ELDERS

I am a native Texan born in Dallas in 1971.  I have lived in Oak Cliff, Duncanville, Plano, McKinney, and finally in Anna.  I spent most of my childhood in Plano from second grade to my senior year.

I became a Christian at age 15, right before my 16th birthday.  I was baptized by Ron Goodwyn at Pitman Creek Church of Christ.  I realized that as I was about to start my adulting years, that I would not be able to get through it alone.  I have always gone to church, ever since I can remember and my mother and grandparents took me at every opportunity.

My wife Elizabeth Paige McDonald (Paige) has been my love for 29 years so far.  She has been a dental hygienist for all of those years.  We were married on August 6th, 1994.   About 7 years later, we decided to put our faith in God and have a child.  Luke was born to us in January of 2001, then our daughter in April of 2004.  All three of my family members are tremendous blessings and I am so proud of each of them.

I attended Plano Senior High School, graduating in 1989, then went to Texas A&M in College Station TX for about 2 years.  I then took a couple of semesters off, attended Collin County Community College for 2 semesters, then resumed and finished my bachelor degree back at Texas A&M.  I have a bachelor’s degree in Business Analysis, which is a fancy way of saying I solve business problems using computers and programming.

I have worked for the same company for 29 years starting in May of 1994.  It was originally my parents company called “Mirus” but then they were bought out around 2001.  I have maintained my employment with “Anchor Software” ever since.  I am a senior developer and I am solely responsible for several million lines of code.  Our software is centered around direct marketing through the mail… basically what you would call junk mail.  We prefer targeted marketing but either is accurate.

I love being an elder because I get to know people on a personal level.  Typically, people do not open up about stuff, but as a trusted friend who will keep things confidential if desired, it gives them an incentive to share more.  I love helping people through difficult times and watching a person grow in Christ.  When I leave this Earth, I want to be know as a trusted friend and a person who helped them on their spiritual journey.

My goals for the Van Alstyne Church are simple.  To have a spiritually mature body of believers who are well read in the Bible and that seek the lost.  Numerical numbers are ok but spiritual growth is my number one goal.

Tom and I have been elders since the Summer of 2019.  And though we don’t have specific areas of responsibility, we try and share the workload of the weekly tasks.  Fortunately, we have a great minister who does a lion share of the daily work and serves as our point of contact to all things related to our church.

I remember first visiting at around Thanksgiving in 2016.  We were attending the Church of Christ on McDermott Road in Plano, but it was a 35-40 minute drive.  Since my oldest was reaching driving age, I wanted to minimize the travel for him to youth group events.  We found Van Alstyne Church of Christ and loved it.  For the first time, our kids were asking if we were going to church and if we could go to the one in Van Alstyne.  Their faith took off, and ours, and that’s when we knew we were home.  So as of this writing, it has been about 6.5 years.

My whole family did TaeKwonDo for about 7 years, each of us receiving our black belts.  Luke and Paige actually achieved their 2nd Dan.  Since then, my hobbies have dwindled down to yardwork.  I do like to golf every now and then and I do enjoy home projects.

I was born in 1964, in Houston, TX, but I was not the first one born on that day. My twin brother, Timothy, arrived before me. I am a native Texan and I grew up with my family in Albany, Austin, and Hico. I was baptized at the Hico Church of Christ in September of 1977 where I was also 2nd in line to be born again after my twin brother. I graduated high school in 1982 from Hico and later graduated in 1987 from Texas A&M University with a degree in Computer Science. I met the love of my life, Jana, while attending White Rock Church of Christ in Dallas, TX as I began my work career as a Software Engineer. I knew from the second day we spent together that she was the one to share life and love with forever. We were married in June 1988 in Paris, TX.

We made a move to McKinney and began serving at the Westside Church of Christ in 1989. Our life together became more wonderful with the addition of three sons (Paul, Mark, and Ben). I served as a deacon at Westside and later High Pointe for 22 years with the primary work done in the Missions ministry where I helped to guide the church plants supported in the country of El Salvador. During this ministry, I led 9 summer mission trips and helped to build a children’s sponsorship program in El Salvador.

Our family then moved to Van Alstyne in 1999 and have lived in the same location in Steeplechase Estates since then. Our sons attended schools here along with Jana being a teacher in the Junior High and High Schools in Family and Consumer Science. We continued to serve and worship at High Pointe where our sons were baptized. I also previously served as an elder at High Pointe for seven years starting in 2013.

In 2021, we made the decision to serve and worship at Van Alstyne Church of Christ where we have been tremendously blessed. It is wonderful to serve alongside our dear brothers and sisters here. I also served as a deacon for the Missions ministry, helping to expand the efforts to make disciples here and there.

I continue to work as a Software Engineer as Jana now has entered the wonderful world of retirement. We are also now enjoying the blessings of having 3 wonderful granddaughters.

