I’ve spent my entire life — as a church leader and pastoral teacher with a deep education in ministry — figuring out how to preach the Gospel so people will listen.

My professional ministry life began as an associate pastor in 1983. I partnered with a fellow seminary graduate to rebuild a dying church in Rockford, Michigan. As the church grew, we experimented with implementing the theology we both espoused. We led by attempting things that might fail, in order to learn what worked.

After 7 years, I moved on to pastor a church close to the city of Grand Rapids. It was a struggling and diminishing church that desperately wanted help. I learned to preach to a blue-collar congregation, putting biblical concepts into understandable and useful terms.

Then, I was called to a struggling church in the Chicago suburban county where I had grown up. The next 16 years involved my education, as well as experimentation about shepherding people for spiritual growth. During this time, I got a Doctorate of Ministry from Gordon-Conwell, completing my thesis-project on a Pauline view of Christian maturity. Then, I developed my version of the Story of Scripture to teach people how to be involved with God for their growth.

In 2013, I resigned from ministry in Elmhurst to pursue mentoring pastors. I formed a non-profit and prepared to assist others. I titled it the REVS Group. REVS: Renewal of Evangelical Vitality in Spirituality.

And then, everything fell apart.

An unexplained mental breakdown and two years of depression eventually led to a diagnosis of FTD. While this normally causes quick deterioration, I was spared the normal timeline. Miraculously, I began to improve in 2020. I began reading again, taking long walks, and engaging in normal conversations again with friends and family.

My wife and I started attending a church plant in 2022, and I now am part of the preaching team, as well as on the teaching rotation for elementary students.

As I have begun to revamp my ministry of spiritual mentoring pastors, the response has been consistent: “I had no idea you could put the story together like that.” I have already seen results through this ministry and I look forward to spending more of my god-given time to help churches see renewal through biblical spirituality.