From the Beginning

"God called you into the Army," rolled off their lips before they had time to process my story. I know that it may sound odd or like I am psychotic, but God did call me into the Army. I am blogging this story so that family and friends can take the journey with us as we set out on the adventures God has before us.

I am a 34 year old Baptist Minister serving in a rural church in Eastern Virginia. Right before graduating from Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, May 2002, I accepted the pastorate position at Menokin Baptist Church, Warsaw, Virginia. From the time we arrived at Menokin we had wanted to stay ten years. Part of our desire to stay that long was to be able to give our daughter stability throughout her years in school. One of the other reasons was our church had a decades old pattern of retaining a minister for five years and then going through the months long process to secure another one. I wanted to break the pattern. I wanted to make the most of the ministry God had given me and I felt like things would not really start happening until we passed the five year mark. Throughout my ministry there had been times that it would have been nice to leave because we were going through difficult times. However, I never felt like God had released me from the ministry at Menokin. May 1, 2007 marked five years of ministry at Menokin. In the beginning of May my wife said, "The winds of change are blowing." I laughed and said, "Yeah, right!" I had underestimated the power of a woman's intuition. By the end of May we were aware that the winds of change were gaining momentum.