God has poured out his blessing on my life over the past 10 years. Here is a glimpse of 2000 – 2010.
May, 2001 – Graduated from Ouachita Baptist University with a BS degree in Biblical Studies with a minor in Speech Communications.
2001 – Took my first full time ministry job at First Baptist Church Springdale, AR under the leadership of Alex Himaya (Pastor of Students) and Dr. Ronnie Floyd (Senior Pastor). We had around 700 students a week in that ministry. I had previously been an intern for FBC Springdale since 1999.
September 21, 2002 – Married the most amazing girl ever – Jennifer McInturff – now Mills!!!
February 2003 – Moved to Tulsa, OK to help Dr. Alex Himaya start a church. August 2003 we launched “The Church at BattleCreek.” We started with 7 teenagers in that ministry and watched it grow like wild fire along with seeing a lot of students saved and baptized weekly.
December 22, 2004 – Our daughter, McKenna Grace Mills, was born. She is “Daddy’s lil’ girl!”
2006– We took our next ministry job under the leadership of Dr. Jeff Crawford in Fort Smith, Arkansas at The Grand Family Church – Grand Avenue Baptist Church. Steve Farris had called us about this job to see if we might be interested then we had the privilege to go spend time with Dr. Crawford and hear his vision. This really led us to jump onboard with the opportunity to serve under him and his vision for Grand. There we watch the ministry grow like crazy even seeing over 600 students attend some events we held, putting on a community wide camp @ Camp WOW in Ada, OK and weekly we saw many students saved, baptized & lives changed.
August 8, 2006 – Our son, Parker Lee Mills, was born. He is tha man!!!
2007– Eric Hystad, from Second Baptist Church, Houston, TX called to ask us to pray about an opportunity to come and lead the student ministry at their West Campus in Katy, TX. We accepted the position & moved to Texas in September, 2007. What a journey this was. The job was a God size job to me as I was moving from a ministry of 200 students to about 450 at the time along with going from two staff members to 14 staff members counting interns, 11 full time employees. We, again, watched God do AMAZING things through this ministry. I met some of the most amazing people along with watching hundreds of students baptized and 1000’s saved.
Spring 2009 – Jeff Lovingood came to me and asked us to start praying about being a part of the Student Ministry at Long Hollow Baptist Church. This was crazy because we had just taken 1300 students to camp and watched over 500 students be baptized in that summer, why would God call us away from that? We were serving at the largest Baptist church in the country, Second Baptist Church, Houston; when God began to call us to the Fastest Growing Baptist church in the country, Long Hollow Baptist Church in Hendersonville, TN.
Through a lot of prayer and consideration we took the job at Long Hollow and I truly believe God took us through the past 10 years to bring us to today, to take this job at Long Hollow. Following a man, who most would consider to be one of the most successful youth pastor in the country, Jeff Lovingood, would be a great challenge and a God-sized opportunity for us. Again, just like with Second Houston, we had no idea if we could do it, but we did know that God was CALLING us, so we would once again step out on Faith and go forward on the journey that the Lord laid out before us!!!
Now we have the real pleasure of living in Hendersonville TN leading a Student Ministry currently running around 900 students a week under the leadership of David Landrith (Pastor) and Jeff Lovingood (Next Generations Pastor). We are seeing students saved and baptized weekly and I can’t wait to see what God has in store for this ministry in this upcoming year. I truly believe God can use LHSM to make a great impact all over Middle Tennessee, as well as throughout the whole country!
WOW!! What a humbling journey the past decade has been.
CONCLUSION TO MY 10 YEARS:
So in 10 years I have gotten married, had 2 great children, lived in 4 states, been a part of 5 churches, had a youth ministry as small as 7 and as large as 900 a week, met amazing students, leaders, volunteers and friends, experienced more than I would have ever dreamed of for my whole lifetime!!
I know through my life that we serve a BIG GOD and I’m humbled how he has chose to use just a little old small town boy from Hot Springs, Arkansas to reach people for His Kingdom!
I pray that over the next 10 years, that God continues to entrust my family and I with more and more as we stay faithful in all that He calls us to. We are so blessed to be at Long Hollow Baptist Church. It is a church we want our children to grow up in as they are spiritually challenged day-in and day-out under the leadership of our Pastor David Landrith. I truly pray God does something through LHSM that we have never seen or heard of!!! Pray that with me!!!
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