About Me

Who am I?

As a small child in rural Missouri, I learned early that my queer identity excluded me from the love of God. As a teenager, when parental divorce led my mother and myself no longer feeling welcome in our faith community, I continued to search for God through various youth groups and denominations, never finding a church home where I could bring all of me. During college and in my early twenties every time a friend would mention attending a church I would cautiously attend, continuously finding arms that were closed. As drugs and alcohol began to take over, I continued to grasp for God. That all changed when I attended Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas. There I was met with an affirming community with a culturally diverse clergy. After a year of consistent attendance addiction pulled me away from the community and I was again adrift. In the years that followed I found myself homeless, incarcerated and broken. No matter where I found myself, I kept searching for God and finding institutions and individuals who pushed me away.

By the grace of God, I found the twelve steps of recovery in early 2018. For the first time I was able to come to God as I am, although I wasn’t initially willing to identify as a Christian due to past rejection and heartbreak. As my relationship with God began to grow, I began to prosper in a material sense. Eventually, I began to attend worship services, first virtually, then eventually in person at The Gathering United Methodist Church. I was finally willing to embrace Jesus Christ. Although in a material sense I was thriving, my soul still yearned for a deeper meaning. I vigorously prayed for God to show me a path to fulfill my purpose.  I prayerfully asked God to take all the heartbreak and trials and give them meaning. One early morning while running at a popular St. Louis Park, I was overtaken by overwhelming knowledge of the path that God laid out for me. At that moment, I knew that I was called to serve as a pastor to welcome those who are hurting or feel cast out by modern Christian institutions and people. The experiences of my past were no longer a liability to be hidden away, they were an asset to provide representation and understanding to those all too often excluded.