Biography | Ministry Profile

Background | Convictions, Passions & Motivations | Why FBCDC

Background

Born in southeast Missouri and raised by a hard-working father and God-fearing mother, I quickly learned to honor a full day’s work and value a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. By the time I graduated high school, my work ethic and emerging spirituality had solidified in the discipline of church music. The small, rural farming community I called home had planted the seeds for me to appreciate faith traditions different from my own, anticipate public Christian worship, experience community through the arts, and witness the healing power of music.

The church and its music were my first passions, and I came by them honestly. My maternal grandmother was organist for more than forty years at what people in our county called “the big Baptist church.” Indeed, First Baptist Dexter, Missouri, housed a surprisingly large congregation known for its meaningful worship practices and excellent music ministry. I was its most eager participant, drank deeply from the well it offered, and articulated a call to vocational ministry at the age of sixteen. In a town where all the boys played sports, I was fully immersed in a community that encouraged my musical gifts and a family that made sacrifices for them to flourish. 

Preparing for and doing ministry set the trajectory for my twenties. Guided by the principle that church musicians had a responsibility to pursue their craft with excellence, I spent many hours in practice rooms honing skills in piano, organ, improvisation, and conducting. Unsure of which way the “worship wars” would end, I learned to play piano with a band as well as I played Bach on the organ, and I found intellectual stimulation in both. Along the way, I had formidable opportunities to serve wonderful congregations who encouraged my personal and professional growth.

As I pursued musical studies, the promises and challenges surrounding music and worship in the church were pronounced and I was acutely aware of them. However, I chose to ask questions rather than suspend judgment. Why did the church fight about musical style? Could the plethora of musical styles available to us be a beautiful reflection of diversity in the body of Christ and an endlessly creative God? When I voiced these questions, a wise mentor said, “You cannot answer these questions by studying music. You must study theology.” So, I pursued doctoral work in liturgical studies – a feat I tell close friends was primarily about reconciling my liturgical affinities for the Catholic mass, Baptist prayer meeting, Episcopal liturgy, and charismatic worship alongside my musical affinities for Palestrina, Brahms, hymnody, Black Gospel, and contemporary worship music.

In my late twenties, two regular experiences prompted new questions, this time around worship and faith formation. The first experience was weekly worship at an Episcopal church in Pasadena, California, where the liturgy was alive, spirited, and addressed issues of restorative and reparative justice with courage, compassion, and abandon. The second experience was teaching a university religion course where most of the students identified as “spiritual, but not religious.” The questions I began to ask sounded something like this: How might I help historic congregations make their liturgy come alive with relevance for the twenty first century? How might I meet young adults where they are, listen to their questions with empathy, and provide a safe space for them to enter spiritual conversations? These questions remain at the core of my vocational calling.

From a very early age, I was taught that being a Christian meant you had to look, act, vote, and be a certain way. The organizations and institutions I attended and served perpetuated this myth, and I spent much of the first half of my life trying to fit perfectly within that narrative. When forced to confront the reality that I could not fit their stereotype, another set of questions arose.

Will you love the ‘You’ you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?

Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around?
Will you let me answer prayer in you, and you in me?[1] 

The more I tried to ignore these questions, the more persistent, louder, and stronger the asking voice grew. I found the courage to say “Yes,” though doing so did not come without sacrifice. For me, answering “yes” to these questions meant coming out as a gay, progressive, Christian, minister, redefining relationships with people I love dearly, and leaving the evangelical communities I know so well.

Now, as I enter a new decade in my life, God has made it very clear that my vocational task is to join the work of all those who would dare to proclaim a Gospel message built on inclusion rather than exclusion. As I have learned, no matter who you are and no matter where you find yourself on the journey of faith, you are welcomed and you are loved by God. 

Convictions, Passions, & Motivations

Faith

• I am committed to following Jesus Christ in the world.

• The Church is in my DNA. I am eager to participate in the flourishing of God’s people and God’s mission in the world.