I have learned much from others during my faith journey to help me share the Good News with others. I look forward to serving with Shannon and the other elders as we seek to be the disciples and disciple makers God calls each of us to be.

Hello fellow internet traveler. If you're reading this page, you are doing a very deep dive into the online presence of the congregation here in Van Alstyne, and to honor your tenacity & curiosity I'm glad to share a little about myself.

My early childhood years were spent living in a variety of states up and down the east coast of America. I was not blessed to grow up in the church, nor did I really attend a church at all until my senior year of high school, (more on that later) in fact I attended about 10 different schools in four states between kindergarten and twelfth grade. My parents split up when I was very young, and later on they both remarried. I lived with my Mom and her second husband until I was about 15, when I moved to Florida and lived with my Dad for the first time. Naturally between moving around and not having the most stable family life, my childhood was more than a little tumultuous and left me searching for meaning and purpose...

My senior year of high school I met three classmates who would introduce me to Jesus and change my eternity.

These three young men, (David, Chris and Ben) and their families took me in. They demonstrated what it meant to imperfectly follow Jesus, how families could work through challenges and stay together, how people could sacrifice for each other, forgive one another, and exemplify love, mercy and grace, and even extend those attributes to someone like me. The first few times I attended church with them I was honestly bewildered and more than a little skeptical, what was communion, why is everyone hugging each other, are these people really that compassionate?

After our high school graduation, they invited me to attend Georgia Bible Camp, and then Central Florida Bible Camp a few weeks later. It was during that second week of camp, after being loved and discipled by these high school students and their families, that I made the decision to put on Christ in baptism. Put simply, I felt a lot like Paul: "here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst." I knew I needed His saving grace, and I wanted to be part of something greater than myself, to be part of loving family that would accept me at my worst and support me as I leaned on Jesus and the Holy Spirit to be better.

I asked Tony Black (David and Chris's Dad, who happened to be a preacher) to baptize me after we had another long talk about faith, being a disciple, and counting the cost to follow Jesus. Unfortunately my earthly Father who was not a believer quickly forbade me from going to church any more. It was a struggle, as I was learning to honor my mother and father, I was also being challenged in my commitment to the Lord and attending church services. I told my Dad I was going to a friend’s house (which I did), then I secretly headed over to church!

I met a young woman during that summer (Amy, my future bride, who was great friends with David, Ben and Chris), and I followed her to college the next fall! I spent a year at the same faith-based university she was attending; learning and facing myriad challenges in my young faith. I actually transferred from that school after one year, Amy and I grew closer and fell in love. We got married a couple of years later, and the same preacher (Tony Black) who baptized and discipled me, married us. All three of those young men were in our wedding and I still count them as some of my best friends more than three decades later. And yes, that means Amy and I will celebrate 30 years of marital bliss, challenges, struggles, and amazing adventures this year - praise the Lord!

After getting married, I enlisted in the US Air Force and served for several years. Upon leaving the Air Force, Amy and I discovered the Lord blessed was blessing us with our first child, a son. We were thrilled and also overwhelmed as we were in a rather difficult financial situation. Thankfully God saw fit to provide me a job, and I went back to school as well.

After completing my first graduate degree and after some rather miraculous answers to prayers and the work of the Holy Spirit, we heard and answered the call to serve as vocational missionaries in a foreign country. It is quite a story of God's provision and guidance, ultimately, we thought we would serve for a year or two and then return to America, but God had other plans and we stayed there sharing the Gospel and making disciples over 13 years. We absolutely loved seeing God work in the lives of some truly wonderful people.

Our son grew up in the mission field, and along the way the Lord saw fit to bless us with a second child through the adoption process. We have learned so much about our adoption into the Kingdom through our daughter. Our son graduated from high school overseas, and after attending both LCU and Hardin-Simmons is now a DPT. More importantly he is an active member of his local church, and a loving husband to his beautiful wife. Our daughter who was born abroad and lived there for a decade has finished high school and will be attending Harding. She is an amazing young person who loves the Lord and has a heart for missions. We are so proud of both of them, and thankful that they are following Jesus.

We returned to the U.S. several years ago, and I was blessed to continue working in education as a professor. After a few years of struggling to re-acclimate to America, we found a family-focused community at Van Alstyne Church of Christ. We are very thankful to be part of a body of believers who adhere to the Word, demonstrate love in action, and strive to live out the Great Commission from the foundation of the Greatest Commandments. Amy and I are blessed to serve and continue growing as disciples who make disciples, alongside our brothers and sisters as part of the Van Alstyne Church of Christ. I look forward to seeing God raise up a multitude of ministers and missionaries from this congregation as we grow as disciples who make disciples. My prayer is that every member of this Kingdom Outpost will strive to follow Jesus, be changed by Jesus, and actively join the mission of Jesus.

