Dancing with Jesus Today - insights and practical application from a 21-year pastor known for making the Bible real and accessible.
Hi and welcome to my Substack platform. What this represents is really the next phase of my ministry. It has been said that ministers never really retire, they just go on to new phases of serving the Lord. That’s where I am now. I retired from serving churches in April of 2025, but prayed about how the Lord would use me to continue to share the hope found in Him, and the excitement of going through life, in every season, with the Holy Spirit guiding you.
He led me to Substack.
I have always been told — and I praise God for this because He is the One behind everything — that I make the Christianity understandable and of relevance to people. I have been told that my sermons made God’s word come alive for folks so that they could use its lessons in their everyday life.
The goal here is do the same thing. I’m not saying I’m C.S. Lewis or R.C. Sproul or some deep thinking theologian. I’m a kid from a lower middle-class background that God called into ministry at age 40, after many years in the business world. The combination of living in the real world and then going into the ministry in the second half of my life means that, thanks to God, I get it. I’ve had jobs, been fired from jobs, changed careers, had significant losses in life, and significant victories. I’ve laughed and cried and cried out to God with the question of “why.”
My hope and prayer is that what I write is used by God to speak to you, and take you deeper into His word and His marvelous plan for your life.
I invite you to subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.
The Lord has led me to use this Substack site as a next stage in the calling He placed on my life, now that I am retired from active church ministry. If you feel led to support this ministry, I encourage you to subscribe and offer a pledge which places you under no financial obligation. When I build up to 1,000 subscribers, I will offer a paid option for those who, once again, feel led to upgrade to a paid subscription, based on their pledge. In the meantime, my prayer is that this work is used by God to bless you and take you deeper into His marvelous plan for your life.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” - Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
My Testimony
I was born in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada to Ernest and Margaret Muttart, two decent, honest, and hard-working parents. My childhood was, for the most part, quite wonderful. I did well in grade school, but remember making a conscious decision to reinvent myself upon entering high school, completely backing away from any religious teaching in my life. Throughout my teenage years, I drifted through atheism and then into agnosticism.
High school was a life-changer in other ways as well. By 10th grade I developed an interest in becoming a radio personality, and by 11th grade I was the voice on our school P.A. system. My grades were good, I had made some lifelong friends, and was even elected valedictorian of my graduating class. As one of my teachers said, I was a big man on campus. And yet, something was missing.
I entered college with stars in my eyes. I had applied to, and gotten accepted by, Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto for the prestigious Radio and Television Arts degree program. I graduated in 1981, and immediately set out for my first radio job. I sent 100 audition tapes around the country but, in the interim, I went to work for a public relations firm for one month before CHOO-AM Radio 14 in Ajax Ontario Canada hired me. In hindsight, that one month at the PR from was a “God thing.”)
My first assignment was a computer industry trade show taking place in Toronto where I had to interact with someone at our sister company in New York. That person was Susan, who, until going to be with the Lord on September 19, 2013, became my wife of almost 31 years.
Susan was a Christian but yoked with me, a non-believer. God used it anyway. Four years into our marriage, an opportunity opened up for her in the San Francisco Bay Area, and we moved. I landed a job as a Staff Writer at Discovery Toys, the beginning of an eight-year association. I still was not a Christian at this point, but Susan, and most importantly God, was working on me.
By the beginning of our third year there, Susan insisted we needed a church, and we started attending Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. In a new members class, I challenged a small group leader with regard to Christianity. She — and I am so grateful now to God for this — recommended that I read C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity.” God used it to answer every question that I ever had, and by the end of that twelve-week class I had confessed Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. From there, Susan and I plunged into my new-found faith – with the choir, a short-term missions trip to Eastern Europe, chairing an Adopt-A-Family program, and more.
At work, I climbed the corporate ladder, eventually taking a Vice President of Sales role with Nest Entertainment in Dallas, and later becoming a start-up specialist. And all the while, people seeing me speak in public would say, "Have you ever thought about going into the ministry?" While doing work for Integrity Music out of Mobile, I received a dramatic call, and ended up at RTS Orlando 18 months later. I was ordained in 2003 and served four churches in Pittsburgh, PA and then north of Pittsburgh, with the ministry being a role I have referred to affectionately using the old Marine Corps line: "The toughest job you'll ever love."
After Susan passed, God led me to Connie, with whom I was married for almost nine years, until God called her home after a long battle with metastatic breast cancer. What God really taught me in that time was about the privilege of being a caregiver and to learn to love in all the ups and downs that life can deal you.
And it continued to prepare me in my ministry. My last stop was the church I loved the most — New Bedford Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The people and I just clicked, but it was also a season in which many, many beloved members went to be with the Lord. As was remarked to me many times, they needed someone with the losses I had experienced in order to understand and be there for them, to literally walk with them through the valley of the shadow of death. But they also ministered so, so much to me.
In this next phase of life and ministry, God again blessed me, this time leading me to my soul mate, Joanna. She and I have moved to our own home, which we affectionately call our retirement home, in the south hills of Pittsburgh, while she pursues a career in Social Work, working with kids, and I pursue a ministry of Substack, one-on-one discipling, small group leading, and more.
My rich learning from all these varied experiences can be best summed up by the sermon I once did called, “God Through the Rearview Mirror.” In looking back through what may sometimes appear to be a long and winding road, I can see that each checkpoint along the way was part of God’s plan to hone me for ministry, to be used by Him for others, and to experience the twin rails of joy and sorrow that is, well, life. I pray He does the same for you, too, and uses me in some way to be a vessel for that purpose.
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”Ecclesiastes 3:1 NIV
To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.
