"I grew up in Columbus, Ohio
as a reformed Jewish. Both of my grandparents were Orthodox Jewish and I was exposed to some pretty serious Judaism as far as the law and tradition. I went to Saturday school regularly because it was important to my mom and she basically made me. I also went to Hebrew classes, had a bar mitzvah and got confirmed. But I didn’t have a clue how to lead a Godly life and honestly, I really wasn’t interested. What I was interested in was being in the television business. That was my identity, I was recognized as the sports guy around town and that meant a lot to me.
But as my wife Kelly and I were looking to buy a house, God humbled me by sending a man named David Vigil into our lives. There was something very different about David and I couldn’t put my finger on it. The process of buying our house took over a year for us so we were forced to spend a lot of time with David. One day David invited us to come attend his church, Fellowship at Cinco Ranch. We were tentative but he reassured us by saying, 'Don’t worry, no one is going to give you a hard time.' So we went to church and I was hoping to be insulted so I could leave. We went to Fellowship for about a month, and I was still waiting to be insulted so I could stop going to Church. But that never happened.
In the meantime instead of hearing what I thought I would hear I began to realize, 'Wow, this is about everyday life, this is better than having to spend money to work on this kind of stuff, and I don’t mind driving 10 minutes to hear these messages.' The next thing I know the congregation at Fellowship told my wife and I that if we wanted to go to the marriage conference they would love to send us. All I wanted to know was what the catch was because in Judaism there’s always a catch; it’s about the law and tradition and if you don’t do this these are the consequences. So I wanted to know what they were expecting of me, but nobody expected anything.
Once we let our guard down we went to the conference the first year, which was really the first time I ever let all of my guard down. I opened my ears, my eyes and more important my heart to who Jesus Christ really was and it all began to sink in. After the marriage conference I started reading the New Testament for the first time in my life. 6 months after the conference I came to the realization that Jesus was Lord and Savior and I couldn’t do it on my own. I knew I had to have a personal relationship with him or I would continue to flounder and struggle on my own, and I didn’t want that. I knew that Jesus was the way; but it was still very difficult for me to cross the line and accept that knowing the consequences, and that part of my family was never going to talk to me again. But I knew the truth and so we went back to the family life conference and that first night I got down on my knees, asked Jesus into my life and here I am eleven years later."