The first gathering of what would become Tabernacle Church took place on Sunday, September 11, 1988. We were an ambitious group of believers who chose to walk together, though our beginning was shaped by difficult and unexpected circumstances.

Following our resignation from Victory Christian Center, a faithful remnant chose to step into an unknown future with us. In those early days, we met in our home until we were able to secure space in one of the theater-style classrooms at Kutztown University. For a season, we moved from classroom to classroom, searching for something more permanent.

After many months without a place of our own, we finally found a storefront. There, the church took root and flourished in its early years. What followed was a wide range of experiences—some joyful, others deeply painful. While the church never grew large in numbers, what we lacked numerically was more than compensated for in other ways. We were, without question, a family.

It would be impossible—and unnecessary—to recount every detail here, so for the sake of this blog, I’ll focus on a few pivotal moments that help explain how I arrived where I am today.

In April of 1996, Jean and I joined our dear friends Bill and Emogene Kaiser as part of their team that traveled to various locations around the world, hosting conferences for American missionaries. Time of Refreshing was a three-day gathering held in the missionaries’ regions, offering rich times of worship, generous gift-giving, and shared meals. It was an extravagant expression of love, encouragement, and honor for those serving abroad.

We continued this for fifteen years, logging countless miles and being immersed in cultures across Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. At the time, we didn’t realize how profoundly this exposure—to people, cultures, and cuisines—would shape us. It cultivated a deep love for diverse foods and an even deeper love for God, while also transforming how we understood the church.

Our missionary friends introduced us to the unconventional—new expressions of ministry that stretched our imagination. A desire to walk a less-traveled road began to grow in our hearts. It felt as though we were being rewired for something different, something altogether unfamiliar.

Then, in December of 2004, Adam2 Ministries was born—not out of a church split, but from a deep, inward calling to share the gospel of Jesus Christ in a tangible, lived-out way.