About

Thanks for stopping by!

About me

I’m an average guy mesmerized by the grace and glory and love of God. I’m a husband, father, grandpa, brother, friend and pastor; but first and foremost I’m a child of God. I like blogging, movies, reading, music, playing guitar, woodworking/carpentry and hanging out with my family!

Raised Catholic I have worshipped and worked most of my adult life in various independent Christian Churches in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. I first gave myself to following Jesus as a senior in high school but the real roots were planted when I was part of a campus ministry at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.

I’ve worked in: residential carpentry, driving a county truck/snowplow, house parent at two different group homes, camp director for a ministry doing short-term mission trips with teens, Associate Minister, and am currently the Preaching Pastor of a wonderful church family in Hagerstown, Indiana.

About iLife Journey

While I love God’s church I also wrestle with a fairly large amount of angst at our lack of attention to simple discipleship – doing life as an apprentice to Jesus. Many churches focus more on growing a crowd or pushing programs than teaching people that God created us to enjoy us in a relationship.

Several years ago during a season of great frustration with church work – not my current church family – I was pouring my heart out to God when He planted a single seed of thought in my head. “What would it look like to start from scratch and teach people what it means to simply live as a disciple of Jesus?”

What captivated my attention at that same time was an amazing invitation offered by Jesus…

 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” ~ Mt 11:28-30 (The Message)

From all of this came the iLife Journey as a simple way of orienting people to what it means to follow after Jesus, learning to live in the unforced rhythms of God’s grace. It’s not a system but rather a lifestyle of living out the greatest commandment of loving God and loving others (Matthew 22:34-40) by pursuing…

• intimacy with the Lord
• involvement with the Church and
• influence with the World

These three relational aspects of life are bound together like strands of a rope. Each one is absolutely essential and finds its deepest reality or greatest meaning only when lived out in connection with the others.

You can subscribe to my blog at the upper right corner of this page. You can also stay up-to-date with posts and join the conversation by clicking the “Like” button on “The iLife Journey” Facebook page.

Welcome to the adventure! Welcome to the iLife Journey!