My Journey Video

I attend Fellowship Missionary Church and have been for about 5 years now. For the past couple of years they have been video interviewing people and staff as part of what they call “My Journey" and play them on Sunday mornings leading into the sermons. They want to capture the stories of the people that make up FMC and show that we come from all walks of life and to show what a surrendered life to Jesus looks like for them. Today I was interviewed telling My Journey through the last couple of years.

From college to my first job to my second job to where I’m currently at which is NeighborLink and all that is intertwined in-between.

I knew in college that I wanted to be in advertising. Loved creativity and a well thought out strategy that attracted me to something I may or may not of needed, but really wanted. The idea of making a product or service so attractive to someone or communicating how something someone makes fits with what they’ve been looking for. So, I made it into advertising and helped organizations develop strategies to help communicate the benefits of their products/services to all that should be listening. 

During this time I had increasingly become involved in my church and with a few non-profit organizations and began investing the rest of time during the week serving in various ways. As I began doing this I began to interact with individuals throughout the community that had real needs that I could meet. Things like elderly needing yard work done. I began to meet them and building relationships as a result of multiple trips back to the same place. I even met my wife on a service project in which I was coaching and she and her friends signed up to be on my work team. A relationship with her began as our group of friends began to serve together. There you go, NLFW as a dating service. HA!

The work world and the compassion ministries world begin colliding as God was showing me from serving that I was not focusing my time towards things that broke his heart. The tension rose as I was being asked to be something that I was growing further from. I was not the “know no strangers" kind of guy that my agency wanted me to be and I was loosing interest in trying to make companies more money. I was more interested in the companies/organizations that had a purpose that I was working with. Those two worlds collided head on last fall when I approached my wife about leaving my job for an undetermined time of separation from a paying job to devote to a live of complete service to a handful of non-profits. Surely I would find God in these places and He would guide me into the place of purpose my heart was yearning for. 

Now you find me as an Executive Director of an organization that has purpose and desires to link people left marginalized by their situation to those that have an open heart to serve them.

The story is so much more complex than I could write or describe and would be willing to talk about it with anyone that’s willing to listen. Or anyone that is willing to enter into a day with me and meet some amazing people facing life’s circumstances.

I’ll post the video once it’s finished..