About Mike

I was fortunate to grow up in a Christian household where Christian doctrine and practice were consistently taught and modeled throughout my childhood. However, when I was around 11 years old the personal nature of my sin and the reality of Christ's work on the cross truly began to dawn on me. I was baptized at the age of 12 at Highland Baptist Church in Metairie, Louisiana following a middle school retreat. I can't say that I had a single distinct conversion moment that I can pinpoint. Rather, my experience was more like overlapping waves of conviction and clarity regarding Christ's beauty and glory that steadily increased until I realized I had to obey the call to public repentance and confession of faith concluding in believer's baptism. From those early days to this day there has been only one beautifully multifaceted thing that has sustained me in the most difficult of times: that my identity is rooted and grounded in Christ alone and not the value structure of the world, that my salvation and hope is in Christ alone through faith alone and not my clumsy attempts at self-improvement, that my final authority is God’s eternal word alone and not my own changing ideas, and that my life is directed at glorifying God alone and not fulfilling my selfish desires.

Since 1999, I’ve been in Christian ministry as a youth and college pastor, bi-vocational church planter, and now as Connections Minister here at Citizens Church.

My Hope for Citizens Church

My hope for Citizens Church is for a threefold connection birthed and cultivated by the preaching and comprehension of the gospel: the church connecting upward with God through the preaching of Christ’s death and resurrection, the church connecting internally with one another through intentional gospel fellowship and discipleship, and the church connecting outward to the world through evangelism, missions, and mercy ministries.