About

I am the pastor of small Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, not far from Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. This small congregation first called me as pastoral supply during Advent, 2006. Afterwards, they asked me to stay. It has been a wonderful experience with a group of people deeply committed to Christian worship and service, as well as being deeply committed to one another. I have been in ministry, serving in one capacity or another, for the past eighteen years. For five years, I was an inner-city hospice chaplain. I have also done on-call, twenty-four hour ministry in an urban hospital.

 Through all of this, I learned the truth in what an elderly priest and friend once said to me: “I have learned that people are far more wounded than we imagine and far more resilient than we give them credit for being.” This wise priest truly understood the nature of our lives. Most people harbor deep wounds, but they have learned to live with them — sometimes near the surface, sometimes under deep layers of scar tissue. My ministry has been about healing, sometimes at the end of life when no physical healing was possible. Like my friend the priest, I too have been privileged to share in the lives of others, their joys and their pain. I have learned one thing above all. We are of infinite worth. Boiled down to its core, that is the message of Jesus.