Born in Louisville, Kentucky, to native Kansas Citians, I grew up in the midwest: Villisca and Atlantic, Iowa, and University City, Missouri. I am the middle son of loving, giving, serving parents–a special-education teacher and a Presbyterian Pastor–and I grew up in caring communities that stressed amazing grace, truth telling and justice seeking, and care for family and neighbor.
Grinnell College was a natural fit for me, where I studied Religious Studies. From there, the University of Chicago Divinity School, where I earned a Master of Divinity degree and almost completed a Doctor of Philosophy program in Theological Ethics (all but dissertation, true, but life and ministry and kids meant it was not quite to be).
Today, I find myself surrounded by wonderful things. I have two beautiful (twin) daughters, and was blessed to be the Pastor of The Kirk in Kansas City, Missouri. I concluded that Pastorate in August, 2022, to begin work in Hospital Chaplaincy.
I’m convinced that the message of God’s immeasurable love that we find in Jesus Christ is a vital message for our time, and that even in the midst of mind-boggling cultural, institutional, and church-y change, God is not done with the community of people who are inspired to follow God on the way of Jesus. We just don’t quite know what God is going to do with us yet.
I currently blog (and post sermons) at Kairosblog. Free time is often spent commiserating with Royals fans (once the best Minor League team in Major League baseball, recently an amazing midwestern success story), cheering the Chiefs or Sporting KC or the Saint Louis Blues, and running around with pups Annie and Ryder. I readily admit addiction to expresso, fondness for craft beer and bourbon, an amateur zeal for fountain pens, and overflowing joy that God loves me (and you) unconditionally and with crazy grace. I wonder what we ought to do about all that.