Personal Testimony

I became a Christian when I was eleven years old. Before my conversion, I didn't have a stance on a lot of issues, such as alcohol, sex, or anything in the Bible. I didn't read the Bible or attend church. I had no purpose or motivation in my life. 

I grew up in a non-Christian home with a loving mother and caring father. My parents were never married nor financially stable. We survived off of Public Aid. I grew up around marijuana, cigarettes, and alcohol. I saw the effects these drugs had on my family and didn't want anything to do with them. I was forced to smoke a cigarette as a child by a drunk cousin and inhaled from a bong as a child out of curiousity (only to choke my lungs out);other than that, I haven't smoked since. I was drunk for the first time as a kindergartner and missed a day of school from a hang over. I got drunk a few more times until middle school, where I stopped drinking. In 4th grade my mother, siblings and I spontaneously moved to Mississippi to visit family of mine that had fled from the law. I went to school there and attended church for the first time in my life. I was invited by a van load of little girls while I was playing in the yard. 

We returned to Illinois for a year where I stopped attending church. I returned to a different town in Mississippi the summer after 5th grade. Out of boredom, I attended an easter egg hunt at a Southern Baptist church a block away. It was fun, and I began regularly attending the church. I took pride in memorizing scripture, singing in the youth choir, and attending events. I went to a production of “Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames” and learned to fear God. I truly began to believe in God and His power. I believed in His creation of a hell and didn't want to go there. I desired to go to heaven. I gave my life to Christ that night on my own while kneeling on the couch (my bed) and asked for Jesus to come into my heart and save me. I returned to Illinois for 6th grade and began to read the Bible. I got my mother to take us to church every Sunday. As I grew older, I became the only one in my family still attending church. 

In 6th grade, I began to bloom as a student, athlete, and artist. My grades were consistently high and I found myself in the advanced classes for the remainder of my junior high and high school education. I was a starter and state athlete in track, football, and basketball. I made district and state for band and choir. I was a lead in various musicals in the high school, community theaters, and at college. I also taught myself guitar, piano, and drums.

I mention these things not to toot my own horn, but to point out the amazing amount of gifts and talents that I acquired after I gave my life to Christ. I don't think that it is a coincidence at all.

The summer before my Sophomore year of highschool I attended a discipleship camp put on by the Illinois Baptist State Association called "Super Summer," held at Greenville Christian College. I experienced God physically for the first time through worship and began to truly comprehend what Christ did and what being a Christian means. I made serious decisions to abstain from drunkenness, premarital sex, profanity, and other things that had been a large part of my life. 

Since then, I have served as worship leader at Maryville FBC (youth), The Point Church in Glen Carbon, and BSM at SIUE. I've been a missionary to various cities in the U.S. as well as the country of Bulgaria.

Currently, I am a Youth Minister at Rochester First Baptist Church. God has grown our youth ministry from 5 to 25 students in the past two years. Five Students have gotten saved, and 9 students have completed a month long discipleship program that has gotten them to a point of reading the Bible and praying daily.

Spiritual Gifts & Talents

I have been spiritually gifted with preaching, teaching, patience, empathy, humbleness, and poverty. I struggle with pastoring, faith, administration, self-control, discipline, and holiness.

Talents include guitar, drums, piano, trumpet, singing, acting, and athletics.

Beliefs about God/Salvation/Bible

I believe that God is one god with three persons (Father, Jesus, Spirit). He is the only god. He's omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

I believe that salvation (going to heaven instead of hell) comes from having a relationship with God through Jesus and counting Him as Savior, Lord, and Treasure of your life.

I believe that the Bible was written by God through men. So, it is perfect spiritually and historically. All writings in the Bible seeming to have contradictions can be explained by in depth research of the entire Bible, New Testament and Old Testament, Genesis to Revelation.