What 7th Grade Me Got Wrong About Ministry.

And what ministry looks like for me now.

By Harrison Morey Oct 10, 2026

In 6th Grade, I hid in the bathroom during my Speech & Drama Class Final.

It was just supposed to be a 5 minute improvisational speech. But the idea of not knowing what I was going to say terrified me so much that I just hid - it was the only time I skipped school (that anyone can prove.)

Only a couple months later, in 7th grade, I received what I strongly felt was a call to ministry. I was the same kid from the previous year. Scared, unconfident. Then one night while on a mission trip in the Dallas area, we took a spiritual gifts test in the hotel lobby. I scanned through a couple dozen questions on a computer, like one of those personality tests. I ended up with 3 top scores: Teaching, Leadership, and Wisdom.

Doesn’t sound like any 7th grade kid I know. Or knew.

So I was 100% sure I screwed up the test. Years later, nowadays my theology has changed a little, I'm not even sure a test like that is accurate to the way spiritual gifts work.

But through that test, and in that moment, I felt God guide me to Exodus, the Burning Bush moment. Moses gets called to leadership, and tells God there's no way he can do that. He has all these issues, all these insecurities, like having issues with speech. Wow, targeted much?

In response, God asks Moses, who made your tongue? Who gave you your voice? In the same sense, I felt Him tell me he would guide me and equip me for ministry. I wasn't even sure what that fully meant. But I was all in. I had experienced a powerful encounter with God. I didn't have all the details, but in the meantime I kept reading the Bible over and over and serving.

It made career day in 8th grade really easy.

Once I made it to high school, two big things happened. First, I somehow found myself joining the Competitive Debate team. My English teacher at the time found out I liked philosophy, and asked me to check it out. I ended up loving it, and grew a lot of confidence and clarity through those experiences.

Second, on the ministry side, somehow, people kept letting me do things. I did internships, led small groups, Bible studies, preached in youth a few times, even a few Sundays. I'm not sure what they were thinking, but I am beyond thankful for all the leaders and pastors that took a chance on me back then. 

When it was time for college, I started working through the church leadership college / internship at my church home at the time, and getting my degree in church leadership online. Through those years I finally started to learn what ministry was really like. And how hard it was. I loved it. And figured out I still had a long way to go before I should be responsible for anyone.

Back in 7th grade, when I heard "you are called to ministry", I figured that meant: pastor a church. That just made sense. When people asked what I wanted to do, that would be close to my answer. There's a pipeline: Bible kid to Youth Pastor to Associate Pastor to Senior Pastor. Or something like that.

And then I got behind the curtain. And I learned a lot about what it actually meant. Even more so when I got out of college and into the real world. What life in ministry is, and what it isn’t. 

Here are my top 3 myths that 7th grade me had busted in the last 10ish years about faith and ministry. 

1. “You have to be called to be in ministry.”

Around senior year of high school, one of my closest friends was doing what every high school senior has to do. Trying to figure out how to answer the 10,000 people who will ask you: “So what do you want to do next?”

After school one day, he stopped me in the parking lot and very earnestly told me he wanted to be a pastor. I, an arrogant, snotty pharisee who had made my call to ministry in 7th grade my entire identity, told him that unless he heard from God he was called, he might not actually be. That might just be something he wanted, but shouldn’t want if he isn’t called. 

I was, incredibly poorly and arrogantly, parroting something I had read and heard from other people before. “If God doesn’t build the house, the laborer builds in vain.” This conversation was not an appropriate context for that verse.

Thank God he didn’t listen to me. He now pastors a beautiful church in Oklahoma and does amazing work over there.

Meanwhile, I currently have no sort of vocational role in ministry, and haven’t for a year or two. And, right now, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Funny how that works.

While attending church-college, I met a husband and wife pastoring power couple who were absolutely rock solid. We were able to get a close view as they planted a church together, from start to launch. During that time, the wife had a session with us about stereotypes in ministry. She talked about her journey into ministry and navigating some of the challenges of being a woman in leadership. Within that, she mentioned, she never thought she would be a pastor. It was something that just unfolded as she navigated life.

That broke my paradigm. I was watching her do what God clearly had ordained her to do in life, and was bringing favor to their work.

I asked her, “So you never had a God moment where He called you? How do you know you’re on the right track, then?”

She gave a phenomenal, emotional answer. 

No, but that didn’t make her any less called. She didn’t really need a moment like that. though sometimes it was hard, and she might second guess herself. But at the end of the day, she knew she was stewarding whatever God put in front of her.

