I grew up in a loving, stable home that was culturally Christian, but not necessarily professing. I would attend a little country church, Simpson Baptist Church, no more than 10 times a year. When I was in the ninth grade, the student pastor began attending lunch at our school and invited me to Wednesday Youth Group, which I began to attend infrequently. I attended church camp for the first time with at Dry Creek Baptist Camp and heard the gospel clearly for the first time. I responded during the alter call and gave my life to Christ. I went on to get heavily involved at SBC and grow in my faith. I attended Louisiana Tech and began a major in Kinesiology. While in college, I became very involved in the BCM and volunteered on a team that put on summer camps and D-nows. It was in this season I felt a call to ministry, changed my major, and withing two weeks was offered a student minister job at FBC Dubach, LA.

The core mandate is made clear in the four action words Jesus uses: Go, make disciples, baptize, and teach. Jesus has established the church as his means of accomplishing this mandate.

I believe that this mandate can simply be summed up as the personal call for every believer to be involved in disciple-making. From family, friends, and community there is the double-sided call of evangelism and discipleship on every believer. I think this should be lived out and accomplished in the context of relationships covenanted together in a local church.

That being said, relationships are the context in which disciple-making happens. Therefore, leadership therefore serves to connect members into community through groups, and teach them with the Word, then release them to impact where they live, work, and play.

Seeing people get connected into a community that helps them to grow in their faith and utilize their gifts. I love to set goals and see momentum toward ideas that are coming alive. Yet at the end of the day, when I reflect on why I do what I do, it is creating communities for people to grow in Christ and with one another.

Probably a lack of alignment across ministry departments or differing priorities. I thrive when there is a clear vision and mutual understanding of a goal. When that is unclear or changes frequently, I lose focus and drive.

There isn’t much I haven’t done! I enjoy being a utility player and taking on a new challenge, so there isn’t really anything I can think of that I wouldn’t want to do. I have been a part of those end-of-the-year giving visits with individual members when the budget is short. I guess if I had to pick, it would be to not do that!

I am very collaborative and lead by influence over flashing a “badge.” This leadership style leads me to make “deposits” with direct reports or volunteers and set a clear, agreed-upon vision. Again, I’m big on establishing clarity, setting goals, and creating systems, processes, and benchmarks to accomplish them. Yet I would never sacrifice the relationship of a co-worker or volunteer for something that wasn’t a hill to die on. I strive to love first and lead second.

I’ve utilized various ways depending on the context. At Long Hollow, it has been through our membership class, spiritual gift surveys, cold calls, and inviting them to an information meeting. I also utilize existing volunteers to find prospects.

In a more manageable congregation, I have utilized the same strategies, but I usually have a pre-existing relationship with the prospective volunteer or at least a knowledge of who they are that I can work from.

Usually, my recruiting conversations begin with telling them what I see in them, a vision for the role I’m inviting them into, and asking them to consider it. I’m not big on “we need you to do this” conversations, but rather “this is what I see in you and what you can be a part of.”

I currently provide leadership to a little over 400 Life Group leaders that I or my direct reports have recruited. This has been through various means, but primarily we enter into “recruiting seasons” and have a process that includes identifying, recruiting, onboarding, and launching. There are about 2,500 people involved in 170 Life Groups at Long Hollow.

• “Don’t Waste Your Life” by John Piper – I read this in college, and honestly, it shaped my understanding of my life’s priorities and confirmed my call to ministry.
• “Connecting in Communities” by Eddie Mosley – I read this while serving as a BCM director at LSUE and Discipleship Pastor at FBC Crowley in 2014. I’ve read several books on discipleship and small group ministry since then that have been more informative, but this book is what inspired me to pursue discipleship and groups ministry in the local church.
• “The Emotionally Healthy Leader” by Peter Scazzero – I read this right before the pandemic in 2019 at First Ridgeland as part of our staff reading plan. It came at a time when I had been working a lot and was starting to experience signs of burnout. It really shaped my understanding of emotional and spiritual health and helped me create a plan to pursue it.

Well, I guess I could give this from a few perspectives:

• Supervisor: Ryan’s desire for clarity sometimes slows him down from executing before he has a clear plan that is agreed upon by all stakeholders.
• Direct Report: Ryan has a distinct view of how things should be, so when he delegates it to me and I complete it, he often tweaks it or tries to take it over.
• Church member: Ryan is great to chat with in the hallways, but sometimes he seems distracted or busy.

I’m a strange balance of visionary with a desire for clear administrative execution. At the end of the day, I am here for vision, but I thrive in creating the plan, process, and procedures. I know ministry from historic and modern best practices as well as denominational preferences. I have the “eye” for what works in next-gen, adults, and other ministries and a working understanding of how they operate best.

