THIS IS MY STORY, THIS IS MY SONG
God has been authoring my story all along… even when I didn’t know what would happen next.
These are my people… they are the world to me!
There are lots of unnecessary details to my story. I’m tempted to skip to the good parts, but I don’t know what the good parts are. Every turn has seemed important, so I’ll try and catch as many as I can.
I fell in love with music around 8th grade. After an ironic, or providential opportunity for my church youth group to spend a weekend at the home of Michael W. Smith, I set my sights on learning how to play and possibly write and perform music as my livelihood. In college though, I fell short of the performance requirements for a music student, so I tracked toward my second love - production. If I couldn’t perform music, I’d learn how to produce it. I met some great people and learned so much.
As I was finishing high school I met and fell head over heels in love with my wife, Cindy. She is such the rock in my life and inspires me every single day. I could dedicate pages of blog posts and maybe even a book to all that she has been for me over these 30 years of being together… but I’ll try to stick to the script.
In college, I began volunteering with my youth group in leading worship for students. This was pre-everything we all know about worship leading… no Hillsong, no Passion, no Jesus Culture… not even Chris Tomlin - can you even imagine!?! I was learning on the fly. But as I learned to lead and engage students through the medium of music, I began to see the worlds of music and production collide along with my heart to help other “kids” see and respond to Jesus. I was given several opportunities to lead outside my church, but was eventually asked to join the staff of my church to lead the entire youth group. What had been a volunteer opportunity for a 20 year old kid, turned quickly to a part-time ministry job where I’d spend the next 7 years of my life. After graduating from Georgia State University, I became a full time student pastor - leading worship and teaching every week. I probably should have paused to go to seminary, but that thought never even crossed my mind back then. I just jumped right into serving Jesus by loving on students and their families.
Along the way, a vision for what we called “big church”… you know, where the adults did church, came into view. I just couldn’t figure out why the thing that made youth group so fun and special couldn’t be done with adults too. What was I missing?
Then, in October of 1995, on a last minute trip to visit family, I picked up and read a book that (just happened to be) laying in the back window of the car I was riding in. It was a book by Lee Strobel, then the teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church. The book was called, “Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary”. It gave me the very first glimpse into the notion that adult church, “big church”, actually could be done like youth group. Done with excellence and fun in mind. Done with outsiders in mind. Done with the heart of Jesus in mind. It was a mind-boggling trip and I finished the book by the time we hit Florence, SC.
A few months later, we made a trip to Chicago to see Willow Creek Community Church and to learn from it’s leaders. Like so many other church planters who had made the same trek, once I saw and experienced church done like that, there was no un-seeing it…. there was no going back. This is what I wanted to do.
For 3 years I researched, read, learned, listened (to cassette tapes mind you), and did all I could to understand how church could be this way. And finally, in 1999, Cindy and I along with our 3 year old Mackenzie, and our 1 year old Caleb, moved everything we had to Wilmington, NC to help start Port City Community Church.
I’d say the rest is history, and it is history - but there are a few more turns….
As we launched, my brother in law, Mike took the responsibility all things teaching and preaching… and I took the responsibility of leading all the musical moments, environments and experiences of the adult service. We were inexperienced, untrained, and naive - and apparently, no one cared, because they came anyway. We started in a living room with about 30 people - most of which were high school or college students who had no money. We had no funding church or denomination. But we had dreams and visions and enough savings to get us through the first few months. But people came and we grew - we grew way more than we ever thought.
Port City Church remained a portable campus for 8 years meeting in a middle school and in a movie theater. When we moved into our permanent facility at year 9, we were seeing about 3,500 people every weekend. We then spent 11 years expanding to multiple campuses and figuring out how to reach more people, while managing growing pains, both internal and external. The teenage years of a church are tough years, and ours were no different.
At the 20 year moment in the life of this church, I stepped away from my leadership role in Port City, and am now leveraging the 27 years of ministry and leadership experience I’ve gained to come alongside of pastors and leaders to help them through seasons of change and growth.
Oh - I almost forgot!
We added one to our tribe back in 2009. Annie Grace was born as a Wilmington native and has played an integral part of our family story. Having 2 older kids, now both out of college and launching into adulthood, and having one still in elementary school makes for a super exciting parenting path. She has taught me so much… they all have.
The story I have found myself in is one not at all free of struggles and uncertainty - especially in this current season. But it is a story of God’s faithfulness. I have resonated so much in recent months with one of my favorite worship songs to lead…. here’s a small piece:
There wasn’t a day, that you weren’t by my side
There wasn’t a day, that you let me fall
In all my life, your love has been true
For all of my life, I will worship You.
This has always been so true. God has been so very Faithful to the End. And the end of one season always ushers in the beginning of another. This is my story, this is my song. Praising my Savior… all the day long.
