By Kris Freeman of Revolution Church
As part of a servant leadership course, I was asked to write an autobiographical essay about servant leadership. Here is my submission. Thank you for those leadership influences in my life and thanks for reading.
Spending a large portion of my life in public speaking, the word “introduction” carries much influence and responsibility. I introduce others with commendation, so how would this same courtesy be applied in my life as the recipient? In this essay, it is my privilege to evaluate the influences that have shaped my leadership, as a husband, father, pastor, friend and a servant. This is my life story, my introduction.
My journey is shaped by influential men and women, which are servants and models for leadership. My influences are developed by faith and morality, and founded in biblical scripture and developed by discipline to focus my principles and priorities.
My wife, Jennifer, and I have been married for 19 years in September. We have two children, Madison (14) and Noah (12), and our daughter is a freshman, and son is entering the seventh grade in White House, Tenn. I am the founding pastor of Revolution Church, a short-term missionary, and a public address announcer. I hope to use this foundation to show influences that shaped me to my opportunities to bless others.
I was born September 7, 1975, at Nashville Memorial Hospital to Carl Ray and Glinda (Biggs) Freeman. The first child of my parents and first grandchild on either side of my family, I grew up in the rural farming community of Cottontown, between Portland and White House in northern Middle Tennessee. My maternal grandfather, the late Cloyd D. Biggs, owned a construction business and commercial farming operation, growing tobacco and raising chicken and milking cattle. My parents divorced at my age of eight-years-old, and my mother remained in our childhood home on my grandfather’s farm. This is where my work ethic and moral compass was shaped. She was a model of perseverance and faith.
A deacon for 57 years until his death in 2011, “Grandpa” was my greatest father figure. It was in his yard where my brother, Corey (born in 1980) and I learned to play baseball with our three cousins. By the age of 12, each young man was capable enough to milk cattle, drive a tractor, and raise an entire crop of tobacco. No baseball happened until chores were complete, but the yard was filled with games until the sun had long set. Our evenings were spent with my grandmother Edith feeding her “grand boys” more food than we could consume, and in the den floor watching the Dukes of Hazzard.
My father and mother both remarried to their current spouses in 1985. The relationship with my dad was both difficult and distant, but has been rebuilt in adulthood to a positive influence. My step-mother, Elaine, has one daughter. My step-father, Lanny, has three daughters. So, in total, I have one biological brother, and four step-sisters. I saw my paternal grandparents, the late Murlin and Viola Freeman, mostly on holidays and did not have a close relationship with them. My grandmother Viola is the only remaining living grandparent, and is in long-term care with dementia.
There are three primary leadership influences in my life: my mother and grandfather, the two I would combine; my pastor and my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. My story is written with the influences of my maternal grandfather and mother. Each was instrumental in my single greatest life-changing event. At the age of 15, I was diagnosed with type one diabetes. This was discovered while staying with my grandfather in the hospital following his heart attack and bypass surgery. A nurse notified my mother of symptomatic behavior, and I was diagnosed the next week.
Despite a transition and discipline of my health, my grandfather’s influence of work ethic did not diminish. In the year of 1992, I raised my own tobacco crop and earned my first wage, as he recovered. I was a junior at Portland High School. Because of the discipline placed in me by my mother and my grandfather, I graduated high school in 1993, graduated Volunteer State Community College in 1996 with an A.S. Communications/Broadcast journalism, and earned a job as the sports editor and news editor of a Gannett Inc. newspaper in Sumner County. I am now completing my educational journey 21 years later at Trevecca Nazarene University, and have a goal to obtain my bachelor of arts, masters and doctorate in a four-to-five-year span.
My mother claims she used to listen to me sit in front of the television or radio, and mimic the voice of my childhood idol, Jack Buck, on KMOX 1120 radio, the home of the St. Louis Cardinals. Speaking came naturally to me. At the age of five, I stood on stage at my home church as my grandfather served as the song leader. He taught me the courage, confidence and discipline to be bold in front of others, and my mother balanced this with the humility and dignity of treating people well, and overcoming odds to succeed. She worked the majority of her life as a caretaker for children and assisted-living senior adults.
By college, I was calling baseball and basketball games, and that is where I met my wife. Jennifer was the station manager for WVCP 88.5. We met at my senior prom, but I do not remember it. She graduated the same year from Gallatin High School, and I was the first person she ever dated when we went out for the first time on February 18, 1996, just four days after I bailed on a blind date to ask her. We married on September 26, 1998 at my home church, Halltown General Baptist.
She is the reason, however, I met the second-greatest influence. I worked 40 hours a week, coached baseball and attending church was not a priority, though I had given my life to Christ at the age of 11. But Jennifer insisted we attend church together, and her family attended a Church of Christ with no music. I was a musician, like my grandfather, and bypassed a music scholarship playing trumpet in college to become a broadcaster and journalist. We compromised to find a church together, which was new to both.
