Faculty Bio

Gary became a born-again Christian in January 1982 at the age of 20, and began attending Calvary Chapel in California. As their services were only two per week at that time, he was quite hungry for the Word of God and for fellowship, so he also visited many other churches in those early days, and has kept on doing this throughout his Christian experience. He has been exposed to, and has taught and led worship in, many different types of churches and denominations over time. For the first few years he performed special music and ran a Sunday School in a Baptist-style church. For another six or seven years he led worship on weekends and in small groups with Vineyard Christian Fellowship, also ministering with mission groups, healing and worship conferences, and the Signs & Wonders and Church Growth conferences, some in Winnipeg, and others in Vancouver, BC. After a change in pastoral leadership, he was eventually ordained as assistant pastor (1990). Concurrent with that time, he was also helping with church planting as a worship leader in a Four Square church, a Vineyard, a Baptist-style community church, as well as pastoring house churches and homeless outreaches. In 1995, Gary went to Vancouver to continue full-time study at Regent College under his favorite theologians: J.I Packer, Gordon Fee, R Paul Stevens, and Eugene Peterson. The same ministries continued with a charismatic-leaning Lutheran church outside of Vancouver, and house churches in Point Roberts, WA and New Westminster, BC. After receiving the Master of Divinity from Regent in 1998, he went back to California to write his Master of Theology thesis (2001) entitled, "House Churches Now and Then: An Assessment of Today's House Church Movement in Light of Scripture and the Social World of the Early Church." Gary also worked as the pastor of the English congregation of a Korean church for about eight years, his house churches and homeless ministry continuing at the same time. Gary was accepted into the D.Theol dissertation program at Univ. of South Africa in 2001, and is planning to take this up again shortly. In recent years he has been involved mostly in house churches. Gary has written many songs, and has translated the Psalms from the original Hebrew and put them into verse. Nearly all are in rhyme patterns, so as to easily be set to music when the need or opportunity arises for that particular psalm. Gary's main emphases for teaching are in the areas of Bible and theology. In addition to his education, Gary has held a California teaching credential in English, having passed the CBEST (general exam in English and Mathematics) and the CSET in English (four rigorous exams for teaching English and Drama in public schools}.