Fr John hails from Ohio. He spent his freshman year of college at Capernwray Bible School in northwest England and completed his undergraduate studies at Columbia International University (B.A. in Bible, Philosophy and Literature; M.A. in Old Testament), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.Div.), and Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible/Ancient Near East). After his doctoral studies, Fr. John served as pastor for two churches in the Free Church tradition, both in southwest Ohio.

In 2001, he and his family moved back to Columbia so he could join the faculty of CIU, where he became interested in Anglicanism. From 2015-2019, he served on the Coverdale Psalter Revision Committee of the Prayer Book Committee. He was ordained to the transitional diaconate in 2019 and to the priesthood in 2020. He brings to his ministry at CotA a wealth of Christian experience, pastoral care, and academic interest. John is married to Diane and they have four adult children, and two grandsons with another on the way! John and Diane enjoy hospitality, hiking in the woods (especially in the British Isles!), watching British TV mysteries, and reading and talking about books. Both John and Diane are passionate about the role of the study of Scripture in a believer’s life, with the goal that the Lord Jesus “may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth” (Collect for Second Sunday of Epiphany) and about the inexhaustible riches in “the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).