My dream job description would be creating and setting discipleship environments and creating alignment across the entire church organization. I also enjoy personally equipping people in the skills (i.e., Biblical literacy, evangelism tactics, discipling children) needed to sustain a membership that is involved in making disciples that make disciples where they live, work, and play.

Creating a sustainable and scalable groups system and equipping center that is well documented and adopted by the entire adult ministry at Long Hollow.

Also, I hired a music teacher two years ago to serve on my team who had never been in ministry before. I have personally coached and discipled him, and setting him up for a career in the local church has been a huge success and fulfilling. He just started seminary, so it’s fun to coach him through it!

I believe a 10% tithe is the standard presented in Scripture and that alternate giving (Lottie Moon Campaigns, etc.) is at the discretion of the Holy Spirit’s prompting of each individual/family.

Moving people who either didn’t know each other or were loosely connected to the church into communities and seeing them grow in their faith and leadership in the church.

• M: I plan my week, set goals, and I have a huddle with my team. I have a few meetings this day with staff and maybe one with a group leader. I also try to zero out my email inbox.
• T: This is a big meeting day. We usually have an all-staff and/or adult ministries meeting.
• W: I lead the groups team meeting on this day. This is typically a 1.5-2 hour meeting where we really work on projects together, problem-solve, or plan events. I typically schedule a meeting with a group leader or prospect on this day as well. We also prepare for Wednesday night setup, and I’m at the church until 8 PM.
• R: I try to keep this day meeting-free to finish all the things we talked about in meetings! I create our weekly group leader email and coordinate with my team to finish our sermon discussion guide we send to groups.
• Su: At church from 6:00 AM – 1:00 PM doing any combination of facilitating membership class, guest teaching in groups, meeting group leaders, or stage hosting.

In 2020, I experienced burnout and had lost sight of the “why” behind ministry. Our church had been growing quickly, and there was a lot to do, with a constant need to build new systems, recruit new leaders, and start new groups. I was beginning to neglect my family and just always reading and researching “best practices.” Then the pandemic hit, and all of the things that kept me busy stopped. I really worked on prioritizing my family and creating healthy rhythms in that season. I began to exercise a lot more and eat better. I also re-oriented my “why” behind ministry, shelved my “church growth” books, and began to re-prioritize pastoral care and shepherding the people God had entrusted to me. I learned to put people over processes and find joy in serving people instead of building the organization.

First, I’m very impressed by the congregation, facilities, and ministries. I’m drawn to the vision of Trinity! It’s positioned for the future to impact the Lake area for the next generation. It sounds like the harvest is ripe!

Secondly, I love the Lake area and know it well. My family has spent almost a decade outside of Louisiana, ministering in Mississippi and Tennessee. This has been an exciting season of learning and growing for my family, but it has left a sense of rootlessness and feeling like exiles. Returning to Louisiana, especially the Lake area, would be somewhere we fully understand the culture of and feel at home at. Not only that, but it is a place that we have a passion to reach and shape for the gospel! It would also be a place for our family to put down roots and give our kids years of stability and support with family nearby.

I show a genuine interest in people. I want to know them, draw out their strengths, and give them opportunities to exercise them.

Also, my family really tries to invite people into our lives in order to model what a real family looks like trying to follow Jesus. It isn’t always polished, and we don’t have it all figured out, but we know what direction we are going in, and we (especially my wife) invite others on that journey with us.

I am also burdened by the rampant Biblical illiteracy and understanding of a Christian worldview among Millennials, Gen Z, and other people of unchurched backgrounds. I not only want to be someone who encourages them to read the Bible and follow Jesus— I want to create opportunities for them to understand how!

I’m tied at two:

• One was Kevin Inman, the BCM director at Louisiana Tech. I served as an intern for one year after college. He really went out of his way to teach me “the ropes” in ministry, gave me room to run and try what I was learning, and championed what I was excited about. His family also invited my wife and me into their lives and discipled us our first year of marriage.
• The second was the only non-ministry position I ever had. I worked for the CSO of a hospitality company, helping him manage the sales team. It was entirely remote. He went out of his way to care for me when we had our first child, entrusted a lot of responsibility to me with big contracts on the line, and always put people before business. I was in Louisiana working for him, and he was in Tennessee (at Long Hollow!). Now we go to the same church 10 years later!

I would be honest in telling them my limit of accomplishing 14 and ask them which ones they would want me to prioritize. I would sit down and plan it out, then come to them with a realistic timeline of when I could accomplish all 23. If they were assignments that could be delegated, I would empower staff or lay leaders that I have influence over to share the load.