The church pastor was Rev. Rudy Braswell at Mt. Pleasant General Baptist Church in Portland. A nine-year veteran of missions in Honduras, he was a model servant and we asked him to officiate our wedding. He visited my home, asked me to lead music for the church, and I informed him I was sensing a greater calling. Two weeks later, in January, 1998, he was fatally wounded in an auto accident in Honduras. I had written a six-page letter to him, and in March, 1998, I announced my calling as a minister of Jesus Christ and preached my first sermon.
I was ordained into full ministry and went to work at Halltown as a youth pastor. I quit my job in journalism and completed a three-year, inter-denominational ministry school. Our daughter was born October 7, 2002, and we moved to Lewisburg, Ky., to pastor my first church from 2003-09. Following the servant influence of my pastor, I followed the call of God into the missionary field as a church planter, and we launched Revolution Church in White House on September 12, 2010. Noah was born February 21, 2005.
Discipleship is a progression, becoming more Christ-like and developing Godly principles. I have spent my life as a servant of others, volunteering for roles as a chaplain, coach, board member and president of the White House Area Chamber of Commerce. I continued to serve as a volunteer for White House High School in three sports. Our son, Noah, was diagnosed with a hip disease in 2010, and I reduced my role at the school to focus on family and church. Noah made a full recovery in five years.
When I think of my mother, my grandfather, my pastor and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I see a pattern of sacrificial service for the betterment of others. I see humility honor, integrity and discipline. It was following this model that I served as a short-term missionary to Jamaica four times, to Niger in West Africa once, and led a 16-person team to recover Oklahoma residents from the nation’s largest tornado in 2013.
Serving matters, and it does because people matter. No one person or influence modeled this more than Jesus when he said to his disciples: “But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant” (Luke 22:26, The New Living Translation).
The media career I thought to have left behind came full circle two years ago, when I was named the public address announcer for Vanderbilt University men’s and women’s basketball – a paid position which allows me to continue to serve as a pastor, full-time. God tied the loose ends of my life together.
Jen is not just an influence to me; she is rather, my hero. A sacrificial woman with poise, determination and honor, she has worked full-time outside the home for the entirety of our marriage to provide insurance benefits and income. She is a mom, my servant-leader and the model of who I desire to be by how others have shaped me.
I am a husband, a father, a pastor and an announcer. I am a servant, because I am a disciple and have been instructed by Jesus to love my fellow men and women. So, with this declaration, I now hope for my greatest introduction as I meet my God.
“Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities” (Matthew 25:23, The New Living Translation). If I am known as a servant of others, may then God and my family be pleased with me.
Kris Freeman is the pastor of Revolution Church in White House which meets at 3644 Highway 31-W in White House, Tennessee, at 10:15 a.m. each Sunday.
My journey is shaped by influential men and women, which are servants and models for leadership. My influences are developed by faith and morality, and founded in biblical scripture and developed by discipline to focus my principles and priorities.
My wife, Jennifer, and I have been married for 19 years in September. We have two children, Madison (14) and Noah (12), and our daughter is a freshman, and son is entering the seventh grade in White House, Tenn. I am the founding pastor of Revolution Church, a short-term missionary, and a public address announcer. I hope to use this foundation to show influences that shaped me to my opportunities to bless others.
I was born September 7, 1975, at Nashville Memorial Hospital to Carl Ray and Glinda (Biggs) Freeman. The first child of my parents and first grandchild on either side of my family, I grew up in the rural farming community of Cottontown, between Portland and White House in northern Middle Tennessee. My maternal grandfather, the late Cloyd D. Biggs, owned a construction business and commercial farming operation, growing tobacco and raising chicken and milking cattle. My parents divorced at my age of eight-years-old, and my mother remained in our childhood home on my grandfather’s farm. This is where my work ethic and moral compass was shaped. She was a model of perseverance and faith.
A deacon for 57 years until his death in 2011, “Grandpa” was my greatest father figure. It was in his yard where my brother, Corey (born in 1980) and I learned to play baseball with our three cousins. By the age of 12, each young man was capable enough to milk cattle, drive a tractor, and raise an entire crop of tobacco. No baseball happened until chores were complete, but the yard was filled with games until the sun had long set. Our evenings were spent with my grandmother Edith feeding her “grand boys” more food than we could consume, and in the den floor watching the Dukes of Hazzard.
My father and mother both remarried to their current spouses in 1985. The relationship with my dad was both difficult and distant, but has been rebuilt in adulthood to a positive influence. My step-mother, Elaine, has one daughter. My step-father, Lanny, has three daughters. So, in total, I have one biological brother, and four step-sisters. I saw my paternal grandparents, the late Murlin and Viola Freeman, mostly on holidays and did not have a close relationship with them. My grandmother Viola is the only remaining living grandparent, and is in long-term care with dementia.
