I grew up in a good solid home that was hesitant to incorporate spiritual depth into the dialogue of life. We went to church some but I had very little understanding of who God was and how He fit into this thing called life. Eventually I found church and Sunday School to be a mixture of confusion, embarrassment, and irrelevance. When I was in the seventh grade I asked if we could stop going to church and the answer must have been yes since we stopped going at all. Strangely enough, that is when things began to happen around me that began to draw me toward God. One of my friends, an incredible wrestler, suddenly died of a heart attack during track practice. I had no idea how to process his death. A few years later another friend who had begun to involve himself in the expanding drug culture of the late 1960’s was shot and killed as he was robbing a store in order to support his addiction. I really had no idea how to process all that was involved in that. At about the same time I began to attend the meetings of two high school campus ministries, Young Life and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I began to hear about how Jesus Christ had come to give His life as a ransom for mine. I began to understand that He died on a cross in order to take my sin on Himself and to forgive me of my sin. I all began to make sense. I got the picture that the world was a broken place, that I was a broken person, and that the only hope in this world was the powerful love of Christ that could transform hearts. Eventually, during the summer after my sophomore year in high school, I gave my life to Him because He has given His life for me.
College was a time of tremendous growth for me. I enjoyed the education as I majored in History, I loved being involved with Campus Crusade for Christ and Athletes in Action, and I got involved in a variety of campus leadership opportunities. Following graduation I spent three years coaching and teaching on the secondary level in Loveland, Colorado. These were great years for me. However, I began to see that the needs in the students lives and their families went way beyond American History. I was drawn toward wanting to address these needs by sharing the life changing reality of Christ with them. The best way I had seen that done was during college with Campus Crusade for Christ, so, having no idea how long it might last I quit my job and joined the staff of Crusade. They assigned me to the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California and two years later I found myself working as the Campus Director at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles…..a far cry from the ‘purple mountain majesty’ of Colorado.
During my eleven years at USC life changed a ton. I met my wife Diane as she served with Campus Crusade at Long Beach State University. I chased her and eventually caught her….we married in 1983. In the next 12 years we added our three children to the mix (Toby, Travis, and Tori). I went to seminary part time and eventually graduated from Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. We lived in the inner city of Los Angeles and saw life from the urban experience of a city of twelve million people. We fell in love with the students we got to work with, many of whom we still have contact. I eventually became the Regional Director of CRU (short for Campus Crusade for Christ) in the Pacific Southwest (California, Arizona, and Hawaii). Doing ministry from long distance was not a good fit for me so Diane and I joined the Pastoral staff at our church, Rolling Hills Covenant Church in Palos Verdes, California. Eventually we knew the Lord was calling us to something new but had no idea it would be back in Diane’s hometown of St. Louis. In 2002 we joined the staff of First Evangelical Free Church in Manchester, Missouri. During the ten years there I began to sense that God was clarifying a ministry perspective and role that He had for me. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, First Free asked me to consider planting Quest as an independent sister church. Though I had never seen myself as a church planter I had come to the place where I was convicted that that is exactly what God wanted Diane and me to do.
So here we are two years later. Quest is planted and we are establishing a membership, elders, and a formal association with the Evangelical Free Church of America. By definition the Lead Pastor is part of the ‘Team of Elders’, but only with the affirmation of the congregation. Therefore, this is my story and I am sticking to it. And with your affirmation it will be a privilege to serve along side the rest of the ‘Team of Elders’ in shepherding the flock called Quest.