About Me
You've probably come to this website because you know me either as a pastor or an author. I'm both of those, but I'm also a lot more! I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ, a spouse, a dad, and a son. I'm a fan of Duke men's and women's basketball. I'm an Indiana native who has a passion for gardening with Indiana native plants. I also love baking sourdough bread using Max, my five-year-old sourdough starter.
As an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, I've spent the past twenty years pastoring six churches in such varied places as a tiny farm town where the only business was a Coke machine in someone’s garage, to a community on the outskirts of one of the largest cities in the state of Indiana, to an urban neighborhood in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Before I went to seminary, I spent a year as a missionary in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a year and a half as a missionary in Appalachian Kentucky. I earned a Master of Divinity and a Certificate in Black Church Studies from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in 2004, and I've been elected twice by the other United Methodist clergy in our state to represent Indiana at the United Methodist General Conference, the once-every-four-years global gathering of United Methodists from all over the world.
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After fifteen years of pastoral ministry, a brush with pastoral burnout compelled me to take a clergy renewal leave. This self-planned renewal leave on a budget restored my sense of call and changed the course of my ministry. Since there are few resources to support clergy planning a renewal leave, I decided to write a book to help other pastors do the same.
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I hope you'll take a look around my website. There's information about my book, Pastoral Pause: Planning Your Renewal Leave, as well as links to some other resources about renewal leave that I hope you'll find helpful. There's also a link to some other things I've worked on in the past, which you're welcome to use as you like (just be sure to include my name and a link to this website).
