A Little Bit About Me
I am happily married to my wife, Kelley, for over 24 years and we have three teenage children; Nicole, Melanie, and Jon.
By day I am a Business Analyst in Marketing, by lifestyle I am a follower of Jesus … or at least I’m trying to be a follower of Jesus. Just live one day at a time and not concern myself with tomorrow.
I was born and raised attending the traditional Sunday morning church services.
- Baptized and confirmed as a Lutheran
- Attended and was married in an Assembly of God church
- Was studying at an Assembly of God college to become a youth pastor while attending a Baptist church (I know, sounds like an oxymoron)
- Attended a non-denominational church after college for a few years
- The final stop was attending a different non-denominational church that broke off from a Methodist church
As Mike Morrell of zoecarnate would say, I am a denominational mutt.
I read the book, Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola, and it opened my eyes to church as I know it. This book answers the question, “Why do we do what we do in church”. Once I completed the book, I then asked, “And WHY do we do what we do in church?”
I have also read his sequel, Reimagining Church, and am now focusing my efforts solely on Jesus. The bottom line is that I want to be known as a true everyday follower of Jesus. I want the same for my wife, my children, and everyone I come in contact with.
For over 40 years I have known church to be a certain way. Is it right? Is it what Jesus intended? That is what I want to find out, but in order to do that I must begin to distance myself from what I’ve known as church and explore Jesus from “outside the church bowl”. This blog will chronicle that exploration.
You can also visit me at 
, 
, 
, and 
9 Responses to “A Little Bit About Me”
Leave a Reply
Hmmmm…. Frank Viola is now on my wish list for Christmas.
what a woderful service for our lord saviour jesus christ praise God for your great service brother in chrsit iam from south india we have 5 village churches and orphange home … i want to explain you more things baout our ministry and needly kids our e-mails if you able to contact me >gcgministries@hotmail.com or gcgministries@gmail.com
GOD bless you
me too! born into a wonderful family, my mom’s side, assembly of GOD with 5 fold ministries, my dad’s side lutheran, momma wanted to try lutheran, cause she was a little troubled as a young girl as she observed some of the ways of the assembly of GOD, raised in GARDEN OF PEACE LUTHERAN in St. Petersburg, FL, moved to Ga. when 14, Billy Graham crusade in 1972 received and prayed the “sinners prayer” for the first time, then i too began to become a “white corpusal” in the body of Christ, going to many places under the direction of the Holy Spirit, and i have been blessed, i love my brothers and sisters wherever they may be… after moving back to Florida, began to wondered what was wrong with me, i just couldn’t connect with a church family, wasn’t my brothers and sisters, it was the organization…. then the Lord supernaturally sent me some information via web sites and i began to read of others who were experiencing the same thoughts and feelings, i began to read and my heart was identifying with so many others, the condemnation left me and i decided it was okay to love MY JESUS and just wait for HIM to let me know what to do, sometimes my husband and i go to CHURCH ON THE ISLAND, we take our 17foot carolina skiff and go to the islands near by set up our hammock and rejoice in JESUS and share our hearts with one another….have taken a few folks to our church on the island and it has been more like “assembling and fellowshipping” than our weekly times in a church setting where you pat each other on the back and hear the vision of the pastor/leaders….helping them fulfill their destiny….bless them Lord, but for us for now, we just want to hang our with our brothers and sisters and share our hearts with what the Lord is saying to them, ….
He is gathering the saints! This has been absolutely amazing how I was led to this site at this exact time…His perfect timing..and I am so excited!
I live in South Africa and have become, over the past 3 years, part of a home church.
Come from a traditional ‘church’ background, where I worked and worked to be like Him. Now I know this is not at all what He is about.
Would like to also recommend the life changing, spirit changing books in my life in this period: The Shack (author slipped my mind right now, but sure so many have read this and
‘Peppermint-filled pinatas’ by Eric Bryant
Sally,
I’m excited too! I want to hear more!!! God’s timing is ALWAYS perfect!
The Shack is one I have heard about, own, but not have read yet. Peppermint-Filled Pinata’s sounds delicious!
I’ll look into that one too! Thanks for sharing!
Take care and talk to you again soon!
Perry
Pennee -
I want to go to your island church!!!
Kelley
Great to connect with you, we are serving the Lord here in Thessaloniki, Greece and in need of some good connections who are doing church in a new way. We are moving forward, establishing a spiritual community and avoiding Church-as-we-know-it. So it’s an adventure.
Things are difficult in this region, and our work is fairly small, we work also in Albania and alittle in Bulgaria… We appreciate the contact and value your prayer..
I hope we can connect further..
David
I’ve been on this journey outside the four walls for nearly 40 years. I started reading “So you don’t want to go to church anymore” when the authors had only written the first three chapters. I’ve since had the chance to spend a couple of weekends with Wayne Jacobsen, one of the authors who is also one of the publishers of “The Shack” – which for me was an amazing book. One of the thoughts that went through my mind when I had finished it was, “why has it taken 57 years for someone to give me a picture of the trinity that begins to make sense.
Wow!! Just found this site. My journey parallels everyone else..church,ministry,out of church, wilderness, guilt, looking for something that resembled life, and finally here I am. Learning about the Life of God that’s in Christ. It really is ALL ABOUT HIS LIFE..flowing in us and through us.
With that revelation, God’s Word has become a new book to me. The tree of life…God, and Jesus as the fruit of that tree that I partake of daily…and really understanding when Christ died, we all died. When he was resurrected, so were we. Seems so simple and something that I listened to 30 years ago, but now with revelation from the Spirit it produces life. Realizing in ourselves, we can do nothing. That anything that’s not of the Spirit produces death and puts us under the law. But the law of the Spirit of life in Christ sets us free from the law of sin and death. What an amazing discovery!! Knowing now that life begats life and death begats death. Realizing the scripture, “That unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it dieth it will produce fruit.” (Paraphrasing) In as far as we allow the Spirit to produce death in our soul and flesh, do we allow Him to bring forth Life in our inner man. Our part is surrendering to Him, the rest is His part…howbeit, The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak….thanks for letting me share…Mitzi