When I look back over my journey of faith, I can see how God worked through the powerful influence of my parents. When I was 8 years old, my dad got his first ministry position and became a youth pastor at Peaceful Believers Church in Fort Meade, Fla. Both he and my mother still live and work there today.

After moving around to several different places in the Midwest, my family landed outside of Chicago in Naperville, Ill. I was the oldest of three, and my brother, Marcus, and sister, Candace, and I all grew up loving the sport of basketball. Some of our favorite memories are from basketball trips to gyms all across the U.S.

While our family was close, we didn’t have much of a spiritual life. We went to church for Easter, Christmas and weddings, but that was about it. Looking back, I can see that I definitely had a Christ-shaped void in my heart.

“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)

Grand Island, N.Y., is a small community where everyone knows each other. It’s on an island between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, and it’s where I grew up. My parents still live in New York and my dad, Cal, actually serves as FCA’s state director, and my mom, Sherrie, is his administrative assistant.

From a spiritual perspective, my parents raised us according to the Christian norms that were prevalent in the late ’60s, but we never went to church, and I didn’t have an understanding of what it meant to have a relationship with Christ. I had a reasonably good moral compass, but it wasn’t grounded in the truth of Scripture. We sought to do good to others and do the right things, but we were more of what you’d call “happy pagans.”