I grew up in Iowa, attending church with my family, participating in the choir and in youth group, and generally feeling quite comfortable with faith.  However, it wasn’t until I began attending the InterVarsity Graduate Fellowship at Stanford with my girlfriend (now wife) Johanna that I was forced to seriously consider what my faith in Christ meant and how it intersected with the rest of my life.  During that time I had the opportunity to meet and become friends with curious and compassionate people from different backgrounds and Christian traditions, and I learned to engage with and learn from their diversity of experiences.

After moving into San Francisco itself in 2009, I began attending City Church San Francisco and joined a community group with friends from InterVarsity.  Johanna joined me when we were married in 2011, and we’ve been involved with, hosted, or lead that same community group since then.  We’ve grown in our Christian faith and made many new friends in the church through the group, and it is the foundation of our community at City Church.

Over time, I have been involved with different aspects of City Church, including attending leader’s retreats, participating in the Renewal and Care course at the counseling center, and serving at City Hope.  These activities encouraged me to engage with different aspects of my Christianity and its overlapping relationship with my own identity, my friends and family, and the broader community of San Francisco.  I have appreciated the church’s commitment to ministry in each of these areas.

I served as an Elder from 2017–2021 and helped to navigate many changes, especially as we figured out how to do church during the pandemic.  I look forward to serving again in a period that is hopefully filled with new growth, from increasing in person gatherings, renewed engagement in our city, and welcoming Emily McGinley as our new senior pastor.