How did you come to believe the Gospel?
I was raised in Roman Catholicism where I learned the Nicene Creed. Did I really believe at that point? Well, it’s complicated. I don’t remember much of the gospel being preached to me from the pulpit other than the occasional “Jesus loves you” from the lips of the very kind and lovable priest of the parish. But I still heard it, understood it, and believed it through the weekly recitation of the Nicene Creed in the mass. I knew that I was a sinner, and I hoped very much that I had forgiveness through Christ. But I didn’t really have the assurance of the full gospel of grace. Then several years later, while in my early 20s at my first duty station in the Air Force, I was discipled by some fellow junior officers at the Protestant chapel on base. It’s with those young men that I began to read the Bible in earnest and through those mentors came to be a part of a vibrant fellowship of saints where I was taught and encouraged in my walk with the Lord. God had prepared me for faith in Him from birth and when I was baptized in the Roman church. It was much later before I would know new life by the renewal of the Holy Spirit.
Did knowledge of the Reformed confessions come a little later than that?
About 8 years into my career in the Air Force, and also about 8 years from the time I began to be discipled through the influence of my fellow officers, I led a small group Bible study at our home at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California. There a young couple, Michael and Darcy, joined us. Michael and I would hang out on his back porch and talk about Reformed theology and the Westminster Confession of Faith. Tom, a dear old saint who died in 2025, taught me in Sunday school and challenged me to think about the law of God which abides for believers today (he was a theonomist of the Rushdoony mold). At the time, I would have described myself as an evangelical Christian, and this was my first introduction to covenant theology and the Reformed confessions.
How did you become convinced you were called to the ministry?
I have sensed for a long time that I was called to teach. In 2016, I enrolled in seminary out of boredom while I was on a deployment with the Air Force. By the faculty and classmates, I was encouraged to pursue a call to ministry, though I didn’t see pastoral ministry as a vocation to which I was suited. Through a very gradual process of “happy providences” (in the words of my mentor, Dr. Aquila), the Lord led me to Providence Reformed Church, where I now serve in the RCUS.
What was your seminary experience?
I attended New Geneva Theological Seminary. Through NGTS, I found mentors (Dr. Dominic Aquila, Dr. Mark House) who encouraged me to pursue my M.Div. and who looked for opportunities for me to preach. Though I considered myself Reformed as I entered seminary, this is where I learned a robust Reformed theology and learned to really love the doctrines of grace. I met and profited from faculty members like Dr. J.P. Mosley and Dr. Fritz Harms, who exuded their love for the Reformed tradition, especially systematic and historical theology, my favorite courses at seminary.
How did you wind up in the RCUS?
I had been a member of the PCA since 2010 and was drawn to the RCUS through my occasional work with Providence Reformed Church in Limon during the period of 2018-2020. It really wasn’t a matter of my dissatisfaction with the apparent theological and pastoral drift of the PCA (though that was there, especially in 2018-2019), but more a matter of the people of Providence and the bond of fellowship that we immediately shared there as I started to do occasional pulpit supply as a student. It was only after I had decided to join with Providence that I learned about the RCUS. I gained a great appreciation for the culture here of holding fast to the confession handed down to us through Jesus and the apostles (2 Tim 1:13, Heb 10:23) and the simplicity of our constitution and worship.
What is Providence Reformed like?
Providence is a congregation of 70 baptized members in Limon, CO. We are a combination of people from Limon and the surrounding farms and ranches. The church was formed upon the merging of two congregations: one in Limon and another in Blue Cliff, CO. The congregation has been through many times of thick and thin and has emerged with a stalwart kind of resolve to hold together, which has been an inspiring thing to see. And I am in the position of being both a product of this congregation as well as the minister to this congregation, having joined Providence and the RCUS initially as a member and then an elder.
What would you want folks in your community to know about Providence?
We are a people brought together by the common redemption we share in Jesus Christ. Our Lord’s Day gatherings are characterized by our love for the praise of God’s glory through hymns, psalms, prayer, and the preaching of the gospel. Visitors will find the warmth of a small congregation that is eager to grow our fellowship with new disciples. It’s an easy place to quickly become family among this close-knit group, which was exactly my experience.
What are your hopes and plans for your service to the kingdom?
Providence influences a very broad geographic area, being one of the very few Reformed churches in Colorado east of Colorado Springs and the Denver area. Through our people, who are spread out over eastern Colorado, we hope to be a light to our neighboring farmers and ranchers as well as to those within the city of Limon. Because our congregation is spread so widely around this area, we have the great privilege and responsibility to bear witness to Christ through the many relationships we have in these small communities. We also desire to be a part of the kingdom work that is already happening in Limon’s high-security state prison just outside of town.
What is one book that most Christians would do well to read?
It’s hard to narrow it down to one! A Christian, as soon as he or she learns to read, should read Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (read it more than once!). Assuming you’ve done that, then read Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray. And for a more challenging, but extremely rewarding effort, read Augustine’s Confessions.
How could Reformed Herald readers pray for you and the church?
Please pray for the continued unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace at Providence. Unity comes at a price, and it has to be jealously guarded. And pray also that peace and unity would be the light that draws God’s elect from the prison and eastern Colorado into the kingdom!
Any final words for Herald readers?
I would like to add many more books that Christians would do well to read: Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis), Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky), The Wonderful Works of God (Herman Bavinck), The Christ of the Covenants (O. Palmer Robertson), anything from the “Puritan Paperbacks” series by Banner of Truth, anything by R.C. Sproul, or anything by Sinclair Ferguson.