• I love walking alongside congregations who construct life-giving narratives for the world. In an age where violence, division, and destruction dominate, narratives characterized by wholeness, unity, and beauty have the potential to offer the world a new vision of Christianity that seeks not only to know God, but to feel the pulse of God – a God of beauty, truth, and love. 

Faith Formation

• I ardently believe that true faith formation equips congregants for all stages of life, from the beginning to the end. 

• I love helping young adults discover their identity, sense of belonging, and purpose. It is nothing but sheer joy and deep privilege to walk alongside them in this critical season of life.

• I strive for an approach to faith formation that is accessible, warm, communal, and conversational. A teacher I respect often talks about “solitary work that must be done in community.” What an apt way to describe our approach to deepening our relationship with Christ!

• I enjoy creating, finding, and compiling resources for Christ-followers, and I love those moments when Christ-followers invite me into the beautiful, messy, and holy spaces of their lives to prayerfully wonder “What might God be doing?” or courageously ask “Where is God?”

• I enjoy facilitating opportunities for diverse groups of people to find themselves in activities that encourage empathy, compassion, sharing, and serving.

Worship

• I believe everything that matters is at stake each time God’s people gather for worship, and this conviction fuels my energy to invest deeply in worship planning, preparation, leadership, and reflection. As Mark Labberton says, “Worship names what matters most: the way human beings are created to reflect God’s glory by embodying God’s character in lives that seek righteousness and do justice. Such comprehensive worship redefines all we call ordinary. Worship turns out to be the dangerous act of waking up to God and to the purposes of God in the world, and then living lives that actually show it.” [2]

• I love when congregations find and celebrate their “liturgical homeland” – that place where worship feels natural – and the songs they sing and the prayers they pray articulate what they believe about God, themselves, and others. When a congregation finds this sweet spot, they are better poised to learn from and extend hospitality to worshipers across the aisle, down the street, and around the world. 

• I enjoy equipping others to lead worship well and placing people in worship leadership that reflects the diversity in the body of Christ brings me great delight. Fueling this passion is the belief that congregations have a responsibility to elevate the voices of the marginalized, persecuted, and silenced with honesty, integrity, and humility. 

• I am passionate about connecting Sunday morning worship to worshipers Monday through Saturday lives.

Music and the Arts

• It brings me deep joy when congregations celebrate artists and their contributions to the faith community. It brings me equal happiness when a congregation is willing to share its space with artists practicing in the local community.

• I marvel, and sit in quiet contemplation, at those unexpected moments when Holy Spirit speaks through art and uses it as a powerful catalyst of change and transformation for an individual or faith community. 

• I hold deep respect for the worshiper that opens herself to a fresh expression of faith by curiously engaging a new painting, song, drama, dance, or video. 

• I believe that the church has a responsibility to engage artists and their craft with respect. Likewise, I also believe artists have a responsibility to engage their craft inside the church with the same integrity and excellence they would outside the church.

• While my heart-language is hymnody, choral, and organ music, I love and celebrate a wide range of sacred music. 

• I love group singing – whether it happens at a James Taylor concert, a birthday party, or in worship. My favorite sound is hearing a congregation sing. 

Why I feel drawn to First Baptist Church

In many ways, the prospect of coming to The First Baptist Church of the City of Washington DC (FBCDC) feels like coming home. I suspect this is a combination of several factors such as my affinity for the metropolitan area of Washington DC or my awe at the special worship space occupying the corner of 16th and O. It could be the enduring legacy of a vibrant music ministry, a second opportunity to work with Pastor Julie, or my shared Missouri roots with Dr. Schreiber. What I know is that as I walked the streets of DC and the hallways of FBCDC during my in-person interview with the search team, this passage from Isaiah 30:21 kept coming to my mind: “…and when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.’ ” I believe the Spirit is doing something between you and me, and I am walking forward in expectation. 

