Ben Parker
I grew up in the San Antonio area in a loving but non-Christian home. After I spent my freshman year of high school running away from God, I found myself at a Christian summer camp where for the first time I found Jesus truly wonderful and worthy of my loyalty and love–God had chased me down and won my heart! As I grew in wonder for the way Jesus makes life worth living, the power of the Bible, and the joy of the Church, I soon decided to pursue vocational ministry in hopes of eventually planting a church. I followed this calling up to Washington state where I attended the Spokane campus of Moody Bible Institute, and back to Texas to attend Dallas Theological Seminary (where I will, Lord willing, be graduating in May 2021!). Shortly after moving to Dallas, while working in an uptown coffee shop, I was set up on a blind date with the girl of my dreams, Nicole. It was only a matter of time before she brought me to her home church, Stonegate, and not too long after then that we got married July 26th 2020!
Here at Stonegate I have the honor of serving in the Assimilations ministry, primarily overseeing the Connect Team, as well as serving in the College and Young Adults ministry, helping coordinate ministry efforts and events, and leading a home group on the DBU campus. When I’m not at Stonegate, I love to play piano, enjoy the outdoors, read, and… I LOVE hot tea!
My greatest hope for Stonegate is that we could continue growing into a community where the life-changing resurrection power of Jesus is made overwhelmingly obvious to the watching world in how we love our community, each other, and in how we love our God. I pray that it would be impossible for the people in Midlothian and the surrounding area to believe that Christianity is “just another religion” because of the Spirit-cultivated life pouring out from our church family!