That’s ministry.

That was the moment, 4 years too late, I knew I had a big apology to make.

It took me too long to learn one of the most important, most beautiful truths about ministry. 

Every single human being has one. 

In 1 Peter 2, Peter writes that we are all part of a royal priesthood. We are a chosen people, called to steward the things in front of us honorably as we live out and preach the Gospel.

Colossians 3:16, Whatever you do, in word or deed, do for the Glory of God.

The people in vocational ministry, meaning the people who have the faith, courage, and selflessness to make ministry their full time focus and career, are just the priests crazy enough to do that. 

But everyone is called to ministry. Some people just happen to do it full-time in a church.

The places we work, the people in our lives, family, neighbors, friends, coworkers. The things we love to do, the hobbies we have, the sports we watch. It all comes back to ministry.

Maybe the Holy Spirit gave you a telepathic phone call of destiny. Maybe you “just” have a job (though there is no such thing as ‘just a job.’)

Everyone has things God puts in front of them to steward.

Maybe God will bring me back around to vocational ministry again in another season. In the meantime, I’m enjoying just being part of the priesthood.

By the way, it took me a few more years to finally drum up the courage to make that overdue apology. Very, very graciously, that old high school friend and I had lunch, where I apologized many times for the way I acted and thought. And talked about how proud I was to know him. And then we talked about the things we both learned and love about serving and building His church. I’m grateful for his forgiveness. 

2. “Ministry makes you more like Jesus.”

As I went through the motions of ministry, I thought, like a lot of people do:

“Pastors are the holiest people I can know.”

“Pastors’ prayers make the biggest difference.”

Even if we don't say those things out loud, we often treat people in vocational ministry like they're operating on a different spiritual level. It definitely was what I thought I needed to become.

But ministry people are still, surprisingly, people.

My dad once told me something he noticed about his career field that stuck with me. He has worked with hundreds of social workers, counselors, and other mental-health professionals, and one day, after I told him another story about someone in ministry whose life had fallen apart because of their choices, he said:

“Some people get into a field that cares about others because they are the ones who really need the help.”

Some people get into church work because they have deep wounds. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Some of Jesus' disciples had that too.

But those wounds can lead people to decisions that take them out of ministry. I've watched it happen more than once. In our leadership college, my graduating class started with 15+ people and ended with around 5. (Not all of them were for deep issues, but many were.)

People in ministry might be very, very close to Jesus. They can also be extremely far from him. While we see the polished Sunday-morning versions of everyone, I think we buy the performance more readily from ‘ministry people.’

It took me longer to realize my dad's statement was probably true about me, too.

In church, I found a place where I could perform well, be knowledgeable, helpful, appreciated, seen, and praised. Everything my ambitious, Enneagram 3, words-of-affirmation-starved brain could want.

I'll give you an example.

One Sunday morning when I was a college intern, it was pouring rain. Torrential. All day. The kind of Sunday where everyone jokes about Noah's Ark.

And our church had a bizarre problem: we were absolutely overrun with tadpoles. There had to be more than 5,000, squirming everywhere. People couldn't step out of their cars without getting a dozen on their shoes.

So I had one job: stand outside in the rain with a big red dust broom and sweep the tadpoles by the hundreds toward the storm drain so people could get to church without baby frogs in their shoes.

I was happy to do it. It took all morning.

And lots of people saw me doing it.

Later, I switched to mopping up puddles near the entrance so people wouldn't slip. Dozens of people walked by and said some version of:

“Thank you so much for doing that. I know it's a real thankless job.”

After the sixth time, I wanted to say, “You'd be surprised.”

I served, and it was genuine. I was happy to do it.

But you can't deny it feels good to be seen and thanked.

That feeds something in me. And if I let it, it can make me think I’m way closer to Jesus than I actually might be.

Ministry with Jesus is not the same thing as intimacy with Jesus. 

If we don’t spend time with him, let him be our shepherd and Lord, then all we will get is exhausted from activity. Then those temptations, struggles, sins, and doubts start to creep in and we'll be at even more risk than we usually are.

Without intimacy with Jesus, we’ll never be able to live like Him, no matter how many times we stand out in the rain to help people.

3. “Your ministry is at church.”

When I started my first job in ministry, I sat in a meeting at a table full of other adult leaders while we tried to solve a problem every church has.

We need more volunteers.

It reminded me of conversations my church intern friends and I often had while gathering around a table. We all had the same complaint.