To be candid, I am not naïve to the challenges presented by historic congregations such as FBCDC. As of late, many of these congregations have lost trust and their capacity to think, speak, and act coherently in worship and the world. Recent closings, mergers, and downsizings remind us that this is an unprecedented time for all faith-based institutions, especially houses of worship. Despite these challenges, I have an abiding conviction: there has never been a more fruitful season for faith communities like FBCDC to equip Christ-followers with a spiritual language that is courageous, imaginative, winsome, provocative, hospitable, and passionate. I believe our post-Christendom society needs and wants more of these kinds of Christ-followers, and I am eager to lean into a bold, imaginative, and formative vision of worship that shapes and nourishes these kinds of Christians.

What excites me about FBCDC is your entrepreneurial spirit and your willingness to reinvent yourself for the God-sized task of reaching people in the city of Washington DC and beyond. In recent history, FBCDC has made wise choices to solidify its liturgical identity and expression by restoring its worship space, installing a magnificent organ, purchasing a beautiful piano, and maintaining a commitment to its choir. FBCDC has celebrated its musical heritage and retained the solid leadership of Dr. Lon Schreiber, whom I would be honored to call colleague, mentor, and friend. FBCDC has made provisions for both online and in-person worship gatherings through the installation of new technology in the sanctuary. In these, and other ways, FBCDC is flipping the script of what it means to be an established metropolitan congregation in the twenty-first century. With these touchstones in place, you are equipped to lead the way with prophetic, new initiatives in faith formation, worship, and the arts.

The nature of the Associate Pastor position, for which I am now a candidate, excites me because it demonstrates that FBCDC is willing to exercise imaginative thinking. Although the combination of faith formation, worship and the arts, and young adults is unique, the connectivity of these disciplines is not far-fetched. Worship is faith formation, and faith formation is worship. The two cannot be separated. Moreover, the arts should be intimately tied to both. In his book All in Sync: How Music and Art are Revitalizing American Religion, Sociologist Robert Wuthnow writes:

“Religious [institutions] need to understand the profound cultural shift that the current interest in the arts represents. It is a move away from cognition and thus from knowledge and belief, a move toward experience and toward a more complete integration of the senses into the spiritual life. It is uncharted territory.” [3]

It is true that historically and even now, the Church has struggled with the role of arts. Yet, the Creator-God chose to lavish beauty in its myriad forms on humanity as a gift of grace. Whether in worship or in faith formation, the church can no longer afford to see the arts as a threat, adornment, enticement, or entertainment. Their potential is the key for helping all of us explore worship and faith formation more deeply.

It is my prayer that the wedding of FBCDC’s aspirations with my passions might help us both discover new ways to grow into the fullness of Christ, which Andy Crouch describes so poignantly:

“Play and pain - feasting and fasting - these are the calling … of the Christian. We bend our lives toward the recognition of Christ’s body, beautiful and broken, at play and in pain. The real challenge for the church … is to discover Christ taking, blessing, breaking, giving. To become just slightly more the kind of people who could be like Christ and take, bless, break, and give where we are. To rekindle our capacity to live in the fullness of the beauty of God.” [4]

I feel drawn to the possibility of serving as Associate Pastor for this congregation, contributing to your programs, and collaborating with you in spiritual mission and ministry. Although our post-pandemic formational, liturgical, and artistic practices will be different, I believe they have the capacity not only to serve as a beacon of hope for drawing individuals, families, and communities back together again, but also for charting a compelling forward-facing future of following Christ in the world. 

Congregations and their ministries have never been more important than they will be in the days, months, and years ahead. I am eager to meet the people that call FBCDC home and continue conversation about whether FBCDC – with your broad faith formation program, established music and worship ministries, and unique location – might find synergy with my gifts, skills, and abilities.

[1] John L. Bell and Graham Maule, “Will you come and follow me?” © 1987 WGRG, Iona Community (admin. GIA Publications, Inc.). In Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal, ed. David Eicher (Louisville: Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, 2013), #726.

[2] Mark Labberton, The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God’s Call to Justice (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 13.

[3] Robert Wuthnow, All in Sync: How Music and Art are Revitalizing American Religion (Berkely, CA: University of California Press, 2006), 137.

[4] Andy Crouch, “How is Art a Gift, a Calling, and an Obedience?” 29-43 in For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts, ed. W. David O. Taylor (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2010), 42.