My mother got saved at Calvary Chapel in Illinois shortly after I was born. Still, we didn’t regularly go to church until I was in fifth grade. I can still remember that morning like it was yesterday. She woke the whole house up and declared, “everyone get dressed in your Sunday best, we are going to be a family that goes to church, and it starts today!” My dad, who at the time wasn’t a believer, obliged out of love for my mother. My younger brother and I were not so thrilled. We fought and dragged our feet hoping that mom would give up on this new idea. She wasn’t backing down. She comes up to our rooms and doubles down, “You’re not getting out of it, finish getting ready and come downstairs.” We finally got ready, but were going to be too late to make it to the church she wanted to attend. At that time in the early 90’s First Baptist Church of Woodstock Georgia had grown significantly and she wanted to attend. The 25 minute drive was too far for us to make it on time, so we decided to simply attend the little brick church down the street. We didn’t know it at the time, but the little brick church down the street was pastored by Johnny Hunt’s older brother, Norman Hunt. That building may have been small, but it was packed. We had to sit in the back row because of all the best seats being full. That little church had grown from 25 people when pastor Norman arrived to hundreds. Shortly after we began attending, they had to move to 3 services.

It didn’t take long after hearing the gospel for it to impact my family. One fall evening, we got a knock on the door, it was pastor Norman and he wanted to visit with my mom and dad for a Tuesday night visitation. By the time that meeting was over, my father had committed his life to Jesus. A couple months later on December 17th, I prayed to receive Christ as well. Then in just a few more month, my younger brother would declare Jesus as Lord. Our entire family had say “yes” to Jesus in about a year after first hearing about God’s love for the world.

The summer after my senior year of high school, I surrendered to full-time Christian ministry. I was too small to play football in college, so I picked up college cheerleading and met my wife Michele. We got married 1 month after she graduated. I say she, because I was a very poor student my first two years of college and it took me much longer than normal to finish. In the spring of 2008 I completed my Bachelor of Science in Christian Ministries from Shorter University. During that time I served as a staff pastor in my home church, and shortly after graduation I moved to East Texas to be a student pastor. I had a burden to serve as a church planter, so in the middle of the recession we moved back to the Atlanta area to plant a church. I pastored that church for 5 years, before merging it with another linked minded church in the area. From there I served the next 4 years as a discipleship pastor and business administrator for a large SBC in Northern Kentucky.

I met some amazing friends there and saw my family flourish. We added baby girl number 3 to the family and for the first time in our marriage we became home owners. I had a great job, the people were cool, and the area was beautiful, but I knew the Lord had called me to preach. I had previously attempted to complete a Master’s of Divinity, but kids and church planting took priority and I had dropped out twice. In 2017 I was accepted into Liberty University’s school of Divinity. As I was finishing, the Lord called me to Peosta Iowa to pastor a young but promising church. I was hired in February of 2020, and moved here in March. By the time I had arrived, the world had locked down from covid. It wasn’t exactly that transition I had planned. The church was in much more trouble than I had realized. The staff had drifted far off course from the vision the elders set. Between some painful staff turnover and covid, when we began meeting in public again there was only 126 people (out of 400) that returned to worship. I would estimate that 200 of the original 400 would never come back to church.

Almost 6 years later, the church runs almost 800 in weekly worship. We’ve seen record baptisms for the last 4 years in a row, with 2025 ending with 84 people going public with their faith in Christ. God has really turned a difficult situation into a major blessing, I’ve been driving a vision of building our first physical building. Crossroads has been set up and tear down for 12 years now. This Spring we should break ground on our new location. Feeling the weight of pastoring a growing church, in 2024 I enrolled in Doctor of Ministry with Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity. I’m studying ministry leadership trying to become the best pastor I can be. When I get any free time, I enjoy getting in the woods and chasing these giant Iowa bucks.