“Why is it so hard for people to serve on Sundays and Wednesdays more?”

Read that as: My single, childless, probably not full-time job holding, fresh-out-of-high-school ministry friends and I all had the same complaint.

Even in 7th grade, I had the same thought. I was the quintessential mid 2000’s Bible kid. Anytime the church was open, I was there. So were all my friends. I was absolutely certain, that was where I should be, all the time. Especially since I wanted to go into ministry.

I didn’t understand why people weren’t around more. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Right? Be at church. Serve in church. Eat at church. Meet up at church. Hang out at church. Go to church. Be the church. Which means inviting people to church. So they can be at church too.

So why were we struggling to staff inflatables for kids camp at 10am on a Wednesday?

And then I graduated. And got a real job. And moved out to a house that came with bills. And got married.

Oh.

Oh.

Wow, life is exhausting. And expensive.

The massive, roaring train of adulthood mowed down all my misconceptions quickly. And that’s without having kids. I can’t even imagine what that brings.

I used to think that ministry meant church activity. And I was judgemental and frustrated at those who didn’t seem to feel that way.

Really, I wasn’t frustrated that more people weren’t serving. I was frustrated that people weren’t organizing their life on what I was organizing my life around. 

I was an unmarried young guy with a professional obligation to be at church for my future career choice. Of course church was the center of my calendar.

My friends and I in college, at that point in our lives, were convinced the problem was other people.

We were wrong.

People want to help. They really do.

They just also have jobs, kids, two sides of a family to balance, aging parents, practices, overtime, friends, spouses, and lives to live.

Now, most of those friends and I also have the same adult life responsibilities. Some have even more with their kids.

I wholeheartedly believe now, ministry is so much more than what just happens at church.

If we believe we are the Body of Christ, and we all have different gifts, is the ultimate expression of that what we do for an hour on Sunday? 

That can’t be right.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s a big conversation around whether going to church is necessary or not. It is. Jesus commands it. If we can go, we must. But we also shouldn’t let ministry stop inside the church building. 

Ministry is also meeting with a friend for coffee. It’s how you interact with other parents at your kids' games. It’s checking in on your people you play board games with. It’s praying for the people you golf with. It's the time you take connecting with and caregiving for others.For me, it’s taking a night to play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends and checking in on them.

It’s not either/or. It's both/and. Serve where you can, when you can. But even better, as often as possible, love the people around you the way Jesus does.

When I was in 7th grade, I figured whenever I got my first ministry job, I’d hold that for a long time, and whatever would get me to move one would have been the next enormous thing God asked me to do. “The dream came to plant a church in X city.” “Go get this brand new opportunity.” Some grand new calling.

Instead, after a lot of prayer, I stepped back from my first real ministry job because my wife and I moved. The 20 minute commute became 1 hour one way. 

I know people out there travel much farther to serve their churches, I’ll happily give them the ‘your better than me award.’ That is not hard to earn.

But it was the decision I made that made sense for my growing family, and despite our best efforts to leave quietly when the time came, that church sweetly threw us a going away party. 

In the past few years, Heather and I have been in a season where God has shown us what it looks like to do ministry in our community, where our house is. Where we are planted. We are still figuring some of that out.

But when we can, we still try to show up for the 10am inflatable shift. Because we know how hard it is, both for the people who made it there, and for the people who can’t be there.

Praise God, I’m better than I was 10+ years ago. 

And I still have a long ways to go.

There’s a lot more I could write about. Ways I was challenged and grew, places I screwed up and learned from. I might later.

Ultimately, it comes down to this:

Ministry is anything and everything you do for God.

But what you do for God isn’t what makes you special, safe, loved, or protected.

Jesus is. So get out there and steward what He gives you in every season. Love people well.

That’s ministry.

 

What I Learned After Hiding From God For The Summer.

And What We Get Wrong About Rest.

By Harrison Morey Oct 1, 2026

This was me most of the summer.

I told my Dad I didn’t want to join a family prayer.

My wife, Heather and I were just recently in one of the hardest seasons of our lives. One terrible life surprise after another. Just to give you the highlight reel:


A popped tire on a brand-new car. My wife broke her foot and spent two months on crutches, barely able to walk. We went a month and a half without a refrigerator, dealt with multiple plumbing problems, unexpected home repairs, medical bills, a $700 vet bill, uncertainty around her job, difficult family diagnoses, and some challenging transitions at my own job. The same brand new car’s battery dying over and over. Probably more things I can’t remember but our bank account does.


