Tuesday, January 1, 2013

About Me

For over a decade, my emphasis has been helping churches improve their outreach & communications. I am passionate about helping pastors & church lay leaders learn effective technology-mediated communication & teaching strategies so that they can successfully influence their church, community, & culture.

Currently I serve as the “Learning Management Systems Coordinator” (online learning technology specialist) for Tabor College and teach in the Christian Ministries undergraduate degree program. I enjoy helping faculty develop and manage their online courses to improve learning outcomes and am excited to teach practical courses like “Technology for Ministry” and “Enhancing PowerPoint with Multimedia & Interactivity” along with transformationally-minded discipleship courses like “Discipleship & Ethics” and “The Sermon on the Mount.”

My background & educational interests are varied. My undergraduate studies were in Christian Ministries at Southwest Baptist University, and I focused primarily on preaching & pastoral ministries with minors in Church Growth & Missions (evangelism), Discipleship (spiritual formation), & Spanish – notice a very definite missional theme?

Following SBU, I spent a year studying Practical Theology (Advanced Missions & Ministry) at Emmaus Road Ministry School under outstanding world Christian leaders like Jim Garlow, Jack Taylor, Doug White, T.D. and Dudley Hall, Jack Deere, Peter Lord, Steve Sjögren & James Robison – leaders & influencers in “third wave” circles who were not content with the status quo of churchianity but wanted to reshape the Church to embrace its future ministry.

In 2003, I went back to school to work on my Masters so I could teach. I started out that journey studying “integrated marketing communications” at Kansas State University and then transitioned to Emporia State University’s program in Instructional Design & Technology, where I completed my Masters.

Over the years I have been a graphic designer, a communications & marketing consultant, and an instructional technology specialist, while my ministry roles have included youth ministry, pastoring, co-pastoring, church planting, & missions. For most of the last 20 years I have worked comfortably in both secular and ministry arenas, usually holding a secular job in graphic design/marketing, communications, or educational/instructional technology to pay the bills while serving churches in some type of renewal or re-focusing role OR serving churches full-time (usually in a renewal role) while doing design/marketing/communications on the side to support the church. These dual venues have kept me in touch with what’s happening with today’s generation, aware of cultural trends & issues, and well-versed in communication theory, educational pedagogy, and trends with instructional technology & multimedia.

I am now wrapping up my 2nd year in a Doctor of Ministry program at George Fox Evangelical Seminary studying Semiotics & Future Studies (formerly titled “Leadership in the Emerging Culture”), where my lead mentor is world-renowned author & futurist/semiotician Leonard Sweet. This program is all about preparing the Church for future ministry by learning what it takes to effectively engage the culture in order to reach today’s generation.

I am excited to see all of the varied strands of my ministry experience & dual passions converge in this D.Min program, and this blog is one of many natural outcomes of it, with many more to come.

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