I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas through my Elementary school years. My dad was a good man, but he was not a believer, however, my mother was a devoted preacher’s kid from St Jo, Texas, and she faithfully took my brother and I to church at Skillman Ave Church of Christ in Dallas while I was growing up. We were weekend farmers, spending a lot of time commuting to and working on our farm near Hugo, Oklahoma. On the farm, I learned how to weld, drive a tractor and work cattle when I was in the sixth grade. My folks eventually sold that OK farm and bought some land just west of Van Alstyne. My brother and I helped my dad build a barn, corral and fenced-off the land while our home was being built. We finally moved to the VA farm as I was going into the 8th grade, but I had decided to be baptized at Skillman Ave, by brother John Bannister, before we moved here. We attended the VA Church of Christ during my Jr High and High School years. I was fortunate to get a football scholarship with the University of Houston. We were SWC champs during two of those years, so I had the good fortune of being able to play in the 1977 and 1979 Cotton Bowl games. After my senior season, I was drafted by the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, but my sports career ended there, as I did not make the team but returned to Houston to complete my Engineering degree. I spent a couple of my work years employed by Andrew Corp’ in the telecom’ industry, but most of my engineering career was spent in aviation and defense, as I worked for E-Systems, Gulfstream Aerospace and L3Harris at facilities in Greenville and Dallas, Texas. After 43 years, I was blessed to be able to retire from my engineering career on June 1, 2023.

While working for E-Systems and living in Rockwall, Texas, I was attending church at the Saturn Road Church of Christ in Garland. One summer, Saturn Road was hosting an area-wide Singles Ministry activity.  That summer, I fell in love (at first sight), when Robbie came with her friends from the Webb Chapel Church of Christ to Saturn Road to attend the Singles event there. We were together again at the next Singles event held at Webb Chapel, and a few months later, I proposed, and she accepted! Robbie was also raised by a mom who was a preacher’s kid, in Albertville, Alabama.

During our 41 years of marriage, we have lived in Rockwall, Carrollton, Prosper and now Van Alstyne. The Lord blessed us with three wonderful children (Kacy, Kara and Riley) whom I had the joy of baptizing while we were living in Rockwall. I loved spending time with my kids either coaching or cheering them on through softball, t-ball, soccer, volleyball, band, theater and football and participating with them in the Indian Guides and Indian Princess programs.

I have had the good pleasure of being able to serve as a Deacon at Webb Chapel (where Robbie and I were married), and in Rockwall at the former Lakeside Church of Christ (now Eastridge), and also previously served as an Elder at the High Pointe Church of Christ in McKinney. Our family moved back to Van Alstyne in 2012. We initially attended church in Howe and then McKinney, but we began attending the Van Alstyne Church in August 2021, and have absolutely fallen in love with this congregation, thanks largely to the love and truth proclaimed and demonstrated from the pulpit by Shannon Jackson.

I am excited about the opportunity to serve with Tom, Bart and Howie during this amazing time when God’s hand and favor are clearly upon the VACoC family, and I’m anxious to see where He takes us during the coming years of projected growth in our community. I believe the Lord has been preparing me for just such a time as this by instilling within me a drive to serve, equipping me through years of leadership training and many opportunities to teach classes and lead ministries at other congregations.

I love to hunt and fish, and enjoying working outside on our farm, and enjoy doing handy-man work, being under the delusion that I can fix just about anything. But, with our recent retirements, Robbie and I are looking forward to spending time traveling and seeing parts of the world where we’ve never been.

I was born in 1969, in Garland, TX.  I’m a native Texan, growing up in Allen, TX, until the 7th grade.  Then, my parents bought some land east of Van Alstyne in 1982.  We moved to Van Alstyne in July of 1983.  My wife Gayla and I met in high school my junior year, her sophomore year. Her father Nathan Henderson shared the gospel with me when I was 18yrs old, under and old Bois d’arc tree at the edge of the driveway on the same property we live on today. We were sitting on the tailgate of a 1967 Chevy pickup truck, and he shared the whole second chapter of Acts with me. I accepted Christ that night and was baptized at Central Church of Christ in Van Alstyne.   Gayla and I dated until she graduated in 1990 and married August 11th, 1990.  I graduated Van Alstyne 1989 and started a welding career shortly after. I went to Grayson County College for my welding degree. Gayla went to Austin College for a dual major in Business and Religion. Gayla is Finance Supervisor at Emerson. I work for Lawson Products in Engineering.