It’s been quite the summer.


My wonderful, very supportive, Godly parents came over a few weeks back in the midst of all this, and they prayed over us, over our house. It felt good. We really needed it.


My Dad finished up, and asked me if I wanted to pray during that moment as well. I usually do.


But this time, I couldn’t do it.

And I didn’t know why.

Part of me knew I didn’t feel worthy. We hadn’t been to church, or gone out anywhere, really, because of Heather’s foot. At home, I hadn’t been reading the Bible, or praying by myself, or with Heather. We weren’t serving, giving, anything.


I wasn’t even listening to worship music. I couldn’t do any of it.


I’ve preached about how to go through hard times before. How to hold fast during hard seasons. I’ve preached the dark night of the soul. Paul’s thorn, Job’s life, Elijah’s breakdown, Jonah’s meltdown, Jesus’ exhaustion, Rizpah’s grief. Romans 8 - how the suffering of our present time isn’t worth comparing to the joy that’s coming. James 1, count it all as joy when you go through trials. Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. That last one has even been my lock screen this entire time.


So on top of doing the ‘wrong things’, I felt like a hypocrite.


Part of me was angry at God. We try to do everything right—why let all this happen to us? I know the theology. That suffering doesn't mean God isn’t there, but knowing that didn't make the suffering feel any better.


I know all the right answers.

I know all the right things to do.

I know all the right Scriptures.

I know all the right Worship songs.

And I didn’t do or use any of them. For weeks. The whole summer.


Instead, I listened to a lot of Radiohead. And kept my head down, doing what I could to manage everything in my own hands.


By the way, my wife has been absolutely amazing through all of this. I couldn’t ask for a stronger, kinder, gentler, more faithful and resilient partner. I was definitely the problem here.


To confess one more thing: I did what, according to Barna, 4/10 of Christians do today, and asked Chat GPT to be my pastor for a moment. I have lots of good, wise, spiritual people I could have reached out to. But I didn’t want to talk to God about this, let alone another human. So I gave GPT a prompt, and then went through a more unfiltered version of what you just read.


And the first thing it told me was:

“You sound tired.”

Huh.


I honestly hadn’t considered that.


I don’t think it’s a great, healthy practice to use AI for spiritual counseling, but it did break my thought patterns enough for God to have a higher volume in my mind for a moment.


That brought me to 1 Kings 18-19. I’ve read it dozens of times before. You might have too.


Prophet Elijah finishes one of the craziest, most vibrant stories of God’s power in the Bible, the showdown on Mount Carmel against the cultists of Baal. Fire from heaven called down. The cultists get slain. Immediately after, Elijah runs. We can’t get into the whole details and keep a decent word count, but the short version is Elijah changes directions, he heads into the wilderness and hides because he’s afraid of the evil rulers of his time. Some estimates say he fled a distance of 120 miles away. Finally, he takes shelter under a tree and he asks God to kill him. He’s clearly depressed, broken, exhausted, lonely, and drained.


After the last few weeks, that sounded familiar to me. We’ll come back to Elijah later.

When your life is a mess, how do you think God sees you?

I know, deep down, that God embraces our mess. I've encouraged people with that exact phrase in countless prayers, preaching, and talks.


But it is much easier to tell someone else to let God embrace their mess than it is to give Him yours.


I knew I was a mess.

I knew I was frustrated, angry, scared, ashamed, and drained.

But I didn’t know I was tired.


I think the hardest part is I know how well God takes care of His sheep. How good He is. How warm He is. How close He gets to us while we suffer. But I was running. Avoiding Him. I didn’t want Him.


I know 1 Corinthians 13. His love is patient. His love is kind.


Sometimes, I don’t want God to be patient or kind with me. There’s another version of God in my head. You might have this one too. The version of God where He sets harsh expectations. He told us to take up our cross daily, right? So isn’t that what all our troubles are?

Our theology is: Follow the faith blueprint or suffer more. Your depression is due to a lack of prayer. Your life not going your way is due to a lack of Holy motivation you should have had downloaded in you when you said yes to Jesus.

We take all those unkind sentiments and more, and call it sanctification.

Your suffering is your fault. God blesses the successful and punishes the failures.


That’s the assertion behind a lot of how we view ourselves and others. It’s why in John 9, Jesus’s own disciples see a blind man and ask Jesus, whose sin made a man blind? Was it his, or his parents?


