About

I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA as a Lutheran pastor’s son and came to faith in the Charismatic Renewal within the Lutheran Church. Following my Ph.D. program in Communication Studies at Northwestern, my wife Janet and I migrated into the Assemblies of God in 1980 and have been there ever since. My first vocational ministry role was as a Christian Education staff pastor in Vermont with “Wayne Clark”: http://www.pluginmylife.com/s_rwclark.htm, a great mentor and friend, followed by pastorates in Maine (a Boomer church), Florida (a Builder church), and Missouri (an X’er church).

In between, we did time in the desert. I became a writer, traveled, preached, went to the Brownsville Revival six times, and worked at Assemblies of God headquarters as the Adult Ministries Consultant—not necessarily in that order. From January of 2001 until mid-2007, I directed Doctoral Studies at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri, where I earned a D.Min while Jan did an M.Div. I also taught courses at AGTS on Ministry in Emerging Culture, Leadership, and Preaching, among other things.

Currently, Jan and I are under appointment from AoG US Missions and the Northern California-Nevada District to develop a church planting project in Berkeley, California.

During our AGTS years we traveled emerging culture and visiting innovative congregations all over the country, interviewing anyone who would talk to me, taping and photographing anything interesting, and generally immersing myself in what’s going on at the unfolding edge. My first stop was Spencer Burke’s garage, where he graciously informed me that my research would yield little if I didn’t remove the lens cap from my video camera. This event became a metaphor of the entire journey. For a mid-life Boomer and a card-carrying Modern, it’s been one great ride.

Being on the road and the internet a lot has connected me with ministries like Chi Alpha, churches like The Oaks Fellowship, friends like Len Sweet, and numerous Districts of the Assemblies of God, along with other parachurch organizations like Youth Specialties, schools like North Central University, and a bunch of church planters like Anthony Scoma at Southwest Family Fellowship in Austin, TX. I owe a special debt to Mark Miller and Kevin Salkil, two younger friends who took in an immigrant and began the process of getting me naturalized.

This list doesn’t even count the friends like Tim Bednar, John O’Keefe and Stephen Shields whom I have never even see face to face.

I believe strongly in reverse mentoring, so one of my goals is to learn as much as I can from people half my age. Then, I try to “translate” these things into a vocabulary that my tribe can understand. If younger leaders feel like someone is listening and older leaders feel a bit less threatened, perhaps we could all work together on the mission of Jesus, to be sent as the Father sent him. I now understand more than ever why Jesus prayed for us to be one.

Along this journey, I have also learned the difference between “good” coffee and “great” coffee. French press is my favorite.

I could summarize the trip by saying that I started out as the “postmodernism guy,” became the “culture guy,” and want to become the “missional guy.”

In September of 2006 Jossey-Bass/Leadership Network published my book, Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders. O-RD is an aggregation of my own life with those of the many friends I have met on the road. They wrote the book, I only composed the words. It’s about the ways God transforms our lives through unconventional encounters not covered by the “official” list of spiritual disciplines.

Currently, I am working with Jossey-Bass/Leadership Network again to do a book on Reverse Mentoring, which will appear in 2008.

I really have no idea how all of this has happened. I’m just glad it did. Thank God for “sacred accidents.”