There are three primary leadership influences in my life: my mother and grandfather, the two I would combine; my pastor and my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. My story is written with the influences of my maternal grandfather and mother. Each was instrumental in my single greatest life-changing event. At the age of 15, I was diagnosed with type one diabetes. This was discovered while staying with my grandfather in the hospital following his heart attack and bypass surgery. A nurse notified my mother of symptomatic behavior, and I was diagnosed the next week.
Despite a transition and discipline of my health, my grandfather’s influence of work ethic did not diminish. In the year of 1992, I raised my own tobacco crop and earned my first wage, as he recovered. I was a junior at Portland High School. Because of the discipline placed in me by my mother and my grandfather, I graduated high school in 1993, graduated Volunteer State Community College in 1996 with an A.S. Communications/Broadcast journalism, and earned a job as the sports editor and news editor of a Gannett Inc. newspaper in Sumner County. I am now completing my educational journey 21 years later at Trevecca Nazarene University, and have a goal to obtain my bachelor of arts, masters and doctorate in a four-to-five-year span.
My mother claims she used to listen to me sit in front of the television or radio, and mimic the voice of my childhood idol, Jack Buck, on KMOX 1120 radio, the home of the St. Louis Cardinals. Speaking came naturally to me. At the age of five, I stood on stage at my home church as my grandfather served as the song leader. He taught me the courage, confidence and discipline to be bold in front of others, and my mother balanced this with the humility and dignity of treating people well, and overcoming odds to succeed. She worked the majority of her life as a caretaker for children and assisted-living senior adults.
By college, I was calling baseball and basketball games, and that is where I met my wife. Jennifer was the station manager for WVCP 88.5. We met at my senior prom, but I do not remember it. She graduated the same year from Gallatin High School, and I was the first person she ever dated when we went out for the first time on February 18, 1996, just four days after I bailed on a blind date to ask her. We married on September 26, 1998 at my home church, Halltown General Baptist.
She is the reason, however, I met the second-greatest influence. I worked 40 hours a week, coached baseball and attending church was not a priority, though I had given my life to Christ at the age of 11. But Jennifer insisted we attend church together, and her family attended a Church of Christ with no music. I was a musician, like my grandfather, and bypassed a music scholarship playing trumpet in college to become a broadcaster and journalist. We compromised to find a church together, which was new to both.
The church pastor was Rev. Rudy Braswell at Mt. Pleasant General Baptist Church in Portland. A nine-year veteran of missions in Honduras, he was a model servant and we asked him to officiate our wedding. He visited my home, asked me to lead music for the church, and I informed him I was sensing a greater calling. Two weeks later, in January, 1998, he was fatally wounded in an auto accident in Honduras. I had written a six-page letter to him, and in March, 1998, I announced my calling as a minister of Jesus Christ and preached my first sermon.
I was ordained into full ministry and went to work at Halltown as a youth pastor. I quit my job in journalism and completed a three-year, inter-denominational ministry school. Our daughter was born October 7, 2002, and we moved to Lewisburg, Ky., to pastor my first church from 2003-09. Following the servant influence of my pastor, I followed the call of God into the missionary field as a church planter, and we launched Revolution Church in White House on September 12, 2010. Noah was born February 21, 2005.
Discipleship is a progression, becoming more Christ-like and developing Godly principles. I have spent my life as a servant of others, volunteering for roles as a chaplain, coach, board member and president of the White House Area Chamber of Commerce. I continued to serve as a volunteer for White House High School in three sports. Our son, Noah, was diagnosed with a hip disease in 2010, and I reduced my role at the school to focus on family and church. Noah made a full recovery in five years.
When I think of my mother, my grandfather, my pastor and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I see a pattern of sacrificial service for the betterment of others. I see humility honor, integrity and discipline. It was following this model that I served as a short-term missionary to Jamaica four times, to Niger in West Africa once, and led a 16-person team to recover Oklahoma residents from the nation’s largest tornado in 2013.
Serving matters, and it does because people matter. No one person or influence modeled this more than Jesus when he said to his disciples: “But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant” (Luke 22:26, The New Living Translation).
The media career I thought to have left behind came full circle two years ago, when I was named the public address announcer for Vanderbilt University men’s and women’s basketball – a paid position which allows me to continue to serve as a pastor, full-time. God tied the loose ends of my life together.
Jen is not just an influence to me; she is rather, my hero. A sacrificial woman with poise, determination and honor, she has worked full-time outside the home for the entirety of our marriage to provide insurance benefits and income. She is a mom, my servant-leader and the model of who I desire to be by how others have shaped me.
I am a husband, a father, a pastor and an announcer. I am a servant, because I am a disciple and have been instructed by Jesus to love my fellow men and women. So, with this declaration, I now hope for my greatest introduction as I meet my God.
“Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities” (Matthew 25:23, The New Living Translation). If I am known as a servant of others, may then God and my family be pleased with me.
Kris Freeman is the pastor of Revolution Church in White House which meets at 3644 Highway 31-W in White House, Tennessee, at 10:15 a.m. each Sunday.
