Biography:

I am a combat veteran and a retired Artillery Officer (MAJ) serving 24 years in the Florida National Guard and have also been employed for 35 years at UPS, currently in the role as a Global Program Manager in Healthcare. I graduated from Palm Beach Atlantic University in 1994 with a degree in Human Resource Management. I have been blessed with 28 years of marriage to my wife Jenny, and have 3 children JD (25), Bryce (22), and Maggie (18). God has been faithful in every phase of my life as I look back from when I was not saved up until the age of 26, to when I gave my life to Jesus at 26 at First Baptist of Lantana, and from that point going through the sanctification process daily and growing in Christ. In each phase, as I look back now, I see God’s sovereign hand at work as He led me and guided me on the path, HE had for me even when I didn’t know Him.

I came from a broken home as a child in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My parents were not believers, nor did we attend church. Essentially, we were Christmas and Easter Catholics. My dad struggled with alcoholism which ultimately led to my parents’ divorce in 1972. However, I was blessed with wonderful grandparents on my mother’s side who were strong believers and planted the seeds of Christianity when I stayed with them for several weeks each summer in Lima, Ohio. In 1981, my mother moved to Lexington, KY (Go Blue!) and my brother and I together, with my single mom, started a new life. Again, by God’s sovereign hand my mom, brother, and I started attending Immanual Baptist Church in Lexington and were baptized together in 1983 during my senior year of high school. This is when I started becoming exposed and immersed to the truths of the Gospel and living the life of a true believer. I witnessed a complete transformation in my mother, and it intrigued me as we started attending service, Sunday school, and bible studies regularly. After graduating high school, I went to college at Eastern Kentucky University for a couple of years and then moved to South Florida in 1988 while pursuing a full-time job in logistics with Airborne Express. The first few months and following couple of years in South Florida were very difficult and I experienced many disappointments in work and life including a divorce from my first wife of 5 years. I started questioning my life choices and desired a change and needed to pursue Christ again wholeheartedly and started attending First Baptist Church of Lantana. Big changes happened here, and I knew God was moving in my life and putting certain people in my path for that specific time. During a revival in 1991, after 4 days of attending, the pastor looked me in the eye and asked, “If you died today; would you go to heaven?” I honestly wasn’t sure that night and rededicated my life to Christ. The burden had been lifted that night and I wept in pure JOY as I knew my life was back on track and I KNEW for the first time and truly felt that I WAS a child of God!

In 1993, through my mother’s wise intervention from Kentucky, she helped introduce me to my wife Jenny and we were married in 1995. Jenny was a pastor’s daughter, so I was immediately immersed with the legacy of her family’s faith and Christian influence and her father Bennie immediately became one of my spiritual mentors. We were active members of First Baptist of Boynton and placed membership the year we were married in 1995. We raised our family at FBB, served in and participated in Awanas, Sunday School, and served in different capacities in the church. Many of our closest friends, to this day, are friends that we met and served with at FBB. This church became our “family” as we had left all our family in Kentucky to be in Florida. God was faithful during this time in the connections we made and the church family we had that supported us in our marriage and the births of our children. These memories we will always treasure. I was deployed in 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and the church laid hands on me before I left, and that was such a witness to me at that time to the POWER of prayer and the peace I felt as I left Jenny and my 2 young boys alone. I witnessed how the church, our “family”, loved us and took care of her and our boys while I was away, which strengthened my faith more than I can say. The church took care of my family from lawn care, to babysitting, to store runs, to dental visits, you name it, I saw the hands and feet of Jesus while I was deployed, and it was another life changer for me as a young believer. Fast forward 20 years later, Pastor David and Pastor Jose arrive on the scene at FBB and then God moves in ways at the time I didn’t understand, and Gospel City Church was planted. Up to this point, I had been connected to my church but just not really serving in a major capacity. Gospel City opened and I felt God challenging me to step out and serve. I could no longer just be an attender or a bystander. I knew my wife had been praying for me to get more involved and to grow in my faith, and suddenly, the door was opened for me to step into a church plant and serve my church and an AMAZING God. Being in UPS sales for so many years, it is naturally for me to connect with people and build relationships in my business and that natural ability is a talent I feel I can use at Gospel City. I can connect with people coming to our church and share the JOY I have found in the life-giving truths of the Gospel. My desire for our church is to be a faithful and worthy bride of Christ in everything that we do and that ALL we do would bring God the glory, not us! I may not be RICH in the world’s standards when it comes to my bank account, a mansion on the beach, or the car that I drive, but the blessings I have in CHRIST here in South Florida from my relationship with Him are far more glorious than anything this world has to offer. It has been a joy for me personally this past year to be a member of Gospel City and to serve God and my desire is to continue to serve Him in whatever way HE would have me serve His people here in South Florida and at Gospel City.