Hometown: Muskogee, Oklahoma
Present City: The Colony
Education: SMU Guildhall
Profession: Video game developer
Tell us about your family.
Oldest sibling of three!
How about your work or volunteer life?
I’ve worked at Gearbox Software since 2017 as a game programmer and now a release engineer.
Any favorite hobbies?
Anime and indie games. Social VR in particular has been incredibly life-changing for me.
What brought you to Wilshire and when?
Social distancing gave me momentum to double down on reconstructing my faith, first bringing me to Broadway Baptist in Fort Worth before I found out about Wilshire through your hosting AWAB last year!
Where are you engaged at Wilshire?
Primarily Ithaka Class up until this year, when I’ve felt compelled to relearn “how we share biblical narratives” — just as Foundations of Faith started studying Genesis. Special thanks to Heather, Abbey and others for opportunities to help in mission and advocacy work.
What’s surprised you most about Wilshire?
The degree to which I don’t feel alone in trying to move from deconstruction through to reconstruction when it comes to my evangelical upbringing.
What do you think God is up to in your life right now?
My Epiphany star word was “awareness.” Two months later, I’m still unpacking it.
Tell us about your faith journey.
It kicks off on my mom’s United Methodist side before shifting to a stronger support network with the Southern Baptist church my dad grew up in while deployed overseas. I remember hearing “you kids remembered the sermon all week long” as another point in its favor. In high school and college I doubled down across evangelical apologetics and theology programs. After moving to Texas to pursue game development in 2015, my apartment was a stone’s throw from possibly the biggest SBC megachurch north of Dallas. But it was actually thanks to some of the questioning people there that I found resources challenging my traditional beliefs and found my way here.
What is something interesting most people would not know about you?
During a sermon here, convicted about my distance’s limiting me to irregular fellowship and volunteering outside of Sundays, I searched “church serve nerds” online. I found a blog written by a pastor whose “fully online faith community” I’ve started to help ever since. If you know (or are!) a geeky type or think comparing media and faith sounds interesting, definitely take a look at Checkpoint Church on YouTube.
What adjectives best describe you?
I like to focus on appreciating, learning and creating.