As you may know Christina and I left Northwood Church in Charleston,SC on June 1st and moved to Tulsa,OK. We had a wonderful experience during our 3 1/2 years at Northwood and were sad to go but we just felt like God wanted us in Tulsa. In fact, last summer while I was in Mexico City I felt like God showed me that that was going to be my last summer in Charleston. Over the next year we continually felt confirmation and I shared this with my pastor on January 2nd. Looking back, I feel so grateful for all that we learned at Northwood.

The last couple of months here in Tulsa have been interesting as I haven’t had a job but God has provided for us. I’ve been getting filled up at church (the past 3 years I’ve been speaking every Sunday morning), praying, spending tons of time with family, exercising, reading and fixing up our rent house (which happens to be the house I grew up in. Yeah, it’s weird).

I recently became interim pastor of the inner-city  youth ministry called “Chosen” at Victory Christian Center. As many as 500 teenagers are brought to Chosen on Thursday nights by Victory buses. These young people are the most at-risk kids in Tulsa and I can’t imagine a better chance to affect young lives.  So I accepted the position on an interim basis because I’ve got some other things I would like to do in the near future but this was an area I could contribute to immediately.

I don’t come from the same background as most of these students so this type of ministry is very new.  I’ve even gotten a few laughs from friends when I’ve told them that I’m the new pastor of “Chosen”.  They can’t believe someone as white as I am is in this position!  But I’ve always loved outreach and discipleship together and I’ve always wanted experience an intense and challenging ministry like this.  So I started my new job a couple of days ago and it’s been fun.  I’ve got two incredible interns, Janet and Angelica, sisters from Fort Worth, TX who are juniors at ORU.  They are the best!  The evening after my first full day we had a Chosen leaders meeting.  I was so impressed with the leaders.  They were not only passionate about ministry but also completely supportive of me.  The leaders were acting like they’ve known me all of my life.  Usually when someone new comes in veteran leaders tend to have walls up and won’t get too excited about the new guy.  So in a lot of ways this role is very new to me but it’s challenging in a very good way.

Also, I’m teaching a Youth Ministry class at Victory Bible Institute which is also a new challenge that I’m excited about.

So that’s the update. There’s a lot more to it but that’s the shortest version I can give.
If you’re in Tulsa and aren’t doing anything on Thursday nights, I could use your help!