Why am I here? (long read)

For the longest time I was so enamored with being on staff at a church. I was a kid that was raised in a small religious community. I was very faithfully involved in a small Pentecostal church in the rural mountains of east KY. My father was a coal miner and my mother a very accomplished office manger with an associate’s degree. A very humble beginning to say the least. God blessed me with some musical talent and the ability to sing, and that allowed me to travel at a very young age. I had been singing at different churches around my hometown since the ripe old age of 4 or 5. My brother, mother, and myself had a very tight three-part harmony. I had started to sing in different talent contest within my denomination and won every year from the age of 14 till 18 in voice. That allowed me to go to nationals I also played trumpet from the 6th grade on and won various district and state competitions. I traveled to New Orleans on a bus at the age of 14 (by myself because my parents could not afford to go) to compete at the national level. By age 16 I had performed in front of crowds as small as 15 all the way to 30,000 people with a 5-minute trumpet solo. I had a dream of traveling all my life singing. I had numerous offers for scholarships to go to collage. But I chose to go a collage that offered me nothing; in fact the political church stuff started the day I got to campus when I tried out for different singing groups. This was quite an eye opener for a naive little 18-year-old Kentucky boy. I went to that school because I wanted to be a worship leader. I didn't have a fancy choir at the church I grew up in; we had 40 or 50 people in the whole church! I knew how to sing until we felt the presence of God fill the room. After college I found out that was never what I was hired to do, I was hired to help grow a church or pump people up with emotion, or to simply maintain what was there until another promotion came. I failed. In that I succeeded to be who I was.

Why am I telling you my entire life story? Or least a part of it? Keep reading....

I left this school having been in probably the most talented choir in the entire country, no joke. I was trained from everyone from Boys to Men producer to Geron Davis. I traveled to 15 countries singing and saw many many wonderful things and meet some of the world’s most beautiful people. I left not knowing about what was waiting for me in "The Ministry". I found out the hard way what real ministry is, it is blood, it is sweat, it is tears, it is muddy, it is dirty, it is your neighbor, brother, friend.

I will tell you the most significant truth I have discovered... Nothing has changed since I left that little town of Hazard, KY. All the ideals I had to change the world have crumbled before me. I am still here, alive, with an even greater mission. Relationships with people, raising good kids that love God, and being a friend to anyone who needs one, is all that has ever mattered. Don't love them so you can tell them about Jesus...that is loving with a motive, not cool!! This is the gospel, loving...... simply put .....loving..... just,...loving... Love till it hurts and kills you, and then die sweetly. God does everything else period