I was born and raised in a little town of 600 people called North Liberty , Indiana . The lifestyle there was like living in Andy Griffith’s Mayberry, and I have many good memories of my childhood. In 1969, when I was 14, my parents moved me, my older brother, and my younger sister to Florence, Co. where I graduated from high school.
My spiritual walk began very early in my life. Our family attended the First Christian Church and I can still remember the “Hellfire and Brimstone” preaching. When I was a young boy I was inspired by Billy Graham each time my mom played him on TV. Although nothing came of it then, it was the start of a calling God placed on my heart. I have always felt God was calling me to a service for him, ever since I was that little boy. When I moved to
Colorado , I walked away from God some and found myself messing with drinking and drugs, and more interested in what my friends wanted and not what God wanted. Several years after leaving high school I met a Christian family and after a few more years was baptized. I became very active in that church, teaching, preaching, and leading in several evangelistic series. In recent years I had started to become disappointed in my church though, as it had become, for various reasons, no longer effective in reaching people for Christ. It seemed as though I was missing a great piece in my Christian experience that I was not finding there. I still have many friends there that I love, but I just needed to find that “freedom” Paul talks about in Romans, and so in 2005 I no longer worshiped with them.
About 2002 God really started heating up that calling I had always felt was there. In 2005 Trudy and I founded Courtyard Ministries, a non-denominational ministry, church, and outreach. The ministry grew as we held weekly free meals, bible classes, addiction recovery classes, and eventually opened as a rescue shelter. God has continued to bless the ministry’s growth and development. Hover, due to the physical and financial demands of such a large ministry, in 2010 we had to give up our building. We still meet and plan a resurgence as God has so much in store for Courtyard.
