My testimony
The most important thing I can share is my experience with Jesus.
I didn’t grow up in the church. My family was not overtly hostile to Christianity, but were definitely not interested in church or making faith part of life. My earliest religious education was with a children’s Bible (given by my grandparents) that I read over and over again, and so I picked up on the most famous stories. I was not baptized as an infant because my parents had no interest in making vows that they had no intention of keeping. Those same parents are now active in the church, thanks be to God!
I got to church at all because of friends. I also moved around a lot and so I am very grateful for the fact that there were always Christians in my life reaching out to me. One friend invited me to VBS (and I still remember it as the most exciting and creative VBS I have ever seen). Another friend, in another town, invited me to his youth group and then to an after school Bible study.
One day looms large. It was a Sunday. I woke up, late (because I wasn’t going to church) and my parents told me a friend called to say that a member of our Bible study was being baptized that morning and I was invited to the baptism (I had already missed it) and also to a reception afterwards, followed by a Bible study with the pastor. At the Bible Study, I was invited to youth group (a different one). At the youth group meeting I was invited to the youth praise band practice. One Sunday, I woke up with no connection to the local church. The next, I was attending one service, playing music at another one, attending Sunday School, doing a Bible Study, going to Youth Group, and having Youth Praise Band practice. Never underestimate the power of an invitation! I was baptized a few months later.
My pastor, a month or so after the baptism, suggested I might be called to pastoral ministry. I laughed in his face. I was, as I often said, the “worst Bible navigator ever.” I would read the Bible and fall asleep. Clearly, God was not interested in someone like me as a pastor.
About three years later, through a transformative experience in reading the Bible, I felt God’s call to full-time ministry.
For a more full account see this video:
I changed my major so I could finish college sooner, started serving as a Licensed Local Pastor, and then, after finishing my undergraduate degree in Math, went off to the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. After completing the ordination process, I went off to the University of St. Andrews where I did my PhD on the theology of Thomas F. Torrance and the Philosophy of Science (Torrance is not widely known in Methodist circles. However, the few of us who have read widely in both Wesley and Torrance all agree there are some remarkable resonances between them).
While I have my PhD, I have continued to pursue local church ministry. With the birth of the Global Methodist Church, I have begun to teach Christian Doctrine, Wesleyan Theology, and soon Apologetics for the Certificate in Theology and Ministry program at United Theological Seminary (An approved alternative educational pathway for ordination in the GMC).
I am passionately committed to the centrality of Christ in the gospel. If we want to know God, we must look to Christ. All other ideas, convictions, and theories must bow before him and we must submit all our most cherished ideas to his Lordship. I strive for that to be the center of all that I do.
(St. Andrews Cathedral, right across the street from my study desk)
Why yet another substack?
I feel a little odd starting this substack. Everyone seems to have one these days. However, I started to realize that I have a lot of thoughts that could be gathered together moving forward.
I just started writing reflections for my Annual Conference (Upper Midwest) newsletter and thought I could gather them here as well as add to them. You can expect those.
I have also been sending some thoughts with a link to our online live-stream service each Saturday. When those feel relevant for the larger world, I may share those here, too.
I may also share manuscripts for sermons that are preached. That may, however, feel like too much. I don’t mean to inundate people. If I can figure out how to make subscription notifications category specific, I will do so. If I can’t, I will at least share what kind of post it is at the very top so you can only look at the things you think you will find interesting.
Where else can you find me?
My other main platform online is on YouTube. I have been posting on various topics and formats since 2012. I started out making little essays on whatever topics interested me at the moment as I explored issues surrounding what became my Doctoral work, usually surrounding theology and science. I then uploaded recordings I had made of all of John Wesley’s sermons contained in the “Jackson Edition.” This is almost certainly my biggest “claim to fame” on the internet. I wrote an early attempt at a systematic theology as I worked out my own thoughts and I posted that in segments as well.
I eventually started a series of videos with the target audience of people who were in high school or college but interested in exploring the Bible and Theology in a somewhat deeper way than they might on Sunday Mornings (I gave the series the very clever title of: “Bible and Theology Time”)
During COVID, I started making video reflections on the Bible that were posted daily (M-F) and, over about four and a half years, covered the entire New Testament.
Nowadays, I am posting sermons from the past. I tend to preach through whole books, passage by passage, and so, over time, whole books are covered.
If any of that sounds interesting to you, check it out HERE and, if you are willing, consider subscribing.