I grew up in East Tennessee and was exposed to a wide variety of music at an early age. I remember picking up my Dad’s bass guitar around 7 years old and thinking, “this feels right.” I knew music was in my future at some capacity.  

After a somewhat rocky childhood, I visited a church with my sister as a young teenager. During the “worship time” at the beginning of the church service, where everyone sang songs together to God, I felt the presence of God in a way that I’d never felt before. I immediately knew that He was real and that He loved me immensely and infinitely. My life was changed that day. From that point on, I devoted myself to creating worship experiences to help people encounter that life-changing presence of God.

I began serving on “worship teams” in church, learning different musical instruments and growing in my spiritual walk. (Like all of us, I still have a long way to go!) I eventually went to Johnson University in Knoxville, TN, where I met and married my beautiful wife, Mac, in 2005, and graduated with bachelor’s degrees in music theory and Bible soon after. 

In 2008, my wife and I came to Polaris, where I began serving as the worship pastor. We have two wonderful boys, Sam and Paul, and feel extremely blessed to be part of such a loving and genuine community dedicated to following Jesus, caring for each other, the community around us and people in need all over the world.  

My goal for the worship ministry is to create opportunities for people to experience the love of God and then, in turn, encourage them to actively share that love with the people in their lives and people on the margins of society.