Sixteen years ago, as a dorky high school freshman, I came to a youth group meeting at First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach trying to impress a girl.
It’s funny how God works.
Because here I am a decade and a half later, and while I’m still trying to impress that same girl, I can see that God has been orchestrating an even greater plan and has blessed my family with the opportunity to be part of it.
Heather and I were married in 2004, after dating all through high school (yes, she’s the girl) and college. In 2010, our son Kohen James was born.
After completing my Master of Divinity at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2012, our little family moved back to West Palm Beach, hoping to plant a church on this mission field.
It was upon our return to South Florida that we began to see the incredible providence of God. My home church, First Baptist Church WPB, the church in which so many of our significant life events had taken place, was preparing to embark on a mission to plant 100 churches in South Florida over the next 20 years.
Are you kidding me?! I immediately wanted to sign on the dotted line. And as Heather and I prayed and considered the opportunity to partner with FBC, we knew that this was what God had put before us.
I joined the Send SFL Church Planting Residency program in the fall of 2012 along with nine other like-minded men who wanted to be part of the vision to plant churches all over South Florida. We recognized that the most effective and aggressive way for the church to draw people back to God was through the planting of new churches—a lot of new churches.
I am now a bi-vocational church planter. I work with my father and three brothers in our local family business. I have recently, and gratefully, been accepted as a North American Mission Board Church Planting Apprentice. This opportunity will allow me to spend the next year preparing to lead through the launch of Family Church Boynton Beach in the fall of 2014.
The last twelve months have flown by, and I know that the next twelve will pass even more rapidly. There will be a ton of things that we will learn over the next year, and my goal through this blog is for you to walk this path with us. I hope you’ll celebrate our successes with us but also learn from our mistakes.
We don’t know exactly how it’s going to happen or what the finished product will look like, but we are committed to seeing God reach South Florida, one church plant at a time!
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