We have two amazing children.  Kayley, our oldest, was born in 1992.  She and her husband Daniel have blessed us with 3 amazing grandchildren.  Sloane is 6, Swayde is 4, and Duke is 1.  Our son Jesse was born in 1998.  I remember praying for a son, and God blessed us immensely.  Jesse’s heart is amazing and it’s an honor to be a father of both my kids, and it goes beyond blessed to be a husband of one (Gayla) and a Pawpaw of three, Sloane, Swayde, and Duke. They make Gayla and I very proud. All I can say is God has truly blessed us. Life has had its ups and downs, and we have had unmeasurable losses at times, but God has always carried us through. It is humbling to serve as an Elder and a true honor.   My hobbies are Hunting, Fishing, and cooking BBQ.  My favorite Bible verse is:

Isaiah 40:31

  but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
 they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
 they shall walk and not faint.

I was born in McKinney, Texas, 1953. At that time, McKinney was a small rural town comprised of about 12,000 residents. There was no major highway through our town, only HWY 5. I traveled only a few blocks from home to church to school and the only grocery store in town. That was my world. No one locked their doors, and it was truly a great place to grow up.  I lived with my mom and Dad, but my grandparents lived next door to us, so I spent a lot of time over there. They made sure I was in attendance every Sunday for Bible class and church. I still remember my grandmother sitting behind me in bible class to make sure I stayed there. My grandfather was an elder at that church, and I always admired and respected his biblical knowledge and dedication. My grandmother had amazing energy to serve others. My mother had various medical issues and was rarely able to attend church. My dad worked 6 days a week, so Sunday was his only day to rest. He would meet us at worship, and we would normally sit on the back row. I have great memories of VBS…the homemade cookies, Nehi Orange drinks, and the gold stars on our diploma.

In 1969, the Davis Street church hired their 1stYouth Minister, Johnnie Wheeler. He was a great Christian example to all of us. Soft spoken, but very caring and thoughtful. He baptized me on a Sunday night in July 1970 at the age of 16. That is when my Christian Walk truly began. Many devotionals, Summer Youth Series in Dallas, and wonderful speakers such as Big Don Williams from Pepperdine inspired us all.

It was on a New Years eve night, 1971 that I met the love of my life at a Youth party. I knew from that night forward Chanda was the one for me! We were married in July 1976, and she has been a constant blessing in my life ever since. All that I am and have ever accomplished can be attributed to her.

We have been extremely blessed to have 3 Christian sons, Neil, Joel and Kevin. God truly blessed us. I had the honor of baptizing each of them, and witnessing my oldest son baptize our granddaughters. They continue their Christian journey as well, in San Antonio, Argyle and Weatherford, Texas. Chanda and I have 6 grandchildren and are filled with pride and love.

I worked for the US Postal Service for 37 years. I began my career in 1973 as a part time letter carrier and retired in 2010 as an executive manager over 146 Post Offices all over West Texas. My job took us to San Angelo and the west Texas area in 1989. We worshiped at Johnson Street Church for most of the 24 years we lived west. In 2005, I become an elder of the church and remained an elder there for 8 years prior to our return to McKinney.

Since my retirement in 2010, I have been enjoying playing Golf, working in the yard and watching the grandchildren participate in all their activities. Chanda and I also enjoy traveling and experiencing new adventures.

We returned to McKinney for various reasons, primarily family needs. We began worshipping at the High Point Church of Christ. We knew many of the members from our more youthful days, and it felt like the obvious location to worship. I served as an elder there for 8 years.  We made the decision to transition to a new church.

We visited several wonderful churches in the Collin County area. All were very inviting, and those churches would have been great places to worship and serve, but the Van Alstyne church just felt right, so friendly and inviting. Bart, Shannon, Edna and many others were so kind and welcoming.  big influences on our decision to serve with this family.

My father served in the U.S. Army for twenty years, so I changed schools 8 times by 9th grade. We lived in Germany, Florida, California, and in Texas, El Paso, Houston, and San Antonio. I was baptized in Germany while attending a revival, recognizing that my sins were an offense against God and that I needed forgiveness. When my father retired from the Army, we moved back to the Houston area which is where all of my extended family lives.

After college at ACU, I moved to San Antonio where I met and married Danna, who was a teacher. Danna is from a small town south of San Antonio and until that time, lived in that area her whole life. I taught high school and community college math for seven years before we joined a mission team and lived in Montevideo, Uruguay for twelve years where we worked with a church and a study abroad program with ACU.

Upon our return from South America in 2005, we moved to the Houston area, where we went back to public school teaching. We are now both retired from teaching, although I occasionally work as a consultant for my former school district to help analyze test data. We moved to the DFW area in 2023, following the move here of our first grandson.

My immediate family all lives in this area now. My son and his wife live in Plano and my daughter, Adriana Gunnels, Erik, and kids attend Van Alstyne. Our hobbies are spending time with our grandchildren and traveling.

My favorite verse is Genesis 1:1, as God is our everything. All comes from Him, and He is our final destination if we choose Him.

I am honored to serve the congregation at Van Alstyne. I can see that the Lord is bringing a variety of people to our doorstep, and I pray to God for wisdom on how best to use these opportunities for discipleship.