Vinnie's Short Bio:

I currently live with my family in the Washington, DC, metro area, on the Virginia side of the river. But my story began much farther north. I was born in Eastern Canada and lived a pretty simple rural Canadian life until I was 13, when my parents divorced, and life became considerably less simple.

After being bounced around for a while, I eventually moved just outside Toronto. I’ll spare you all the details and simply say that my younger years were littered with enough existential questions and struggles to nearly cripple me. Then two major, life-changing things happened relatively close together:

1) I went to college for Social Work.
2) I became a Christian.

Those were not isolated events. Together, they became streams of sanity, purpose, faith, and meaning that helped forge who I have become and, just as importantly, who I am still becoming.

Through a series of life events, my wife and I moved to North Carolina in 1998, where she worked as a nurse while I became involved in church planting. From there, we moved to Tennessee, where I completed my BA in Theology. I later spent time as a district pastor while completing my MA in Pastoral Ministry.

Then came the opportunity of a lifetime for a pastor: helping reboot several struggling churches into one brand-new congregation, Solid Rock Seventh-day Adventist Church in Arlington, Virginia. That experience shaped me deeply. Even more importantly, the relationships we developed in the community eventually led to one of the greatest blessings of our lives: adopting our son, José.

Today, I’m in the newest chapter of my pastoral journey, serving the wonderful community of Vienna Seventh-day Adventist Church and Vienna Adventist Academy.

I’m also in the final stretch of completing my Doctor of Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary, with a focus on adaptive leadership and emotional intelligence. Leadership, emotional health, and spiritual formation have become genuine passions of mine, so you’ll find plenty of all three throughout this site. I’m fascinated by how people grow, how communities navigate change, how leaders remain emotionally and spiritually healthy, and how all of that intersects with following Jesus faithfully in the real world.

Revelation 14:4 describes God’s people as those who “follow the Lamb wherever he goes.”

That has become a pretty good description of how I want to live my life.

I don’t know exactly what adventures are still ahead of me. I don’t know where this journey will take me next. But I do know who is leading.

Want to come along with Jesus and me?