even though they were sure this was the diagnosis, they said there was nothing to be afraid of - that of all the cancers in the world that you can have, this is a good one, because they know how to cure it, and it has a 99% cure rate. This was so reassuring for me to hear. Even though this is what my life is going to be like for the foreseeable future, I will end up being okay.

“Okay, Jesus, if this is what you have for me, I trust you”

At this point in the story on SportsCenter, they are detailing WH’s journey through chemo therapy. It is a long road, but it is one that that was successful after a few months of chemo. What happened was just what the doctors said! He was healed, and he eventually went back to living a normal life.

This was encouraging to hear! The doctors were right, I could be healed just like WH.

But of course the story wasn’t over. A few months after WH’s cancer went away, it came back again. And this time, it was much worse. This is not something my doctors told me was a possibility. WH went through about months of really tough chemo, and eventually he passed away from the cancer.

This was one of the most sobering moments of my life. I was 20 years old, listening to the story of another 20 year old who lost his life to the same cancer my doctors told me I didn’t have to worry about. It was a moment where life really came into perspective for me for the first time - I knew that I wouldn’t live forever, but I sure never imagined that my life could end so soon.

“Okay, Jesus, if this is what you have for me, I trust you”

What God taught me in this moment was how precious of a gift life is. I have no idea what the number of my days are, but however many there are, I want to make them count! I don’t want to waste this life that you have given me, Lord, no matter how long it is.

Two passages that God used to help me in this season. The first was . This is what it says:

Psalm 73:23–26 NIV

23 Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

This passage was so encouraging to me during this season. I love so many things about it that God used to teach me about what was going on around me -

God’s promise to always be with us - not because I choose to be with Him, but He chooses to be with me, with You

I am always with YOU; I am with You, and wherever you are is where I am supposed to be

You hold me by my right hand - I did not take ahold of your hand, but Yours is tightly gripped around mine!

And because of that, even if it’s not what I expected or where I planned to be, or even WANT to be, I can trust in You still

“Whom have I in heaven but You?! And earth has NOTHING I desire besides You!”

At the end of the day, what do we have that will last that is not God? This passage says that our reward in the end is God Himself! That there is nothing on this earth that is to be more desired than Him!

If all this did was help me grow closer with God, to teach me to desire him more, then it would have been worth it

Even though things in life happens that we don’t expect, that doesn’t mean God is not using them for something that we can’t yet see

The second passage God used spoke to this very thing.

Psalm 73:26-

Ephesians 3:20 NIV

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,

Ephesians 3:14–21 ESV

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Psalm 73:26 ESV

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Ephesians 3:20–21 NIV

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:

Psalm 73:26

This verse God used to help me get this perspective, to not put limits on what God might do - that just because this is not what I thought would happen in life, or even with having no idea what the future would look like, that is not to say God is not moving, that we are left out on our own, that He doesn’t have something else in mind. I could still expect God to show up in ways that only He could.

“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine...”

I didn’t know what God was doing or how He was using this time, but I trusted Him, the one who has the power to do more than we could ever think up

To this day, we have no idea what I had or what made me sick. We prayed so much for healing and for God’s will to be done. I had one more surgery where they tried to find cancer cells; they found none, and ever since that last surgery I started to get better - and never looked back

Did I have cancer? Maybe, maybe not. Either God healed me, or it was some other weird thing that left as fast as it had shown up - either way, God used it in a way that radically changed my life, that changed my desire for and pursuit of Him

Whatever is going on in life, good or bad, expected or unexpected, God has something in store for us - and at the very least, it is an invitation from Him to grow deeper with Him, and often times more.

I had known Jesus before, I had but this experience was when I said “yes” to the invitation of growing more deeply and intimately in Christ. After I got better, I had an entire semester to do nothing since I wasn’t at school, and this time was such a gift from God in ways I could not have asked for or imagined.

Affirmed my call to ministry

Had a ton of time where all I had to do was pursue the Lord - such a unique time

Experiences I got I could not have had if I were in college, things I never would have thought to ask or imagined could be possible (Maybe stories for another time!)

Today

Fast forward - After coming back to school, Molly and I started dating at IWU

Declared as a Christian Min. degree; Molly and I got engaged our last year at IWU, and we miraculously graduated at the same time (that’s a story for another time) right before we got married in July 2016.

Over this time in college, I grew to love high school students, working with them and hanging out with them

Before wedding, we didn’t know where we were going

My plans, God’s different ones

I understood, but I was also upset that I didn’t get to work with YG back home

“Okay, Jesus, if this is what you have for me (or don’t have for me), I stil trust You”

Getting call about CCS

Getting connected at CACM with Ryan

THIS PLACE WAS THE BEST PLACE I COULD HAVE LANDED

GOD KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING EVEN WHEN I DIDN’T SEE IT

The season I have been in the last three years with Ryan and Travis were more than I could have asked or imagined - out of all the places in the world I could have been called, this was the most perfect one that fit me and what I needed in order to grow.

Growing in ministry skills at church

eventually going to GCTS

Perfect season for me to learn and grow in

God knew this! Way better than I did!

Student ministry, host/hospitality team, community groups

God started giving me a desire in my heart to be doing more - more in church, less in school (homework is the worst, amiright?)

TBH, This whole time from January to June, I had Idlewild in mind. I wanted to jump in and do more AT IDLEWILD. I was excited about it, our community was going there; and yet again God had something different in mind

Again, I found myself feeling confused and upset “But it makes so much sense for me to go this way, Lord!”

“But again, Jesus, if this is what you have for me, I trust You”

Little did I know about what God had in mind while all this was happening