As a young student pastor at Riverside Church in Denver, Wes’s pastor, Rick Ferguson, came back from a missions conference and shared a biblical and statistical perspective about the spread of the gospel to the unreached peoples of the world that shook his worldview.

What was so concerning was that neither he nor the other staff had this kind of teaching and information given to them before! This raised a series of questions that continue to drive Wes’s passion today: “If the mission of displaying His glory and calling worshipers from every nation is so central to who God is, to what He is doing, and to what He is calling us to do – and we as pastors are not even hearing this – how many more are not being exposed to this vital teaching and information?! What if we could “fill the mission pipeline” by exposing students to the missional heart of God via church planting missions and missional leadership training? What if we then unleashed students to join God to “Live the Mission” where He leads them, whether at home or around the world?”

God used this “catalytic moment,” together with multiple international mission trips and 21 years of experience on church staff in student, associate and executive pastor roles to prepare Wes to help launch NEXT Worldwide.

Wes and his wife Colleen have two boys, Sam and Tate, and live in Flower Mound, Texas.