Forgiving Forward officially started in March 2009, yet in reality it started when Toni and I were in college. The church we attended together hosted Dr. Bruce Wilkinson at the Sunday morning service. That morning he taught on the prayer of Jabez from 1 Chronicles 4:9-11. Jabez was an honorable man who asked God to bless him, enlarge his influence, keep His hand on him, and protect him from evil. We were engaged at the time and actively planning our future together. We were so moved by the message that we went to the altar together and poured our heart out to God, asking that He would use us together in such a way that everyone would know that He did it. We began praying the prayer of Jabez daily together. A month later, we broke off our engagement, which we now know was the beginning of our training for Forgiving Forward.

Later that summer, after God did work on both of our hearts, Toni and I were reconciled! We were married five months after our original wedding day. We finished college and went to Dallas Theological Seminary for further training and mentoring. We entered into full-time ministry with great vision and a hope for a Jabez-sized ministry. Yet over the course of many years, we suffered deep wounds and very difficult circumstances. It took a crisis, a new friend, and a personal retreat in a borrowed lake house for me to choose to forgive deep wounds that had tormented me over the years. 

When I returned home, I told Toni about what God had done in my heart. We gathered the entire family together and spent eleven hours in one day forgiving old wounds. It was the most transformative day in our family’s history. Three weeks later, I was able to help my dad forgive deep wounds from his life and saw him find freedom right in front of my eyes. The passion to help people forgive and help them help others forgive was birthed in us. I started a deep dive into the Biblical mandate of forgiveness and God began to download key elements of what would become the Forgiving Forward message.

We eventually planted a small church with the first four messages on forgiveness. God did amazing things through that little church with incredible breakthroughs in the lives of people who came through there. I say “through there” because people would come broken and wounded, we would teach them to forgive, then they would go and be reconciled to the church where they came from. We were like a MASH unit for wounded souls.

In our second year as a church, God reconnected us with Dr. Bruce Wilkinson. We hosted him for a series of teachings for a new book he was writing. After sharing our story with him over lunch one day, he looked at us and said, “All you have been through in ministry has not been your ministry. It has been training for your true ministry. Unforgiveness is the number one problem in the church today. You need to leave the local church and go to the big Church to teach it how to forgive and you need to write a book on forgiveness. But don’t just take my word for it, go ask one of your mentors and see if he confirms this.”

I made an appointment for breakfast with Pastor Tom Rowe, who is a mentor and father figure to me. I shared with him what Bruce was suggesting, Tom chuckled and said, “God told me three years ago this is what you were going to do. He also told me to wait to confirm it when you came to me”. 

I went home and told Toni what Tom said. We got on our knees in our special prayer spot on our living room floor and I began to pray. The day was March 19, 2009. As I was praying Toni saw the number “30” flash before her mind and thought “What is this about?” She sensed God say “I trained Jesus thirty years before I sent Him into His ministry.” When I finished praying, Toni asked, “when was it we first heard Bruce Wilkinson teach on the prayer of Jabez and we asked God to use us in such an extraordinary way that we wouldn’t get the credit?” I went to my office and found the notes from that day and discovered it was March 19, 1979! 30 years to the day that God was confirming the ministry of Forgiving Forward.

From that day on, our life has never been the same as God began to answer our Jabez prayer. We moved away from pastoring a local church and began crafting the Forgiving Forward message. We developed a seminar format and presented it to churches. We wrote the book and published it in 2011, and it has been translated into Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, and Korean. We released the Forgiving Forward Home Edition DVD Series in 2012, which has been completed by thousands of people, including incarcerated individuals in over 20 prisons. We have taught hundreds of thousands of people in live events in 10 countries. Toni and I have personally coached over a thousand people in our home and have trained others as forgiveness coaches as well. The Forgiving Forward Freedom Center opened in the fall of 2020.

A pastor friend, after hearing about all the amazing things God is accomplishing through Forgiving Forward, said to me, “God really has given you an Ephesians 3:20-21 ministry. Knowing what you have been through, you would have never dreamed to even ask God for some things God is doing through you!” Thank you Jesus!!!

If you have been impacted by the message and ministry of Forgiving Forward, we are asking you to consider co-laboring with us by making a financial contribution to these initiatives by joining the 3/19 Team. As you just read, March 19 is a significant day for us at Forgiving Forward. Would you prayerfully consider giving, either one time or monthly, some multiple of 319 ($31.90, $319, $3190) to Forgiving Forward? We are praying for people to join our 319 team so we can co-labor to complete all of our current assignments and continue expanding as God leads us forward.