My Testimony

I have been singing all my life, literally.  Since my father is a Church of Christ preacher and has been preaching from the black churches in the Piney Woods of East Texas across the state to southeastern New Mexico and back to the Texas Hill Country, singing hymns and gospel is what I cut my teeth on.  I knew at an early age that singing was something I enjoyed.  I received my first guitar in junior high school and taught myself to play.  My voice was a gift from God but guitar playing I've had to work at.

During my late teens and into my twenties, I played and sang mostly country music anywhere they would let me.  That included bars, honky tonks, family reunions, and weddings. You name it, I've played and sang there.  It was a time in my life that I experienced true love, heartache and heartbreak; a few to many fist fights and drank a few too many beers. Then life changed and it was time to settle down.  Ten years went by without any music in my life and to me it was as if something very important was missing. After moving back to Texas, I began singing a little in church again; this time at the Baptist church in Monahans, Texas.  But… country music had been my passion for so long I was sure that was the place for me.  I fought with God and myself on this issue for quite a while.

Once I moved to Llano it all came together when Ken Barington asked me to sing at the start of the newly founded Llano Cowboy Church.  I remember that I was singing and Ken was preaching to about 10 people in a local dance hall on Tuesday’s nights.  Thankfully, I recognized my calling was not country music but Christian country music.  The Lord closed a window and threw open a door. Four years later Ken and I are still preaching and singing together except now with the Cross and Spurs Ministry, a traveling Cowboy Church.

My wife, Paige, and I live in Llano and between us share four children.  Two are in college and two are in high school and we stay very busy. Since being a father is one of my favorite things in the whole world I am very close to my sons and involved in their lives and activities. Paige’s daughter and son have been an added blessing to my life as well.  Lately, the Lord has been calling me to play further and further from home and that’s great!  There’s nothing I like better than loading up the truck and traveling down the road to sing and minister to people.

At 49, the Lord has blessed me with a voice that enables me to not only share my love of Christ but to spread His word in this way.  Now I sing Christian country anywhere and everywhere I can.  Anyone that has ever heard me sing knows that this is how I worship the Lord.   I feel blessed to have this voice and can think of no other way to use it than for God’s glory.  So many people have asked me to put out a CD that I finally broke down and my first CD was recorded in December of 2006.  It is a short 6 song CD and just enough to the whet the appetite of my listeners and fans.  I am already recording songs for my next CD and hopefully it will be out soon, but as with all things, it is in God’s timing.  But for me, nothing will ever replace standing before folks and singing to them.