About Me

My guitar playing excelled when I started learning to play songs that I liked on the radio. Every week I looked forward to getting my allowance and walking to the music store to buy a new 45. Okay, so now I'm dating myself. For those who don't know, a 45 was a small record (played at a speed of 45 rpms) and it was generally a "single" of a current top 40's song that was being played on the radio. On side B, there was another song by the same artist usually from the same LP (a long-play album played at 33 rpms). Buying a 45, back then, would be much like downloading an mp3 today of a hit song being played on the radio.

My first 45 was by a group called "Bread" and the song was called "Everything I Own". Some of my other favorite artists were the Beatles, The Guess Who, Simon & Garfunkle, James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot, America, Chicago, Neil Young, Carol King, Carly Simon, and Jackson Browne - to name a few. Wow, what a great period of singer-songwriters. As a nine year old, I was in heaven between my 45's and my baseball cards.

My brother and I are like night and day. He liked songs with heavy electric guitars and loud bass and drums while I was drawn to the acoustic sounds of the guitar and vocal harmonies. There was just something about that sound and I wanted to learn how to play and sing that way. Occasionally I would even buy a songbook or sheet music to learn to play certain songs and eventually I learned to figure out the guitar chords to songs by listening to my records.

When I was about eleven we moved to Florida and it was there our family got seriously plugged into church. Church was a great outlet to me for music and I started playing in the church orchestra and singing in the choir. At about 14 I started to play around with the piano and became highly motivated to learn to play and sing. I was able to speed up the learning curve by learning to play chords on the piano, just like I'd been doing for years on the guitar.

I started to write music about that same time and while I think I wrote some partial songs with the guitar, my songwriting really took off as I was learning to play the piano. Within a year I was playing and singing songs I had written in church, and was regularly helping lead the singing in our youth group, in children's church, at youth camps, for the "Jolly Sixties" and in nursing homes.

Staying involved in church was a great blessing for me durring my high school days. I clearly remember one of our church services where the pastor gave a charge the youth to commit their lives to the Lord to serve Him and I felt the call of God on my life and committed to serve Him in vocational ministry. When I graduated from high school there was no doubt that I should pursue something that involved music and ministry.

I enrolled at a Bible College in Springfield, Missouri where I majored in music composition and Biblical studies. It was there that I met some wonderful life-long friends including my wonderful wife, Sherri. After graduating, Sherri and I were married in her home town of Mishawaka, Indiana and we moved to Dallas where furthered my education in Theology at Seminary.

While attending Dallas Theological Seminary I was blessed to be able to lead worship part-time for several churches in the area. Whenever I wasn't employed part-time by a church I was involved with the worship ministry in our home church, Pantego Bible Church.

When we started to have children, Sherri and I were committed to her staying home as a full-time mom and that meant that I needed a full-time income. God miraculously opened a door for me to work in engineering in the aircraft industry. I remember perfectly the day that I started training and I remember learning that our insurance began that very day too. And yes! They covered pre-existing maternity. My son, David, was born that night. What an incredible sense of timing God has!

If you know anything about the aircraft industry you know that the work comes and goes in waves along with government contracts. In the aircraft industry you're often either working over-time or getting layed-off. After several lay-offs and re-hires I decided that I was cut out for something with a little more stability.

A friend at church hired me to help him with his roofing business, then another friend hired me to help him track capital expenses for an amusement park which eventually opened the door to work full-time in the point-of-sale department. It was during this time that I was once again voluntarily leading worship for a start-up church in South Arlington when God reminded me of His call and of the desires and strengths He had placed in me to serve Him in ministry leading worship. All these years had passed but the desire to serve the Lord in full-time vocational ministry never subsided.

The timing was right with my job and I put my resume together to start looking for a church where I could serve full-time. God didn't initially open that door but He was gracious to allow me to keep working at my current job while being employed part-time by our home church as an assistant to our worship pastor. When we built a new building I was invited to a full-time position and the timing couldn't have been better.

God is amazing in all He does and in the ways He directs our paths. As I look back I can clearly see that there is order in everything that happens, even in the chaos. God's timing is impeccable. His direction is intentional. And His blessings are overwhelming. Today, I serve as Worship Pastor at Pantego Bible Church and I thank the Lord daily for what He's done in my life and I look forward with great anticipation, to what He's going to do today, tomorrow, and everyday!