About Me

I’ve spent more than twenty years in ministry. I started in youth ministry, then moved into worship ministry at a church that was working hard to trust its own leadership again after past pastors had abused their power. Watching a congregation try to rebuild trust after real betrayal shaped how seriously I take that word ever since.

From there I helped start a church from nothing, alongside people who took real risks to build something new. I began as the worship leader, then went to seminary remotely while stepping into pastoral ministry at the same time — trained and serving simultaneously, which shaped how I think about theology more than anything else could have. There’s a difference between studying a doctrine and needing it to hold up in someone’s kitchen the same week you preached it.

The people I served with had known me for years as a peer before I became their pastor — we’d done life together long before any of that. The church went through a difficult season when its pastor left abruptly and under painful circumstances, and the people who stayed were still passionate about the church’s mission but genuinely hurting. I tried hard to be someone they could trust again. I preached without platitudes, because these were real people with real problems, and faith either intersected with real life or it didn’t matter much at all. We tried everything we could to help that church grow. It wasn’t enough to keep the doors open. When it closed, the people made the decision to take what they’d learned and bring it to other congregations instead.

I moved on to serve as associate pastor at a healthy, growing church that was looking toward its next chapter. It was a genuine joy — preaching, leading worship, teaching, and having some real, in-depth conversations with people there who were serious, thoughtful believers wrestling honestly with faith and life. My preaching and teaching were shaped even further there, toward being relevant and immediately useful rather than abstract. After several years, I was called to be their senior pastor. Around that same time, I came to a point where I could no longer in good conscience continue as a pastor in that setting. I declined the call and stepped away from pastoral ministry, without bringing the congregation into the full reason why.

I now work outside of pastoral ministry for my primary vocation. I still wrestle with that calling, and I still wonder whether pastoral ministry might be part of my future again.

I write from within the Lutheran tradition, shaped by the conviction that God acts first and that grace is gift, not something earned. This is also an affirming space — not because I’m interested in a fight, but because I believe the love of God is wider and steadier than many of us were taught to expect.

What Jesus offers is not manipulation, performance, or a maze of spiritual hoops to jump through. The gift of Christ is grace: life-giving, freeing, given without strings attached. At its best, the Church has always been called to bear witness to that gift — and one of the ways it’s long done that is through its music, which is why hymnody is something I love to explore.

What you’ll find here

My hope is that this is a place where you can encounter the beauty, depth, and goodness of the Christian faith with less of the baggage so often piled on top of it.

I’m glad you’re here. If you’re not sure where to start, Start Here is built for exactly that.