Story

My wife Janet and I were both born and raised in rural Carroll County Maryland. I was taken to a small country church from the time I was born and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior at age 11. Janet grew up in a family that was affiliated with the Catholic Church. Though she was not very involved during her school and college years, she began to search for truth as a young adult and received Christ soon after college.

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I felt the call to the ministry while a young teen, but like many others, I thought that God could never use me. I went on to graduate from Western Maryland College in Westminster, Maryland (now McDaniel College) with a B.A. in Vocal Music Secondary Education. Janet graduated from the Peabody Conservatory of Music with a Bachelors of Music Education. We met while teaching music lessons at a local music store.

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We joined the Church of the Open Door in Westminster, Maryland in 1983, a thriving independent Baptist church pastored by Dr. Shelton Smith, who is now the editor of Sword of the Lord Ministries and Publications in Murfreesboro, TN. During those years, the Lord did many things in our hearts including bringing me to a point that I surrendered to the ministry myself.

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After studying at Hyles-Anderson Bible College, we were able to return to the Church of the Open Door in 1991 where I became Assistant Pastor/Music Director. The Lord blessed us in many ways during those years. During the last few years at Open Door, the Lord began to impress upon my wife and myself that we were to move on to see God do new things. I felt the Lord would have us go to a church that had no one. After much prayer and clear leading of the Lord, my wife, my children and I were privileged to be called to The Lighthouse Baptist Church of Greater York on September 21, 2003.

 

Throughout the years of serving the people of Lighthouse Baptist Church, we developed curriculum to meet the needs of our ministry and wanted to make them available for other ministries to use. Seeing the need for a strong, biblically-based children's program for our midweek service, Lighthouse Kids' Klub was developed as a structured series of lessons through the Bible in three years' time. Janet began teaching several Bible studies in her Women of the Word Sunday school class which developed into her books Rebekah: The Chosen Bride, Following the Man of Faith, and Gleanings from Ruth.