Itinerant Ministry — (1991 to present)
Fish The Planet (10 years)
As a college freshman I began traveling to churches speaking and leading worship through Samford University’s H-Day program (a program to send ministerial students out on Sundays to minister in different churches). Churches began to call me back and ask me to lead other events and services. This started a fast growth in my ministry, such that at the time of my graduation from Samford, I had a three year-old established non-profit ministry (Fish The Planet, Inc), was traveling extensively, and was working on my second studio album.
This ministry would continue to grow with many open doors. For the next few years I had a solid schedule full of conferences, retreats, revivals, and church services. I traveled with a band and ministry team and continued to record many albums. We were able to see God bring thousands upon thousands to faith in Christ as a result.
This portion of my ministry allowed me to minister in hundreds of churches, many of whom were struggling in the area of music and worship. The Lord allowed me to become a pastor to pastors in many ways, counseling them and helping to best serve their churches through the many challenges of the worship movement.
I have continued to speak and lead worship through this non-profit ministry throughout all my years of ministry even to the present. Today we operate under the name LIVEGLAD.
Pastoral Ministry — (2001 – Present)
Large Contemporary Church (3 years)
(Clearbranch Church, Trussville, AL)
In 2001, the Lord brought me off the road to serve as Worship & College pastor at a new and growing contemporary church. It as here that I met Stephanie, and we were soon married. This church was one of the fastest growing churches in the country at the time, running three worship services on Sunday and moving in to a brand new multimillion dollar worship facility.
During my ministry there, we ran around 2,000 in attendance at our weekly services. We experienced a great move of God through the worship ministry, with wonderful engagement in our worship gatherings and numerical growth on the team. We had close to eighty people participating in the worship ministry, with three bands, a worship choir, and a full media team. This was a great opportunity for me to put into practice all the ministry vision and philosophy I had acquired during my itinerant years.
Research & Book Project (2 years)
(Fish The Planet)
After three very fruitful years at Clearbranch, the Lord then moved us in a new direction. We moved to Nashville. The day before closing on our house in Nashville, one of my board members and I agreed to start a huge project which he and his business would sponsor. I would spend the next two years interviewing pastors, and studying all the struggles churches were facing especially concerning the worship movement. This project would culminate in a book, Worship Awakening — an Urgent Message for the Dying American Church and was supposed to launch a tour of conferences and consulting, while I continued my itinerant ministry.
It was at this time that the great financial crisis was starting to have its preliminary effects. My board member’s longtime electronics company was hitting rough waters and he was not able to move forward with our conference plans and long term strategy for our project.
This project helped to solidify my love and passion and overall ministry philosophy for the local church, and it developed in me a passion to pastor and serve the Kingdom by serving the local church.
Home Church (2 years)
(Lifesong Church)
We moved back to Birmingham where we started a church in our home having every intention of becoming a full fledged church plant. Our plans were to move forward with a full launch, but the Lord had something different in mind. Right after we started meeting weekly, the Lord brought a homeless man named Tim into my life. I had been teaching on Isaiah 58, and God’s passion for the homeless, the poor, and the outcast — that the worship God desires results in tangible ministry to the hurting and often neglected. Through my friendship and our ministry to Tim, the door was opened to minister to several people who were facing struggles similar to his.
Small Growing Church Plant (6 years)
(The Station Church)
After two years pastoring our home church we decided to join a church plant that was already in process meeting at a school very close to our house. We would be at this church for a number of years, where I served as a lay pastor, serving pastorally as needed, teaching, and also serving in the worship ministry — eventually overseeing all of music and worship.
Much of my ministry during this time was acting as partner and pastor to the Lead Pastor and the Worship Pastor, men whom I had been friends with for many years. Until this time, I had always been the leader. In whatever type of ministry I had been in, I was the face of it, leading through speaking or worship, but I had never been the supporter behind the scenes.
During my time there, the Lord’s message to me was to serve the Lead Pastor and the Worship Pastor and to help them be as fruitful and successful as possible for the Gospel’s sake. I discovered that I had a love and gift for helping to make others successful, and through this mindset, I could multiply the influence and fruit of my life by investing in others to reach their fullest potential for the Kingdom.
Traditional Church in Transition (3 years)
(FBC Fernandina Beach)
In 2017, one of my long time friends started talking to First Baptist Fernandina Beach concerning their open senior pastor position. He and I had been friends since the beginnings of my itinerant ministry. We would often do events together with him speaking and my leading the worship. He eventually started pastoring and we had always talked about working together in a church, but the right opportunity had never come along. The special thing about this church is that Fernandina Beach is where I grew up, it was my childhood home.
Within just a couple months of him taking the senior pastor position, I moved to Fernandina Beach to be the Worship Pastor. This church had been around a long time, and they had been going through many struggles. The had entered their multimillion dollar facility ten years before our arrival, but plateaued and eventually began a swift decline in attendance and giving. Our mission was to help them transition to a more modern approach and to be much more effective in reaching young families.
When we started the church was running a little over two hundred. Within the next two years, we moved to two services with two distinct worship styles. The church began to grow in all age ranges, with an average attendance close to seven hundred prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. We successfully transitioned the overall dynamic of worship services and helped to build a solid broadcast and media setup, allowing for a much more excellent and fruitful outreach online.
Smaller Traditional Church in Transition (3 years)
(FBC Glencoe)
In 2021, the Lord brought us to the First Baptist Church of Glencoe, Alabama. FBC had experienced a number of years of decline and unfortunate circumstances that had left it in a place of much hurt and struggle. The leadership had determined that it needed to make a transition in the approach to worship in hopes to begin reaching younger families. My mission was to provide a caring pastoral approach to transitioning the worship to a more modern style while still serving the needs of our older members. The church has been able to gain a more solid footing and establish a grounded approach to the music and worship that they can build on for many years to come.
After being at the church for about a year and a half, the student pastor stepped down. The pastors and leadership thought it best for me to oversee the students for a time to help bring some strength, health, and consistency. My first priority was to build the leadership team of adults. The Lord began to work in this leadership team and the group of our core students in a special way. And so, I continue to lead the student ministry.
In addition to worship and students, I provide oversight to our Discipleship ministry as well as sharing in the preaching and teaching leadership of the church.
Preaching, Teaching, and Leading
Through all these years of ministry, I have been preaching and teaching the word of God. The Lord has allowed me to do this in many different contexts and to groups large and small — from weekly Sunday mornings, to small groups, revivals, and large events and conferences.
As a family, it is our desire to be invested in a church that is passionate about living and proclaiming boldly the Gospel of the Kingdom, growing as disciples, worshiping wholeheartedly, serving those in need, and surrendering their lives that the name of Jesus might be exalted to the ends of the earth.
