I have loved sports since I was very young. I had the opportunity to play college basketball for Warner University and for Toccoa Falls College. At Warner University I played in the NAIA Final Four and was inducted with my teammates into the Warner Hall of Fame in 2015. After my sophomore season, I transferred to Toccoa Falls College to focus more on my preparation for ministry. At the NCCAA level, I led the nation in rebounding two years in a row and was selected as an All-American in my junior season.

While I will forever remember my college teammates, it wasn’t until after college that I came to grips with the value of basketball when given over to the Lord. I first traveled overseas to Kiev, Ukraine with an exhibition team from Bellevue Baptist Church. Through this experience, I met Randy Shepherd, founder of Crossfire Ministries. He, along with Jamie Johnson, would help shape my understanding of sport ministry and over the next 10 years they allowed me to speak to thousands of people, young and old, at halftimes and at school assemblies, orphanages, and church settings all around the Philippines, Honduras and U.S.

It was in my preparation for these trips that I would have the opportunity to speak to hundreds of college students inside various basketball gyms combining my love for basketball, poetry in Jesus. Beginning in 2013, if someone ever asked me on the basketball court, “What do you do for a living?” I would tell them, “I am a pastor and an aspiring rapper.” They’d laugh at me and I would tell them, “You’re laughing cuz’ I’m white.” They’d laugh and then I’d say, well consider this real quick…

“Let me start by saying I believe RAP is an ART, that can beckon our souls back to the START….when into darkness of creation was SPOKEN, before sin entered the world and everything was BROKEN. It was glorious back then, the beauty of a GARDEN, before sin entered the world and everything was HARDENED. You see RAP, like all music, takes up the task of INVENTION, whether it is good or not rests on the content and the INTENTION….because if it’s consistent with the Word of God and comes from a heart of LOVE…perhaps you and I should receive it as though it were from ABOVE.” (I would tell them there are about 60 more lines, but the last 2 lines were the ones they needed to hear…)

“The GOSPEL isn’t built around Morals, Music, Membership or even you or ME, it’s built around a story of forgiveness that was purchased for us on a TREE.”

From there I would quickly shift gears and ask them if I could just share one verse and ask one question. That verse, Romans 6:23. The question, “Which side of the comma do you live on?” On the left side you have wages, sin, and death; on the right side, gift, God, and eternal life. If they were unable o answer which side they lived on I would ask them which side would they want to live on. I never had anyone answer the left. After they shared the right, I would tell them that the Bible actually tells us that more people are living on the left side, than the right side. The reason, the only way from the left to the right was the last 5 words of the verse, “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” I would implore them to see that Christianity was trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior and surrendering your life to Him.

As much as I loved traveling with Crossfire, it is just one of the many ministries that I have partnered with to share the gospel using sports. I have served as the keynote speaker for end-of-the-year banquets with Upward Sports, various huddles and retreats with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and several 3-on-3 tournaments and church-hosted AAU events. While these avenues have given me the largest audiences, coaching has surely allowed me the greatest impact on individual lives. In 2011 I had the privilege of winning a State Championship as an Assistant Coach at Evangelical Christian School alongside the legendary Terry Tippett. Spending an entire season investing in the hearts and minds of a young person who desires to get better is something that makes coaching one of the greatest channels for ministry in my life. I find great joy in speaking life into the hearts of young men and women and helping them to see the God given gifts within them.

The message I share at most Athletic events is “The Better you Perform, the Bigger your Platform.” It is my hope that Christian athletes will achieve excellence so that they will have an opportunity to reach a larger audience. Proverbs 22:29 says, “See a man who is excellent in all his ways, he will stand before kings and not obscure men.” I challenge young athletes,

“Trust God’s gifting and God’s lifting, it keeps your mind from drifting and the glory from shifting…from God to you, because one thing you never want to do is touch the glory, that belongs alone to the Author of your story.” God’s gifting are the natural talents that players have been wired with to compete and to chase after their God-given calling in life. God’s lifting are the parents, teachers, coaches and friends that have been placed around them to hopefully encourage their growth and good success. See Joshua 1:9.