Testimony

I was reared in a rural northeastern North Carolina farm community. My family was active in church during my first years but dropped out by the time I began school. My father, a disabled veteran, suffered from several mental disorders including manic depression and passive aggressive personality disorder.

As I approached my teenage years, life in our home became more difficult in direct proportion to my father’s deteriorating mental condition. He was never physically abusive toward my mother, my siblings or myself, but he knew how to use words to manipulate every one of us. He often told me that I would never make anything out of my life and that I was a miserable failure. Being young and longing for a father’s love, I began to believe his cruel words.

Whenever my father would allow, I would attend church with my uncle at Galatia Baptist Church in Seaboard, NC. It was there that I first heard the good news of Jesus Christ proclaimed through Sunday school and worship.

At age 15, I realized that I had sinned and needed Jesus Christ. I spoke to our pastor about salvation. He came to my home and shared some verses from the Bible with me, but I did not place my faith in Christ at that time. He urged me to make a public confession of my faith in Christ in a worship service when I was ready to receive Christ.

After several weeks of indecision, I finally came forward at the end of a church service and requested to be baptized. However, I did not make a heart commitment to Christ at that time, I just got baptized and joined the family church.

In high school, I struggled with depression and thoughts of suicide. I claimed to be a Christian but my actions said something different about my life. Even though I still attended church, I dabbled in Heavy Metal music, new age religion, Satanism, Dianetics and other antichristian teachings. I had no purpose or meaning to my life and I was miserable.

After High School, I attended the local community college to pursue a degree in architecture. I was a very skeptical and bitter young man. I even questioned the existence of God.

After graduation, I went to work for an aluminum manufacturer as a draftsman. It was there that I met a very godly man named Tim. He would always talk about the Bible and how exciting church was for him. I knew enough about the Bible to be ignorant at best. We would talk for hours about Jesus. In Tim I saw something that I did not have—a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It wasn’t religion, tradition, feelings or rituals; it was a real...and I wanted it.

One night, during the spring of 1994 – kneeling by my bedside – I gave up on living life on my own terms and surrendered my heart to Jesus Christ.

The change in my life was immediately evident to those around me. My attitudes and actions came under the direction of Jesus Christ. I began to soak up everything I could about Jesus like a sponge in a bucket of water.

Not long after my new beginning with Christ, God began to deal with me about a call to full time ministry. At first, I did not know where that calling would lead. My pastor, at the time, even discouraged me from going into ministry. However, God raised up several mentors in my life who helped me refine that calling. Over time, God began to use me to reach people with the good news of Jesus Christ. I began to consider telling others about Christ as God’s calling for my life.

In 1996, I met and married my bride Penny, who was serving on staff at my home church. We made a commitment to go wherever God led and serve in whatever capacity He called us. After being laid off from my secular job in the fall of 1997, I returned to college to pursue a degree in religion. I served in several churches as interim pastor during that time and began Foundation Ministries in 1999.

Since founding the ministry, God has opened some unbelievable doors for us in various places around the world. I have preached the message of Jesus Christ before thousands of people in all kinds of venues from churches, to crusade settings, in prisons, at go-kart tracks, on college campuses, in the streets and even the ends of the earth. Clearly, God has orchestrated everything that has happened in my life for His own glory. I cannot take any credit for the change that has taken place in my life.

As the Bible says, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)