It’s why you think other people are close to God from how they look on social media and Sunday mornings, and hide and punish yourself in your head when you get home, because you know the truth of just how messed up and wretched you are.


When Elijah ran, hid, and asked God to just kill him, God responded first and foremost with good, hot food and fresh, cold water. He used angels to meet his physical needs before He even began to try and reset his mindset or spiritual posture. It’s another day or two before God says another word.

Even then, the next thing He says is with gentle concern:

“Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.”

That is a patient, kind love in action. It’s gentle.

Do you think God responds that way when you’re struggling?


How does God respond to our limits?


Does he not know when we are at our wits end? When life is too much to handle? When the surprises and people and circumstances and to-do lists and jobs and balancing our own needs and wants and those of people who depend on us are too much. How does God respond?

Care.

God’s care constantly catches me by surprise.


It shouldn’t. He wrote a lot about it.

“Cast your anxieties on the Lord, for he cares for you.”

“Look at the birds of the air, they neither gather into barns nor store their food, yet their heavenly father feeds them.”

“I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.”


So. Much. Care.

Meanwhile, my first instinct is to wait for - or more accurately hide from, a lecture. A harsh correction that isn’t actually coming. For a critical voice that says ‘Be strong and courageous, be a man, lead, don’t you have faith?’


But God doesn’t do that to Elijah.

Instead, it's “Eat. This thing is too hard for you.”


After that gentle concerned statement, God says nothing more. Elijah stays in the woods. Eating. Seemingly doing ‘nothing.’


In fact, God lets him keep wandering for a while, and keeps providing for him. It says God kept Elijah in His strength for over a month, 40 days and 40 nights, God doesn’t say another thing as Elijah wanders another 200 miles.


Think about that.


When we read the Bible, we can skip over the pauses in action there. 40 days and 40 nights. We know God’s response, and the next big action moment, is just a few verses down. But the space between those verses represents weeks of time in stillness and quiet closeness.

That might be one of the reasons we miss God’s care.

We rarely hold quiet moments anymore. We expect everything to be big, loud, large, and instant. As if every day is a Red Sea parting day, when Moses himself went through plenty of cold quiet desert nights. But that doesn’t stop us from thinking something is wrong with us if God isn’t constantly loud and life is constantly good.


Instead, God leads Elijah through a quiet, 200 mile, 40 day walk through the woods. No epiphanies. No grand moments. Just His strength in the quiet.


The biggest thing that surprises me about the story is how slow God lets us move sometimes.


Where is Elijah going? Eventually he climbs the Mount of God. He finds a cave and sits in it.


It’s finally there, God makes a statement.


Instead of a correction, a lecture, a harsh word from the Almighty, He asks Elijah a patient, kind question.

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”


Why would God ever need to ask a question? Because He doesn’t know the answer? No, we know that isn’t true.


God invites Elijah to have a conversation.


Because His love is patient. His love is kind. Annoyingly so, almost. I relate so much to Jonah, who is furious and indignant in the face of God’s mercy for Nineveh, and in a moment when God literally grew a tree to give him shade in the midst of his meltdown, his arrogant pouting, God asks the best question we never ask ourselves. “Do you do well to be angry?”

Another patient, kind gesture with a patient, kind question.


God’s presence carries a tone. But what is that tone? Harsh? Angry? Indifferent? Not here.


Elijah answers God’s question honestly. What is he doing here? Elijah answers with a list of every hard thing he’s done for God out of his effort. And the deepest struggles he is having: He is alone, and people want to kill him for what he’s done for God.


God answers. He tells Elijah to go outside and stand.


It says God’s presence passes by, bringing a massive wind, which tears apart a mountain.

Here we go. The angry, loud God. The harsh God that can cut a mountain.

But God wasn’t in the wind.

And then an earthquake, a thunderous sound that shakes up Elijah, but God wasn’t in the earthquake.

And then a blazing fire appears, something Elijah would have been familiar with, He just saw a fire like this on Mount Carmel a month ago. But it says God wasn’t in the fire.


God doesn’t roar in the divine spectacles like Elijah might have been expecting.


No. Instead. After all that, a still, small voice comes through. Elijah hears God’s low whisper, repeating His question. “What are you doing here, Elijah?”


There’s so much to unpack there. Too much for a post.


If God asked you that, how would it sound? Or if He told you “Eat, this is too hard for you.” How would that sound to you?

Have you ever asked, “How do I know God is speaking to me?

Frustratingly, there’s a hundred answers. And most of them are right. Read the Bible out loud. Get quiet and still. He speaks in dreams. Angels. Through confirmation of others. You know His voice from spending time with Him.


