I was born March 27, 1963 in Oak Ridge, TN.  My father, Marvin, was an auto mechanic, and my mother was a housewife who later went back to school to become a registered nurse.  We lived a very simple life on our family farm, where I was taught at a very early age the value of hard work and a simple way of life.  I surrendered my life to Christ just a couple of months shy of my sixth birthday in 1969.  It wasn’t until many years later, however that I learned that God had a specific plan and a purpose for my life.

 

    From as far back as I can remember, I have had a passion for music.  Every kind of music imaginable from classical to country, I just loved hearing it, as well as making it.  Though we didn’t have a lot of money, my mother insisted that I was able to have any musical training that I desired, from piano and band to voice and music theory.  It is because of her diligence in providing for me that I received a music scholarship to The University of Tennessee, where I studied music education, with the hope of someday becoming  a band director. 

 

     After college I received the opportunity to play and sing with a Country Music group so I promptly moved to Nashville. The Band I played in was signed by a large talent agency, and we began to tour throughout the country, and entertain in some fairly large venues.  I remember thinking then that I had it made!  I mean, there I was in my early twenties, making a living playing music.  It was a dream come true for me.  As an added bonus, I even met my wife Sandi, while I was doing a show a Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  That was pretty much a pivotal moment for me, because I couldn’t get her off my mind from that very first day.  We were married a few years later, and she moved to Nashville with me. I was on the road more and more, while she stayed at home and waited for the couple of days each month that we would see each other.  Looking back on it now, I cannot believe that she put up with the way we lived back then!

 

      When I wasn’t touring, we attended Indian Hills Baptist Church in Gallatin.  The pastor, Jack Goodwin, took a genuine interest in us and treated us like family.  Every time I heard him preach, I felt as if he were speaking only to me, for everything he said brought such conviction upon my heart that I would hear his words over and over again in my head for days.

 

     Little did I know that God was using Jack to get my attention.  It was Jack who showed me what an impact a man devoted to prayer and The Word of God could have on the lives of those who would just listen.  Jack told me time and again that God wanted to use me.  I would laugh it off and tell him that I had already found my calling as a musician, and that I would try to be a good “Christian” example in the music business.  What I had failed to understand, like many Christians today, I fear, was that I was not following Jesus, but rather I had invited Jesus to “follow me”.  What was not evident for me at the time but would be made abundantly clear to me much later was that Jesus isn’t the least bit interested in doing that!  He is Lord, and that means we are to do His will, not the other way around, a lesson that I was soon to learn the hard way.  God began to “turn up the heat” in my soul.  The music and touring that I had so loved, I began to despise.  Living my “dream” was bringing me no satisfaction or fulfillment whatsoever.  In short, I was miserable and depressed. The only thing that gave me any comfort was studying The Word of God. 

 

     I began spending more and more time just pouring myself into the scriptures.  I started crying out to God that my life seemed to be without purpose and asking Him to show me what to do.  It was in this turbulent time in my life that He began calling me into The Ministry and gave me my purpose.  I will never forget the day I went forward in church and gave up my music career.  I thought that it was such a great sacrifice, but it turns out that I have never missed it, even once!  God’s plan is always far better! 

 

     I immediately enrolled in a two year school for pastors and began the process of serving in any capacity that was offered to me.  I assumed that since God had called me then it was up to Him to provide me with a place to serve, and He has always been faithful to do just that.  Twenty five years have quickly come and gone since I gave it all up to God, and mine and Sandi’s lives are truly the richer for it.  We have served in many different ministries and even lived in Guatemala for a time working in an orphanage.  God has been faithful.  We have seen our two boys, Scotty and Seth, grow up and marry two wonderful Christian women, as we have been so fearfully and wonderfully ushered into the “grandparenting era” of our lives!

     

     Sandi and I are so grateful to be on this journey with God which has led us to help start this church we call Freedom Fellowship.  Following Christ is an ever unfolding adventure, and we can hardly wait to see what He will do next.  I am so thankful to now be the pastor of this Greeneville campus.  Our God is an awesome God!  It is an honor for me to be teaching God’s word here, for as my Pastor Jack Goodwin taught me so many years ago, The Word of God can forever alter the course of someone’s life.