He graduated from Southern Wesleyan University with a Bachelor of Science in Religion (1994) and from Asbury Theological Seminary with a Master’s (1997) and Doctorate (2008). His research and teaching are guided by his interest in the intentional innovations of religious subcultures and the influence of theology on Christians across time and space. He conducts ethnographic research about the influence of Leslie Newbigin on the Missional church movement within evangelical denominations in America. He also investigates the theological, social, and religious-community orientations of millennials in the Southeastern United States. Currently, he serves as the PI of a $217,000 John Templeton Foundation grant that has gathered anthropologists and theologians to develop an anthropologically-informed, reflexive, theological framework to aid research in the anthropology of Christianity.