Having been raised in a covenant home, the Spirit’s work in my life has been evident as long as I can remember. At a young age, the Lord instilled in me a vigor for His Word. The words of Paul in 2 Timothy 1:5 ring very true in my life: “When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.”

I do not have a dramatic conversion story, but the story of our God’s constant faithfulness in my life is as incredible as any other testimony. Growing up, I was at church every time the doors were open, and my heart anticipated being with God’s people in fellowship. Of course, my young mind was not actively thinking about my joy-filled church experience, but it is plainly evident looking back. In ensuing years, my vigor for the Word and faithfulness in fellowshiping with the saints led to my being asked to lead small groups and teach lessons at church. I began to sense the Lord calling me to ministry, but I was still very hesitant.

The Call to Ministry

While I was in high school, several men in my church approached me because they saw my gift for teaching and asked whether or not I had sensed the call to ministry. Those men watched me teach in various ways, which confirmed the gifts they had suspected, and they urged me to consider that the Lord was calling me to vocational ministry. Through this confirmation, I surrendered to the fact that the Lord had plans for me within His church, different than those of a layman.

As a sophomore in college, I was called to be the youth director at a small Baptist church in town. This was my first true experience in ministry. During this time, I began to see certain doctrines in Scripture that went against the grain of what I had been raised to believe. God used a faithful friend to disciple me in the doctrine of grace, which radically changed the way I perceived our sovereign Lord. Two years and a church change later, I was asked to be the youth director of the Presbyterian church I was attending, and the elders of the church encouraged me to begin looking into seminary following my time at college.This served as further confirmation of God’s call on my life.

A Change of Plans

In May 2014, I married my high school sweetheart, Brooke. By the time I had graduated college in December 2015, I knew that God was leading me to full-time ministry. I began to equip myself through individual studies in theology and to prepare myself for seminary. By God’s providence, I was shepherded by a retired minister for the next year. This mentorship provided me with the chance not only to study theology, but to discuss how theology should be applied in real-world situations. My plan was to begin online classes at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary (RPTS) in the fall of 2016. My plans changed, however, when that summer I received orders to go to Iraq.

I had joined the Army National Guard the summer after high school with the intention of becoming an Army chaplain. I served the first four years as an infantryman before transferring to communications due to some injuries sustained during my years in the infantry. The final four years of my Army service were primarily spent doing satellite communications and networking. This was my job during my deployment to Iraq: I maintained the base network of over 6,000 users.

Prior to my deployment, I had serious concerns about the worship in my local Presbyterian church. With my spare time in Iraq, I began what turned into a three-month-long study into biblical worship with the intent of presenting my study to the elders. After a little over two months of studying, I became convinced that the instruments used in worship were inseparably tied to the sacrificial system. A few weeks later I came to realize that Scripture’s command for public worship is the psalter.

I knew this shift in my convictions about worship were going to lead me in a direction I had never anticipated. Because of this, I began to research denominations that held to exclusive a cappella psalmody. After having read the governing documents of a few denominations, I found myself being drawn toward the RPCNA.

This led me to reach out to the Home Mission Board to ask if there was any possibility of a plant in north Alabama. They gave me the contact information for Rev. Paul Martin, regional home missionary, who told me about the Birmingham RP plant.

After careful conversation and prayer with my wife, we began attending Birmingham RPC. The Lord has since confirmed in me that the RPCNA is the part of Christ’s church in which I want to serve.

The Big Transition

After serving overseas in the military for a year, I began the academic journey in seminary that would train me to become a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. By this time our daughter Esther had been born, and I was finishing my first year at Birmingham Theological Seminary. In June 2019, my family transferred our membership to Birmingham RPC and invested as much as we could into serving in that small congregation.

For the next year, Brooke and I made preparations for the biggest transition of our lives. In June 2020, the Lord blessed us with a second daughter, Lois, and six weeks later we made the move to Pittsburgh so I could finish my seminary studies at RPTS. It was a difficult decision to leave small-town Alabama and move to a big city, but the Lord has proven time and time again that it was the correct decision. At the beginning of 2021, we transferred our membership to Grace RPC in Gibsonia. Since we knew we were going to be in Pittsburgh for an extended period of time, we felt it necessary to place ourselves under the oversight of our local session.

The blessing of the seminary community, combined with our church family at Grace RPC in Gibsonia, has made the transition not only easy, but a joy. In the past I have heard different men say that the connections made at seminary last a lifetime. I pray this is the case. These men and women at RPTS have truly become a family to us. I am constantly thankful for the friends, professors, and pastors that the Lord has brought into our lives over the last year

Looking Ahead

The Lord continues to confirm this call to ministry on my life through godly men in the church and through the encouragement of my peers. Paul Martin’s mentorship has been a blessing to me and has further confirmed I am supposed to be in the RPCNA. When I was still in Alabama I would have lunch or dinner with Paul once a month. Those conversations were some of the most edifying and encouraging moments during the transition period of coming to the RPCNA. Since moving, Paul still makes it a point to catch up with me almost every month. It has been great to call him brother and friend, and I pray the Lord continues to use him in my life moving forward.

One of the verses that has encouraged me along this path has been 2 Timothy 2:15: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” It is my prayer that my studies will not be just an intellectual endeavor, but will be for the purpose of equipping me to serve Christ’s church by rightly dividing the Word.

The exact path the Lord has planned for me is still unknown, but I know one thing for certain: He has purposed to use me in His church to share the gospel of Jesus Christ to this lost and dying world. It is my desire to serve as a minister of the gospel in the RPCNA if the Lord sees fit. I pray the Lord will continue to equip me and guide me through this process. I know He will work all things together for my good and His glory.