It was way back in 1998, almost ten years ago to this day, but I remember it almost as if it were yesterday. Sitting in a gym at First Baptist Church of Jonesboro without about 500 other teenagers I, for the first time in my life, heard the gospel of Jesus Christ shared with me a way that was crystal clear. I prayed right then and there to ask him to come into my heart and forgive me of my sins. Let’s just say the ten years that followed have been nothing short of AMAZING!

The following week I made my profession of faith public in baptism. I immediately dove in head first and became very active in the church’s media ministry where I served for the next six years, primarily in the areas of audio and lighting and, later, video. Over the next few years was also able to develop and awesome relationship with the media team at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church where I had the opportunity to come in for verious special events as Lighting Director.

In the summer of 2000, just after graduating high school, I began a part time job with an Atlanta area land developer as a web designer. Ths roll quickly transitioned into an IT Director roll where I had the opportunity to design, build and maintain the computer network linking all of the company’s offices and country clubs.

Fast-forward to February of 2006: due to economic factors as well as some changes in the structure of the company, my position was eliminated and outsourced. Around the same time, discussions began with Johnson Ferry about a roll they were looking to fill on their media team. After a few weeks of filling the roll on a temporary basis, lots and lots of prayer and one wrong decision that clearly wasn’t God’s will, God made it clear to me that he had called me to serve him full time.

In May of 2006, I joined the media team at Johnson Ferry. In December of that same year, I had the opportunity to transition to the IT department where I am serving today as Network Administrator. It certainly hasn’t all been smooth sailing - there have been many bumps along the way. But, God has confirmed over and over again that he, without a doubt, has called me to dedicate my life and career to serving him.

This brings us to today. God works in amazing ways, and the bits and pieces don’t always seem to fit together along the way. In the end, though, it is always made clear that his plans are bigger than ours. Now is no exception.

So what’s happening you say?

I am absolutely pumped to announce that in a few weeks I will be making a move to the Charleston, SC area to join the team at Seacoast Church. At Seacoast, I will be filling the roll of “IT and Production Specialist” where I will be involved in planning, design, implementation and maintenance in the both the IT and audio-visual areas.

I’m experiencing every emotion all at once as I type this. It’s incredibly exciting, still a little scary and at the same time very sad to leave all the awesome people I work with at Johnson Ferry. I want to thank everyone who has been praying for me over the last few weeks. It’s going to be awesome!

Early today, as part of our CITRT pre-activities, I met up with several church IT guys for dinner and a tour of our facilities at JFBC. Just before I left to to meet them at Moe’s, I saw a twitter message that they were “Geeking Out”. There was much discussion about the term “Geeking Out”, and this is what I found when I arrived at Moe’s:

I actually felt a bit left out since I left my computer back at the office. Fortunately, I did have my iPhone with me.

We had an awesome time together tonight checking out JFBC’s infrastructure and talking about IT and ministry. Looking forward to heading out in a few hours to Charleston to meet up with 60+ IT guys from churches around the country.