ABOUT ME

I'm a fun, outgoing person who knows no stranger. I'm very direct and have no shame in what I believe in.

I asked my roommate and one of my best friends how he would describe me, and he replied that I was "loyal, dependable, respectful, motivating."

I am a former Young Life volunteer leader from Sherman, TX. I want to get back involved later in my life.

I'm a Christian, I am a Acts 29 covenant member and go to the Village Church in Denton, TX

I really like traditional and Americana tattoos.

I have spent the last 9 years involved in the hardcore music scene, playing and touring with bands. After I was saved, I used it as a platform to present the gospel to people.

PHILOSOPHY

My personal philosophy on life is to love others unconditionally and intentionally as a result of what has happened in my life. I was saved by Jesus Christ from a selfish life without meaning and given so much more. And as a result of that I want to live my life loving others and serving people as much as I can. While not shoving my beliefs down others throats, and being respectful to others beliefs :)

I genuinely just believe living your life for others is the best way to live your life, regardless of your faith. The human experience is at its most optimum whenever yourself isn't the goal, but the progress of others is at heart.

Interests

I spend my time most of these days, when not working, reading or riding my bicycle. I ride my bicycle a lot, play a lot of music, am always outside and actually like shopping.

The things that really grab my attention are motivations and encouragement. I really want people not to waste their lives and live it to the fullest. Proverbs 18:21 says that the power of life and death are in the mouth, your words have so much power over who you are and what you do. I always want to be encouraging to others and am really interested in motivation.

• tattoos
• shopping
• reading
• music
• camping
• scuba diving
• rock climbing
• volunteering
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

I really like aggressive music, whether it mean metal, rap, or folk, just aggressive is the way to go. Gets the people going! I love folk like bright eyes, mumford & sons, seryn, pop like Ke$ha, Katy Perry, N'Sync, (not kidding, genuinely they're really talented) some post rock, like Explosions in the Sky, Across Waters, and This Will Destroy You, and a lot of heavy music like Sleeping Giant, American Me, Architects, Whitechapel, Oceano, Underoath, and Between the Buried & Me. I really enjoy hardcore and folk the most out of those!

Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell has definitely changed my life, although I don't like his other books, VE is a super solid book. Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. Most CS Lewis books.

Movies I like, well I really enjoy poppy movies. I love Mean Girls, She's the Man, Hot Rod, cult classics my friends and I all sit around and quote it the entire time. They're genuinely just hilarious.

I really enjoy good movies too, such as The Grey, anything by Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, or Wes Anderson.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

This summer when I was tour I had a moment where I stopped and realized how thankful I am to live the life I get to live. I was in the middle of a tour with a band called Mouth of the South from Arlington, TX. We were halfway on tour, in Nashville, TN and Samantha Sutherland from TO BE FREE (apart of Abolition International) took us to go cliff diving. It was about a 4 second drop. Doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're in the moment it is terrifying. So we hiked for an hour up this mountain side, or maybe hill or mound, either way it was a tall earth structure. Right when we got up there Davey took off the clive and dove right in. I was up next, I get to the ledge and am nervous. I know I'll be fine but I'm still terrified. Josiah from Mouth told me that this was my life, time to live it, and I jumped. Yelling, then screaming halfway down because I didn't realize just how high it was. Such a good metaphor for life. We stand on the ledge of the cliff, we see people before us going but are terrified to go ourselves, there are people behind us that are too scared to jump, and it isn't until we jump do we realize just how far the trip is. But once we get into the water there's no regrets.

I've had a lot of moments like those.

In 2009 while at a camp in Jasper, Georgia, we climbed up the mountain side (I've climbed a lot of mountains and tall earth structures in my lifetime) and after about 45 minutes of climbing me and my younglife leader hooked up to the zipline. As I look down the 300 ft length zipline I was terrified. But that's when I first decided that I am not going to live my life in fear. Either I jump and go down this zipline and have a blast, or I jump and die. But either way, I refuse to live my life fearing what could happen. I'm a dive headfirst kind of guy. I was 18 at the time and that was about a week before I was saved. I think that mentality change was a huge change in the rest of my life.

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