I’ll tell you how I know when God is speaking to me. And this might not work for you.

I have a terrible self-talk problem. Here’s an example. My first instinct one morning when I woke up late to take the trash out before the garbage truck arrived was “Get up and go take the trash out, you mother******* idiot.”

It came through my mind as naturally as breathing.

I know, I’m working on it. Especially the cursing part.

The point is, I am immensely harsh on myself. That’s part of why I have that other version of God in my head, the harsh one. The judgmental one, the cruel one. Whose mood ranges from indifferent to demanding. But that’s not God.


Instead, on a rare, rare occasion. When I finally get quiet and alone. Know what I hear?

You are doing a lot.

Would you let me carry you?

You need to slow down.


God uses a still, small voice. A close one. A low whisper.


Elijah lived an empowered life of crazy moments we can never compare to, of life threatening danger, where he performed miracles and experienced supernatural event after supernatural event.

And God is saying: Elijah. I am not just the loud distant moments that strike fear and awe. I am also right next to you, close enough to whisper in your ear.

Here’s what I learned.

Sometimes you're the prophet on a mountaintop, and God is going to show up in a big way because of your faithfulness. Not just that- sometimes you need to be on the mountaintop, warring against the world. God’s next words with Elijah on the mountain are about what to do next. His next assignments bring him out of a season of rest and into a season of purpose.


Sometimes you have a lot of work to do.


Other times, you just need to be cared for.


Unfortunately, those seasons where you need to be cared for might last longer than a day or two. It could be 40.


God doesn't shame Elijah for needing time. He feeds him, lets him sleep, walks with him, listens to him, speaks in a gentle voice, and only then gives him his next assignment.


What a blessing it is, to have gone through a hard season, and know that despite your best effort to hide, run, fight, and curse… God held you strong anyway. And He was kind and gentle with you. And has more for you after.

It took me 3 months to finally pray again.


When I got in my car earlier this morning and once again, it wouldn’t start. Every warning light and alarm flashed and beeped and yelled at me. I turned it off. And actually prayed.

“I’m tired.”

I said it with an ache. I said it louder, again. I said it one more time, tired and angry. I didn’t even address it. No ‘Dear Heavenly Father’, no ‘Lord.’ Not even ‘God’.

But I think He knew it was addressed to Him.


Because His quiet, gentle love came to meet me there. A still small voice finally broke through my self loathing and running away.

I know you are tired.

Maybe you aren’t terrible. Maybe you’re just tired.

Sleep. Eat. Rest.

Remember that your seasons of rest are seasons where God cares for you.

Remember that your season, every season, is one you walk with God.

When you’re exhausted, angry, hungry, lonely, tired. Pray the shortest prayer you can possibly manage. And let yourself be guarded by Jesus. Let Him whisper. Let Him carry you.

He might have words for you in a still small voice.


Sometimes faithfulness doesn't look like doing more. Sometimes faithfulness looks like letting God care for you until you're ready to move again.

Introduction

 

Hi, I'm Harrison.

Thanks for checking this out!

I wanted to have a place to share some writing. Throughout my life, writing is something I've always kept up with, it's just mostly been something I've done quietly for myself. While I don't think I'll upload often,  I like the idea of writing more than posting on social media. 

Here's a little about me.

I'm from Oklahoma, I'm married to my high school sweetheart, Heather. I have a bachelor's degree in Church Leadership. My day job involves facilitating associate learning and development for a bank. On the side, I've served in ministry in churches of all different sizes, from megachurches to churches of 30 people. We tend to enjoy the smaller side these days.

I'm passionate about work that focuses on helping others grow, especially in areas where they might be afraid. I love helping people get past their fears and take their next step of faith.

At home, I enjoy spending time doing pretty much anything with Heather. We are nerdy, quiet, reserved people who play video games, read, binge-watch, and play tabletop games. I scored. 

We don't have kids yet, but look forward to that season. In the meantime, we are enjoying our selfish years, which every parent we meet tells us to enjoy as long as possible (we plan to!)

Most of what I post will be somewhere in the realm of faith, leadership, church life, and everyday living. I'm excited to get into some areas where I've learned from my own mistakes and am still learning.

I'm not writing because I think I've got a lot of right ideas or expertise to share. If anything, it's the opposite. This will be a place to work through things I'm learning and reflecting on, and spotlight areas that I think we can all spend a little more time thinking about.