I was raised in a Christian home, and attended a Christian school through the middle of my seventh grade. My dad and grandfather were both deacons of the church, my mother taught at the Christian school. In January of 1991 on a Sunday night, Pastor John Mitchel was giving the invitation, I looked at my dad and told him I needed to go forward. My dad walked down to the altar with me were, the Pastor asked me different questions about sin, salvation, and if I believed that Jesus died for me. He then led me to pray a sinners prayer, and I felt something change with in me that night. I was eight years old and was baptized that February making me a member of the Red Level Baptist Church.

After my conversion I felt a fire for God, I would go visiting with my grandparents every Tuesday night, and the people we visited always loved seeing me. I loved helping the widows out of their cars and into the buildings and also from the building and to their cars. I had a desire to learn about God and do things for God.

            As I got older I started helping more and more in the church, when I was sixteen I was helping the pastor’s wife with the handicap children in the church. I was invited to go to a training event with the pastor and his wife. On that trip the pastor asked me if I had ever felt the call to ministry. I blew it off pretty quick, because I was a very shy person and there was no way I was going to speak in front of people. Ministry was not what I want for my life.

            From that point on God continued to bring that question to my mind. As I became an adult I was asked to take on more positions in the church, from serving as a trustee, to being the chairman of trustees, to teaching a young adults class, to leading the men’s ministry, to filling in on a Wednesday night, to eventually be called as a Deacon of the church. All the time God still bring this question to my mind.

            Also during this time serving under two other pastors of the same church, and learning from them. The pastor that had asked me the question had retired do to health, but do to circumstance the church was looking for someone to be interim for a while, and he was asked to come back out of retirement which he agreed to do. Leading up to this I had other people ask me the same question he had. So I started praying about it, talking to my wife, and really trying to make excuses why I should not be in ministry.

            As the pastor came back who originally asked the question, it really started to bother me, and one night my wife told me I needed to talk to him because she did not want us to be like Jonah. One Wednesday night after prayer meeting I ask if he remembered, and before I could get it out he looked at me and said well do you now feel the call. I started to meet and pray with him on a weekly basis. Really felling there was no way out of this call. Then one Saturday the pastor was hospitalized and I was called on to preach the next morning. I did and it was as if God was showing me that it was not up to me to do it, but was just up to me to be willing to be used.

            A week or so later I surrendered to the call to ministry. For me I fought it so hard, because it scares me, but also I had to know without a shadow of a doubt that it was God’s calling. I am confident that this is a divine call, because God not only kept speaking to me about it, but sent many of people to confirm it in my life, and still to this day after 9 plus years of full time ministry confirms it.

            I started Bible college at Baptist college of Florida in January of 2013 for my associates degree in ministry, then in 2014 decided to change to bachelor’s degree in Pastoral ministry. In December of 2016 I graduated from Baptist college of Florida with magna cum laude honors.

            I was licensed to preach in August of 2014 by the Red Level Baptist Church, and then ordained in April 2015. I became the interim pastor of Red Level Baptist Church in March of 2015 when the pastor announced again due to health his retirement. I was voted in as the full time senior pastor in September of 2015.

            I  continued my education for my Master’s of Divinity in Discipleship Ministries degree at Liberty University in 2018 finishing it in 2020 and in 2023 God lead me to pursue my Doctor of ministry degree, which I am currently working on.