Biography
Pastor Rodney is an Oskaloosa native. He attended Oskaloosa Christian School and graduated from Oskaloosa High School and Central College in Pella, where he majored in Psychology. Not long after graduating from college, Pastor Rodney left to be a missionary with Operation Mobilization in the country of Hungary. It is there that he ultimately met his wife, Kitty. She is from The Netherlands, and they were married there in 1996. After completing his graduate work in Biblical Theology at Wheaton, and a year-and-a-half pastoral internship at FBC, the couple returned to Hungary, where both of their sons were born. While in Hungary, Pastor Rodney was involved in evangelism, church planting and he directed the ministry of OM-Hungary the last three-and-a-half years. In 2007, when a godly and capable Hungarian was found to take over the work, the family moved back to the U.S. Pastor Rodney has been on staff at FBC since November of that year, ministering initially as the Associate Pastor. In September 2011 he was affirmed as the Senior Pastor.
When asked about his passion for ministering in the church, Pastor Rodney answers: “Our passion is to see people know and love Christ. It’s pretty simple, but because there are so many things that seem to keep that from being an ongoing reality, this is a real challenge. And if we lose this battle we end up with, as someone else said, ‘a Christ-less Christianity.’ So, I see my ministry as helping encourage and equip people to stay faithful to Christ.”
Pastor Rodney enjoys watching a good movie with his wife and also enjoys spending time with his sons. Pastor Rodney likes to run and bike, which according to his own admission “allows him to engage in the other joy of eating more pizza than he ought to.”