Why I left a career I was good at

Where I Started

I grew up in a Lutheran church, being confirmed when I was 14. I'd memorized the books of the Bible, the creeds, a collection of Bible verses, and the answers to the questions I needed to pass the pastor's test. I knew a lot about God, for sure, and I would have told you I was a Christian if asked.

That continued until I graduated high school and headed off to college. I always believed in God and following His rules seemed to work better than not, but that was the extent of any kind of faith I had. I figured out college wasn't for me and went into the Air Force for thirteen years. The entire time I was in the military, I only stepped into a church or chapel twice, and that was for the funerals of coworkers. I was an exemplary Airman and NCO, and I put all of my faith into that success.

It wasn't until I got out of the Air Force and tried to figure out life on my own that I began to realize something was missing. Getting married and having two young kids started to put things into perspective for me. Growing up in the Bible Belt, church was a social thing, and we didn’t want our kids to miss out on it. My wife (not a believer at the time) and I set out to fill that void.

After a few tries at churches that didn't fit, we landed at a church where we felt welcome and our kids loved. Within a few months of attending, we agreed to cohost a small group for a church-wide book study, and everything changed for us. The people in our small group saw we were struggling and surrounded us with care and support we hadn’t found anywhere else. My wife came to Christ, I did, too, and we both started learning how to love God with all we have and love one another in a godly way. We plugged into our local church even more and further deepened our love for God and His people. I began using my skills and talents to serve the church through teaching in the children’s and youth ministries, helping to lead the men’s ministry, video production, and anywhere else my wife and I could help meet a need.

My Side Journey

After the Air Force, I took the teaching and training skills I’d developed and put them to use in the corporate world through enterprise software: implementations, cloud services, and customer success leadership. I led teams of six to ten, carried portfolios worth $20M+, and I was genuinely good at it. I rebuilt onboarding playbooks that cut implementation time by 28%. I wrote 10 playbooks at my corporate job to standardize how teams were trained. I liked the work, and I liked being trusted with it.

In 2016 I certified with the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. For the next ten years I counseled alongside the day job; evenings, weekends, whenever someone needed to sit down. Crisis, grief, marriages that were failing, people who’d run out of anyone else to call. It wasn’t a hobby and it wasn’t a volunteer slot. It was the work I thought about in the car.

In 2022, my wife and I faced becoming empty nesters. We decided to move to Southwest Utah, in search of adventure. Our adult children weren't settled in NC at the time and, if we were ever going to see what it was like to live somewhere else, this was the time. We found Sonrise Christian Church in Cedar City and made it our new church home. Seeing the need to help, we started the biblical counseling ministry after attending for six months.

Answering the Call

In July 2024 I joined the staff at Sonrise Christian Church as the part-time assistant pastor at the senior pastor's request. The church was growing and he needed help. We didn't move to Utah looking for a vocational ministry opportunity, but God had other plans. That quickly became a full-time job and confirmed that I was called into ministry vocationally. To be able to serve God in ministry, to use the gifts he has given me to the church, and the gifts I had cultivated through my 13 years of military service, and the 10+ years of my post military career, was a dream come true. A year later, I left the corporate career entirely. Since then I’ve overseen every ministry team in a church of 550–650, supervised the Youth Pastor and staff, built the small groups ministry from nothing, written and taught the EQUIP curriculum, designed the care system the church runs on, and sat with the trustee board when benevolence money was on the table.

Why Am I Looking Now?

Over two years at Sonrise, a real theological difference surfaced. The church holds firmly to a specific end-times framework. I've grown more interested in leaving room for the questions Scripture itself raises than in settling on one system. The difference mattered enough that it wasn’t going away on its own. The elders, our senior pastor, and I talked it through and agreed the healthiest path was for me to move on. Now I'm looking for a church family that wants a pastor who holds conviction and curiosity together.

I don’t know what God has next for me. What I do know is that He isn’t finished with me yet. Thirteen years in the military, twenty years in corporate software, overlapped by ten years of counseling on the side, none of it was wasted, and I don’t think this transition is wasted either. I still have a lot to give, and I want to keep using it to share the Gospel and point people to Christ. Whatever comes next, my wife and I trust that God is good and that He wants what’s best for us.