So, who am I?

I’m a priest in The Episcopal Church. I’m also co-founder of Missional Voices, and organization that seeks to spur the Church to a conversation about the future.

I write a bi-weekly column for the Episcopal Church Foundation on evangelism and mission, and I teach and present across the Episcopal Church on a variety of topics, including:

• “Theology Beyond the Walls” — Faculty lecturer in Mission/Evangelism for Iona School for Ministry
• “Doing Church Differently” — Council of Deans of Episcopal Seminaries, January 2018
• “Introduction to Missional Theology” — Episcopal Diocese of Texas’ Small Church Network, October 2017
• “Finding Your Missional Voice” — Episcopal Church Foundation Webinar, September 2017
• “Being the Missional Church” — Gathering of Leaders, April 2017

Prior to seminary I spent 10 years in the leadership of one of Texas’ largest boutique public relations and marketing firms. I handled public relations, marketing, and crisis communications for businesses and individuals across the country.

I’m also a husband, a father of two young boys, and a baseball fan.

Why “Hope Springs Eternal”?

I played baseball for nearly 20 years. It was thedriving force behind my formation as a person, and continues to guide my formation as a priest.

The lessons in baseball are many, and I think we in the Church have a lot to learn from sports.

The title of this blog comes from Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man, but maybe you’re more familiar with the phrase from Ernest Thayer’s Casey at the Bat.

The Outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Casey could get but a whack at that -
We’d put up even money, now, with Casey at the bat.

In baseball, hope indeed springs eternal. In the Church, we too cling to a Hope that springs eternal.

Opening Day always comes around the same time as Easter, and this quirk of the springtime calendar seems appropriate to me.