Eastland Church of God
Lexington, Kentucky 40509
(859) 263-8917

• Education: Well, I haven’t had much of it yet, so I’ll just tell you the parts that I’ve been through. I went to Lexington Christian Academy for pre-school, then Clays Mill Elementary for six years, Jessie Clark Middle for three, and Lafayette High for three (so far). At Jessie Clark, I went to FCA all year during my 8th grade year, but that’s all the spiritual activity I did at that school. Unfortunately, it was before I was serious about my faith, so everything that I got out of it didn’t do me much good back then. However, my first two years at Lafayette were mostly dark, Godless, and so horrible I can barely stand to think about them, compared to what I got started on in my Junior year. I didn’t get saved until a month before I quit being a Sophomore. Once I was a Junior, though, God started blooming me out to be a real campus missionary. My grades were better than they had been the previous two years. I even got into the new FCA group at Lafayette. As opposed to the first two years, I’d been in and out of the school worship group, but in my Junior year, I was a leader of FCA. Our FCA has struggled with a lack of organization, good speakers, and interest from the student body, but that’s okay. I know things will get better. My Junior year has been so amazing, with the ways I’ve grown in my faith. God’s answered MANY prayers. In addition to leading FCA, I’ve started a small prayer group that meets the other four mornings of the week, when we don’t have FCA. As I’m typing this, I’m on Spring Break, and I’m hoping to start a Bible study class after school when I get back next week. As for my Senior year...I’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but I’m sure it’ll be good whatever happens!
• Experience: Very, very little experience. I’ve preached at FCA about 4 or 5 times (twice of which were successful in delivery, I’d say). I preached once at church, but that’s it. My messages/sermons aren’t very good, I’ve got to say. But whenever God inspires me with something that I feel led to write down, I do it. A lot of times, I write them down when I’m just participating in church on Sunday morning, and I’ll whip out my writing pad and go to town on something. I feel like God’s calling me to be a minister. How much? I don’t know. It could be 50/50. It could be 60%--I’ll be a minister; 40%--I won’t. Or 70/30, with the ministry option leading. The only thing I’m certain of is that I have a young and pretty strong faith. I rely on God for the small things in life. Mostly, just remembering to grab this or that when I need to remember it. I always do remember it, too! Or if I need to find something, I can just pray to Him to help me find it, and before I know it, that thing’s right under my nose! If I were to pray while looking for a needle in a haystack, I bet God would lead me right to it! I don’t really read my Bible everyday, in an organized fashion. Mostly, I just read something here or there from it, while reading something else that has an excerpt from the Bible in it.
• Comment to those looking at my sermons: God’s still working on my sermon composition skills.
• Sermon or series that made a difference: None worth mentioning.
• One of my favorite illustrations: http://www.botcw.com/thom/images/4-2-99.gif This would have to be some good advice, too.
• Family: Well, I come from a family that’s about half-and-half Christianity. Dad’s half has been "lukewarm" most of the time. I think my aunts’ families are pretty involved in church, but I don’t know how they are, spiritually. We don’t really keep in touch with them a whole lot, due to tensions between them and Dad, so I guess that could say something about it. Dad was really involved with church when he and Mom were first married, but now he works about every Sunday and barely makes it to church one every two months. Mom, on the other hand, has been pretty dedicated a lot of times. Right now, I’m awe-struck at how they managed to be so influential on my beliefs, yet I’ve never been sick of Christianity, and I’ve never hated it (even though getting up for church in the mornings can be a little difficult and sometimes we haven’t bothered). While I’m starting to wonder about my parents’ faith these days, I still admire them for the work they did in getting me this far.
• What my parents think of my sermons: Well, my mom read the one about "Encouragement Dominoes" and thought it sounded like a choppy "hailfire and brimstone" message/sermon. Kind of disappointed me, too.
• What my spouse (really) thinks of my sermons: Well, I don’t think she could care less. But since I’m only guessing how she reacts to them, since I’m only guessing that she’ll be my spouse, someday, (I’m pretty sure that’s what God’s telling me) then I can’t be sure.
• Best advice given to me about preaching: "Keep up the good work." Matthew 10:19-20
• Books that have had an impact: None that can be mentioned.
• Hobbies: Well, I like reading testimonies a lot, listening to film music (mostly John Williams), airplanes, reading about the unusual things that happen in the Bible, history.
• If I could Preach one more time, I would say...: I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’ve done much to be really satisfied to preach just ONE more time. I feel like I’ve got a whole life of preaching ahead of me, and I haven’t even started on the good ones that I’m sure God’s got in store for me, yet. If I could preach the perfect sermon, and that were to be my only sermon, though, I’d LOVE to preach about how happy God is. I’d want that sermon full of humor, laughter, ear-to-ear grins from me to the audience, I’d want to leave the audience with a STRONG feeling of the Holy Spirit’s joy in them for the rest of the week, and I’d want them to be more excited and zealous to serve their Lord through being happy and joyful servants to their neighbors.
• Something funny that happened while preaching: Well, just last week, I was sort-of preaching in FCA, and I was asking all the people in my whole ten-person audience how their faith was. One of the most common low-points of their faith was not having quiet times. Almost IMMEDIATELY God got me thinking about starting a Bible study class after school, so they could come study as a group, or go off on their own somewhere to read or pray.
• What I want on my tombstone: God loved him a lot and he loved God a lot, too.

• Holy Salt Ministries