Worship and Creative Arts Pastor

My mom was the first in our entire family to accept Christ in 1971. Because of this, she was shunned by many family members. I was born in 1980 and was two months premature-weighing just three pounds. Because of being born so prematurely, I had Hyaline Membrane Disease (undeveloped lungs) and after being resuscitated twice, I had to be life-flighted from Anaheim to Long Beach in order to get the care that I needed. Over the course of the next 2 months, my mom would go to the hospital NICU every day and pray that God would do a miracle in my body. Because of the amount of oxygen I was administered, the doctors thought I would be deaf and/or blind-but God had other plans! 

This experience caused my dad to rededicate his life to the Lord. Growing up, both parents were believers, serving faithfully in many areas (including worship) at church. My sister Stacey and I got involved singing solos in church at a very young age, but by the time I got to middle school, I only wanted to play sports. It wasn’t until years later, at a summer camp (before my junior year of high school) that I felt God calling me to worship ministry. That following school year, I was nominated to ASB as high school chaplain and I started leading worship for my youth group.

I graduated from Capo Valley Christian High School in 1998. I then attended Vanguard University, where I studied religion/music and was very involved in various campus ministry teams. While at VU, I was invited to join a worship team for the annual Youth Convention in San Diego, which I continued doing for about 5 years. This was such an amazing experience at that age-leading worship for 10,000 students! It was around this time that I began traveling with my own band-leading worship for various camps and conferences. 

My family relocated to the Murrieta/Temecula area in 2001 to help some extended family plant a church. At 19 years old, I became the worship leader and eventually would become the worship pastor there. It was at this church that I met my wife, Adrienne. We were married in 2006. In 2010, I took a position as both the youth pastor and worship pastor at New Covenant Church (which later became The Bridge), serving on staff for nearly 11 years.