Chris' Personal Story

I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My family moved to Kalamazoo when I was five. Several months later my dad left my mom and divorced her. Therefore, our immediate family consisted of myself at five, my sister who was two, and my mother. My mother became disabled and could not work, therefore, we grew up on a very tight income (below poverty level). My mom, however, did an amazing job with very little.

I never went to church much growing up (occasionally on holidays). When I was around 11 or 12 I went to a vacation Bible school and professed faith in Christ. However, my life never changed. By the time I got into my teenage years I got heavily involved in the party crowd. Drinking, drugs, and immorality was a way of life. I considered myself a Christian because I said a special prayer at one point in my life and I tried to be a relatively good person.

I became pretty antagonistic against church and organized religion. My dad had come to Christ several years earlier, and I would attend with him when we visited. However, by high school I decided I would not visit him if I was forced to attend church. By the time I entered college I believed the Bible was full of errors (even thought I had never read it), Christians were hypocrites, and Jesus was a good moral teacher at best.

Studying philosophy (which was my major in college) prompted many questions about life and religion. I moved to London, England for a couple semesters as a foreign exchange student studying philosophy during my sophomore year. It was there that God began to work on my heart in amazing ways. One of my best partying buddies in high school had become a Christian, and he wrote me often. I began investigating various religions, including the Bible. I was searching in my heart what was true and what was not. Through a series of several circumstances I got my hands on a Bible and began reading the book of Matthew. That night in London I gave my life to Christ.

From there I began growing as a Christian very quickly. I began attending a great church in Ann Arbor, MI that discipled me and taught me how to live for Christ. I was planning to go to law school, but at the beginning of my senior year in college I began to contemplate full-time ministry. I then decided to forgo law school and plan for seminary. I graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in philosophy.

I entered Grace Theological Seminary and after the third week met a beautiful college student named Kathy. Twenty months later we married. As we approached the end of my seminary degree one of my professors linked me up to Gordon Smith who was the teaching pastor of Grace Gathering at the time. He was looking for a young man to mentor into the teaching pastor position.

In February of 1995 we moved to New Haven and I came on staff. Over the next several years I was mentored into the position I am in today. I completed a Doctor of Ministry degree in 2006 from Trinity University in Chicago, IL.

My wife and I had struggles with infertility for several years and then finally gave birth to a beautiful daughter. We since then had two other daughters and a son. God has blessed me and my family beyond my wildest dreams. It is a humbling privilege and honor to serve God's church church and serve my family. All praise goes to God!