Thank you Dave Cash for sharing your story.

“Looking at those roads, that I went down as the roads that led me where I’m at God was constantly trying to get my attention and I just kept running right by him. I just kept driving right on by him. And I don’t know why that is. I think I just had to find out for myself. For me, growing up in north Texas baseball was everything. As a kid, I thought sports was going to be the road that took me to happiness. And for my future, I thought it was in baseball. Then when that reality ended, I realized I needed to make my money somewhere else. And I just thought money and wealth would bring happiness to my life. But there was still something missing. I was still searching for something. Try one thing after another, just searching, just not realizing how empty I was inside.

I began to drink pretty heavily back in those days, too. The more scared I became of not being successful, the more I drank to mask my fear, it looked from the outside, looking in, I’ve got a lot of money. I’ve got a lot, I’ve got the apartment, but I’m so miserable inside and nobody knows it. And I had a night where I don’t remember anything. I completely blacked out. And I woke up the next day and I looked at myself in the mirror for the first time, really looked at myself and I was crying and I didn’t even know it. And, as I began to weep, I began to cry out to Jesus, to save me. I told him, I’d do whatever he wanted. If he would just save me. And he did in that moment, I felt the power of the Holy Spirit come into my life. And I knew I was changed now. I didn’t know how change I was going to be, but I began to look at things completely different. See people completely different. And I got up from there; when I got on my knees, I was still pretty intoxicated, but when I got up from my knees, I was fully sober.

The Lord, just delivered me. I was brand new. And I was excited about it. And I wanted to tell everyone, because I always had this idea. ‘I had to clean up before I came to the Lord … well, I got to get on the right road first, then I can find the Lord.’ He’ll take us just where we are. So when God really got ahold of my heart and really started giving me a passion for his Word to study it, I just started to share it with everybody that I ran into. And I started to have people ask me where I served, where I was ministering at, where I was preaching. And I was like, ‘I’m not doing that anywhere’. And I began to be restless in my spirit. And I began to ask the men that were meeting with me and discipling me. What does this mean? And they said, you probably have a stirring in your soul that God wants you in full-time ministry.

I started out in youth ministry and then God called me to go preach to a church in north Texas. I was there pastoring churches for almost 20 years. I just shared the Word of God wherever I could. And that’s when I met Pastor Matt Surber. And when Matt began to confirm that God had put me on his heart to come to Mission City, I knew I needed to pray about that. It was a pretty quick confirmation because God started to open doors for me, my wife, and finding a house. I just feel like God’s about to do something big here at Mission City. I’ve been feeling that since we rolled into San Antonio, that God’s about to do something big, and for me that is just seeing men’s lives transformed. That’s seeing marriage as being restored, that’s seeing our LifeGroups grow and grow into home groups, to where neighbors are coming and hearing the good news of Jesus Christ all throughout San Antonio.”