the story

The beauty of life with Christ is that no matter how messy, how difficult, how unjust, or how hurtful life is—there’s always hope in Jesus. He brings us up out of the ashes of sorrow and pain and restores and heals us. That’s our story —a story we hope God will use to minister to, listen to, walk with, and encourage others. 

 In 2023, after unexpectedly parting ways with the church where I was a Lead Pastor, Caz and I went through a time of grief, sadness and reflection.

Over the following year as we tried to make sense out of what happened, work out what was next for us and how to survive financially, I started driving for UBER, and I was able to have hundreds of conversations with people from all walks of life about faith, church, and everything in-between. My car became a sanctuary on wheels! Yet, I was saddened to hear over and over again the stories from so many who had lost all faith in Jesus and the church. People telling me how they had been hurt, treated badly, judged, and even abused. How they knew all about what the church was against, that had been made loud and clear.

Not a day seems to go by anymore without hearing that another church, another pastor or leader, has been exposed for moral failings, sexual abuse, or treating people terribly; It's not hard to see why the reputation of the church is suffering in the eyes of many. 

Caz also, through her years in ministry has faced significant injustice at the hands of the church, has been treated unfairly, and sadly seen perpetrators protected and victims blamed. And yet, in spite of all we have both experienced and witnessed, we love the church. We believe it's God's design, even though there are some that haven't represented Him well. Its why we've both worked in ministry for so long, and its why we want to help people who have been hurt by her. 

The Lord began to show us that with all we had been through personally, and with everything we had seen in our many years of ministry, plus the hundreds of conversations we were having with people, that He was stirring something within us. We started to dream about helping people find Jesus especially if they'd been hurt. Whether that's hurt from the church, or hurt from things in life, we want to help people find healing. The Lord has given us an idea to plant a church with this at the forefront of what we do.

And this adventure is just beginning!