Today is a special day for Mandy and I. We have now been Memphians for 20 years. For the past few weeks I’ve been reflecting on our time here. We moved here when Adam was six months old. We had a dream of planting our lives and at some point a church, as well as a desire to be closer to family.
We wanted stability. We wanted to raise a family. And we wanted the opportunity to buy a home. That was much more of a reality in Memphis than it was in the SF Bay Area, where we had lived for the previous six years.
Our first six months were spent reconnecting with family after being away for so many years. After a couple of months renting a townhouse across the street from Overton Park, we bought a house in Cooper-Young.
After moving we slowly but surely began getting involved in the neighborhood. We started attending events put on by the Cooper-Young Community Association, and we began meeting neighbors, especially those with little ones. It’s funny how you’re just drawn to one another when you’re at stage of life and parenting.
We quickly saw that over the past few decades people had moved out of the urban core of Memphis, but now people were moving back. When we moved into Cooper-Young there were not a lot of teenagers. But boy were there a lot of babies and toddlers.
Mandy came to the conclusion that one of the things that she should be engaged in was education advocacy. The question that was on the forefront of minds was, “Where are we going to send our kids for school?”
Mandy started the Cooper-Young Parents Network when Adam was two, and as he got closer to kindergarten we began gathering others together to explore attending our neighborhood school together. And that’s what we did.
We spent several years investing in Peabody Elementary School. We raised money through Chili Cookoffs and Support Drives. We received a grant from Kaboom for a new playground. The dads took turns in the mornings as Watchdogs getting kids from their cars into the building. Classmates played rec league soccer and basketball. Our kids were close. And so were the parents.
And through this we started a church. I remember when we were toying around with the name Neighborhood Church, a friend pointed out that the mission was in the name. That was it.
There were ups and downs throughout it all. There was a lot of activism and life change. And definitely a lot of fun. There was also relational loss and disappointment. I’m grateful for the work that God did during those years, and I’m grateful for the relationships that have lasted through the years.
Mandy has invested years of her time as both an educator in the classroom and a volunteer parent leader. When Adam was a second grader, she organized midtown parents around the campaign to start a new middle school. After a lot of sweat equity, Maxine Smith STEAM Academy was started and Mandy continued to serve as PTO President while Adam attended. Then during his middle school years, she served on the XQ team that eventually created Crosstown High, which is where Micah is now a junior. The public education landscape has greatly changed in these last two decades, and we are grateful for all of the initiatives and investment that has brought improvements.
These 20 years in Memphis have been the season of raising a family. As I write this our boys are 20 and 17. One of the sweetest experiences we’ve had in Memphis is seeing these boys create lifelong friendships, something Mandy and I did not have growing up. We threw a toddler Halloween party in 2006 to meet other young families in Cooper Young, and the Spicklers came with their little cow, Walt. Adam was a duck. They hit it off and hardly ever missed another Halloween together. They are still best friends. And the little brothers who came along a few years later call each other their Day 1’s and hang out or play soccer daily. Their circle of bros has widened as they’ve gotten older, and we are proud of the way they show up for their friends. We’ve spent countless hours watching them play soccer and basketball. I even coached basketball for many rec league seasons! The boys’ fan club rolled deep with all the grandparents, aunts and uncles we have in Shelby County. We never took that for granted.
Our family has been a part of two churches during our time in Memphis. I was the founding pastor of Neighborhood Church for that first decade or so. After I retired from vocational ministry we settled our family at Christ City Church. It was a nice time of recovery and rest. But a few years later, in quite the surprise, Mandy was offered the job of Executive Pastor. She has been in that role for the last four and a half years, and she does her job so well. Her latest initiative was helping to lead our transition from renters to owners, as Central Christian Church gifted their building to Christ City Church.
In August I marked 16 years as a licensed realtor. In that time I’ve had almost $40 million in real estate transactions and helped over 100 families buy or sell their home. I’ve also flipped over 30 homes. Breathing life into classic midtown homes was not always easy, but it was always rewarding. And in the last year I’ve had the privilege of mentoring Adam in the business after he decided to get his real estate license.
Mandy and I met in college choir as music majors, so singing together is a fun hobby for us. We are so fortunate to be involved in Memphis Choral Arts. I joined the Men’s Chorale in 2012 and Mandy was a founding member of the Women’s Chorale in 2014. She even served as Executive Director from 2022-2025. One of our favorite Memphis experiences is singing in the annual Christmas concert at St. Peter Catholic Church downtown. And one of the sweetest memories was when Micah had the boy soprano solo in one of our Christmas songs when he was a founding member of the Memphis Children’s Chorale.
The boys had amazing musical experiences growing up in Memphis. Their school music programs were outstanding, including Micah learning in Mandy’s music classroom for six years. They took private piano lessons from Dr. Patricia Gray for seven years, with precious recitals at the Beethoven Club. Micah played keys for his school pop ensembles for several years. And during Covid, Adam taught himself electric guitar. And we all still play or sing in the church worship band. Growing up in Memphis meant countless shows at the Orpheum and Levitt Shell.
After our 8 year stint living in Cooper Young, we moved to the Annesdale-Snowden neighborhood for 12 years. It was a beautiful place to raise a family, and our block had so many kids to play with our guys. We rescued Bella after she was found by a friend in the parking lot of Stax. And a few years ago, we welcomed 9 pound Sophie to the mix. And now, for the first time since I left for college, I live in a more rural area. You can read more about that here.
I think it’s fitting that I place the final touches on this article as I sit at Otherlands with Micah, enjoying a cup of coffee and a bagel. I remember the first time I stepped foot into Otherlands. It was a year or so before we moved. I was in Memphis visiting family, and my dad, brother and I went to Otherlands. As I looked at the bulletin boards I felt like I was in San Francisco. It was in that moment that I began to imagine myself living in Memphis. Before that, I didn’t think I would ever fit back in the Bible Belt. Discovering Midtown through that visit to Otherlands opened me up to new possibilities, and I’m grateful for that.
I am who I am because of our 20 years in Memphis. There’s something really good about navigating the good and the hard of a place. About discovering blessing in places you least expected. About changing in ways you definitely never expected. And about being open to the things of God all around you. I’m proud of the work we’ve done and the lives that we’ve lived, and I’m grateful for the ways that we’ve been shaped.
And now, I’ll leave you with a gallery. Twenty photos to mark twenty years in Memphis. Enjoy!
