Starting Out

I was born in California and when I a few months old, my parents moved to Tucson for work. I grew up going to a large non-denominational church in Tucson and learned a lot about the Bible, Jesus, salvation, heaven, hell and other things. I also am sure that at some point I had a real desire to repent and give my life to God. I can remember growing up reading the Bible regularly, attending youth camps and being challenge to grow for God. However, by the middle of High School and into college, I was not really living a sol-out life for God. I would rather live for me than for God. I was making some poor choices in who I was spending my time with and was much happier pursuing what pleased me than what I knew to be right and true.

Moving Out

Instead of staying in Tucson and attending the University of Arizona (UofA) where all my high school friends went, I really felt like I needed to break away from high school. Plus, I got a better scholarship offer at another in-state university. ;) So, in 2002, I moved to Tempe and began attending Arizona State University (ASU).

Growing up all through my elementary education and into high school I had wanted to be an architect. I loved building and designing things. However when I began researching possible careers I realized how much work it would be in college and how hard it would be to find a good job after I graduated. I decided instead to follow after my dad’s footsteps, kinda. I have always been interested in computers and electronics, so I figured I could become an electrical engineer. Then when I graduated I could work for a good company at a high paying job making lots of money to buy my nice house and support my wife and children. It seems, though, that God had another plan.

Growing Up

The second semester of my freshman year in college, my maternal grandfather passed away. He had been living with us for several years and had caused us a small amount of greif. He seemed to be a very unhappy man with a lot of anger and resentment issues which would occasionally bubble up at our frequent family meals. Right before he passed away, I visited him in the hospital in Tucson. He was white as a sheet and had (what I believe is called) the death rattle: that slow, labored raspy breathing where each successive breath comes with more difficulty. As we were all there together saying our final fair-wells, my mother told me to tell him that I loved him. But I could not. I could not say anything. I could hardly find words at all.

After I left the hospital and returned to my dorm in Tempe I got a call from my mom saying he had passed away. This left me feeling very confused and quite bewildered. I was not sure how I felt or what I should feel, but one thing was for sure, I was unable to focus on school anymore. Compared with death, studying for a degree to get a job just for the sake of making money seemed so completely pointless and trivial. I would rather pursue something which made me happy.

So I left school and spent a few weeks living with a friend in Pennsylvania trying to start a band. This was a terrible disaster and I ended up back at ASU the following Fall semester trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do with the rest of my life.

Figuring it Out

Once back in school, I knew that I had to do something meaningful because the life I had was short and precious. Despite me knowing this, however, I was still not able to give up living for myself. At this time I was really struggling to overcome an addiction to lust which had started early on and did not seem to want to go away. I had made a few friends in a Christian ministry at ASU before I left and once I got back, I began to be discipled by them in a way that God used to change me profoundly. I was being held accountable for the first time and was working through what it really meant to not just trust in Jesus as my savior, but to trust in Him as my Lord. I began to practice true, Lordship Christianity.

Giving it Over

Finally I had chosen to live only for Jesus. I chose to be baptized shortly making this realization. It was not long after I made a decision to let God be the LORD of my life before I heard a very clear calling to go to seminary after college. So I hunkered down and finally graduated from Arizona State University in 2007 with a degree in Psychology. Along the way, I met my beautiful wife and married her, and started working at a church as a youth minister. During my college years God shaped me and molded me in ways that, though not seemingly significant at the time, have turned out to be incredibly important. There were several bumps in the path as I began really wrestling with what it meant to live for Christ and to die to self, but overall God was with me.

After I graduated from ASU, I began attending seminary at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (GGBTS) at the Arizona campus on Hayden. It was while in seminary I met up with some guys in staff with Christian Challenge and began to head down the path that led me to where I am today. I also began truly understanding my own personal call to ministry and started to seek out ways to let God use me in the lives of those around me. Even as a college student, I have felt a passion to see young people in my generation come to know Christ so that God can use them to start a world-wide renewal and awakening of the Church. That is what really led me to feel called to Christian Challenge.

Living it Out

In 2010, I met my current supervisor, Brad Schneeflock. He took me under his wing and began mentoring me and together we explored the possibility of coming on staff with Christian Challenge. It was Brad who told me about the 300,000 college students across Phoenix and that there were so few ministries on the myriad of campuses which these students attend. By appealing to the desire to reach out to my generation, a desire which God had planted in me years before, Brad was able to help me see how I could live out my calling by joining Christian Challenge in its mission to reach all the students living across Phoenix with the love of Jesus.

So now am living out my calling to bring the love of Jesus to college students. I am currently working as a missionary at Mesa Community College where I lead the ministry to students on the campus. I also lead worship for the ASU Tempe Christian Challenge group and a variety of area-wide events such as the winter retreats. Also because of my computer skills I am working on re-designing the Metro Christian Challenge website.  I am also continuing my education and slowly working away at my M.Div from Golden Gate. I am truly honored to be able to see what God has been doing in the lives of students across the metro area. To be able to be apart of the work which God has done here is really a blessing, and it is my hope that God would lead you to join us. Your help can make the difference in the life of a college student, so Donate Today!