At Long Hollow, it’s that I see them, listen to them, and know them. The older members especially feel “shelved” sometimes, so I really make it a point to spend time with their groups before they begin on Sundays. We are also really big on hospitality, so we try to have a church member over at the house once a week. Many longtime members have said it’s their first time at a staff member’s house! Half of our congregation is also from California or New York, so it’s fun to help acclimate them to the south. We just really want to do life with the people we are called to shepherd!

I’m always juggling! I feel like I’m juggling a lot in the last six months, so I can just elaborate on that:

Here’s a list of the current projects I’m juggling:

• Creating a launch guide for new groups.
• Collaborating with 4 different ministries on a Fall Preview Night for Wednesday programming.
• Taking lead on planning a training event for 400 people involving three different ministries.
• Planning, recruiting, and communicating adult workshops for Wednesday programming.
• Overseeing recruitment and onboarding for 20 new groups to launch in August through Group Link.
• Moving all of our on-campus groups that meet at 9:30 AM to a local high school down the road (yikes) to free up space for a growing student ministry.
• Creating online training modules for group leaders.

I really wear the hat of project manager most days, so I have a pretty smooth system to track progress. The key is communication with stakeholders, direct reports, and volunteers!

As mentioned previously, we have had some great adventures in the last ten years serving in Mississippi and Tennessee. We’ve learned and grown a lot. Part of our desire to join the team at Trinity is to continue to be involved in a dynamic church where we continue learning and growing! The other part of our desire to join the team at Trinity is to put down roots and create stability for our family. Trinity and the Lake area are definitely places where we would want to raise our children and build a life for the long haul. It will create the financial stability, familial support, and vocational fulfillment that we’ve been looking for to settle in for decades to come.

My wife and I lead a small group, and we recently had a couple who attended from Long Hollow who weren’t believers but were trying out the whole “church thing.” After about six months of getting to know them, we invited them out to lunch after church one day after they responded to an altar call. They didn’t accept Jesus but just wanted prayer. I wanted to continue the conversation, and over lunch, it naturally turned to them admitting they don’t fully understand the gospel. I got a chance to share the gospel with them over lunch.

Unfortunately, after calling them a few days later, they seemed to get cold feet and say it really wasn’t for them. It was disappointing for sure, but hopefully, the Holy Spirit uses that gospel presentation to draw them to Christ one day!

This has honestly been my biggest area of growth the last four years! In Mississippi, I was definitely guilty of sacrificing the health of my family for the success of my ministry. I learned a lot of lessons from that, and Katy and I have created an entirely new family culture since then.

It’s really about being fully present wherever I am and giving it my best. In the office, I have to stay on top of things and be proactive to keep it from bleeding into time at home.

At home, it’s knowing that I did all I could at the office that day, putting the rest off until tomorrow, and being fully present with Katy and the kids. I honestly put my phone away when I get home from work and only check it once or twice before bed. I don’t sleep with it in my room, and we have a pretty consistent “no T.V.” on weeknights, trying to “veg out,” but instead, we spend time together.
I have a regular “date night” schedule with Katy and try to spend 1-on-1 time with each kid.

Long Hollow is an amazing church. God is doing incredible things here, and it is super fun to be a part of. We aren’t really looking to leave anything at Long Hollow but rather pursue “better” for our family and opportunities to minister.

We are looking for somewhere that we can check all three boxes for our family:

• Health and ministry opportunities for our family.
• A place where I can lead and use my gifts.
• A place where we can be financially stable and not have to make career changes.

100% in agreement. I’m a Baptist by conviction and have been in an SBC church my entire life. I’ve graduated from a Baptist seminary and worked for the Louisiana Baptist Convention. I’m a big believer in the CP and the balance of autonomy and cooperation that are the hallmarks of our denomination. I love the big Baptist family and our missional heart.

Honestly, I’m a relative “big tent” Baptist and think affirming the BFM2000, ascribing to at least a soft complementarianism, and involvement in CP should be the primary gatekeepers of who is in the SBC and who isn’t. The recent infighting in the SBC is sad to see. Some of it is necessary, but it is strangely reflecting the political polarization in the U.S.

I love the SBC; I’m a product of its ministries, and I want to see it thrive for my children’s children to be involved in!

I believe that it’s necessary to interact with the Bible in three different environments: Reading it personally, discussing it with others, and being taught by a pastor. So, I have a daily Bible reading plan that I follow in the mornings (hopefully before the kids wake up!) and spend time in prayer. We are involved in a weekly small group where we have a conversation around the Bible. I also attend worship every week.

We practice giving through a weekly tithe of our monthly income and occasionally above that to help someone in our group, serve a neighbor, or give to a special offering.

I really see simplicity as a spiritual discipline, and we live a pretty purposefully minimalistic lifestyle.

I would love to grow more in the discipline of solitude and fasting. These are things I practice occasionally but not regularly.