Campus Outreach Regional Director
I was born and raised in Southern California into a loving family who taught us Christian values but modeled a gospel of good works. In church and our family, we were encouraged to do good things so we could go to heaven and also believe in Jesus. I lived my life trying to be a good person who stayed away from bad things and made as many people as possible like and be proud of me, finding my identity in the approval I got from others through sports. I professed to be a Christian and thought I was one because I had said a prayer when I was younger and believed I lived a better life than the people around me. In reality, though, I was a self-righteous Pharisee concerned for my own name and lived this way for the first 19 years of my life.
In 2007, I received a football scholarship to Southeast Missouri State University. My first semester, I met Stew Childress, our team chaplain on staff with Campus Outreach. Stew began sharing the true gospel of grace with me and invited me to a retreat where God opened my eyes to the reality that I am not a good person and cannot earn my way to heaven (Rom. 3:10-12; Eph. 2:8-10).
At that moment, Jesus stopped being someone I clapped for in church and became someone I needed and wanted. I realized that Jesus did it all for me: He lived a perfect life, died for my sins, resurrected and raised me into new life with Him, gave me His righteousness and made me a child of God. Jesus gave me life, and is my life, and apart from him, I can do nothing (John 15:5). And in March 2007, God gave me a new heart and made me a new creation in Christ (Ezek. 36:26; 2 Cor. 5:17). Stew discipled me the following three years and God grew my love for Him and my desire to be used by Him, to give my life away to seeing the lost reached with the gospel and raised up to be laborers for the plentiful harvest.
In 2011, I joined the Campus Outreach team to launch a new ministry at the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton. The following year, I moved to Richardson to help pioneer a new campus at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). I labored there for the next six years, married my wife Rachel, and we had our beautiful daughter Karis. In 2017, we began pursuing an opportunity to work with Campus Outreach in Brazil. After a long and hard process, God stopped us from pursuing Brazil and led us to return to UTD. We are excited to be used to glorify God by building laborers on the college campus for the lost world.
