Ryan Henson

I was once hopeless living a life that had no purpose, but God showed me that I had hope and that someone loved me. I grew up in a house where my dad was a pastor and my mom was a very devout Christian. I went to church if I wanted to or not. I was exposed to God’s love at an early age and became a follower of him at the age of 7.

Being saved at such a young age brought many doubts in my later years, especially my teenage years. I doubted that I could be saved that young and that it was sincere. I was struggling with sin and thought that there is no way that God could still love me. There were ups and downs all through high school.

At the same time that I was doubting if I was actually saved my youth minister started putting me in leadership roles in the youth ministry. I began to lead worship and teach the junior high boys Sunday school class. As I was leading in these areas I began to feel called to ministry, specifically student ministry. This call was also affirmed by my youth pastor and other adults in my life. I graduated high school knowing that I was going to be a student minister.

After high school I attended Dallas Baptist University to study Christian Studies. However, the doubt that I was actually a Christian was still there in the back of my mind. I struggled my first semester of college, I was at a place where I knew no one and everyone seemed much more spiritual than me.

When I started my second semester of college, I was determined to get more involved. I started to be a small group leader at disciple now weekends through a ministry on campus. That semester I did around 7 or 8 disciple nows and through those not only did I make new friends, but I began to draw closer to God, closer than I had been since being saved. One night when I was reading through Ephesians I got to Ephesians 2 and it changed my struggle of doubting if my salvation and baptism at 7 was real. It made me realize that my salvation was not about me, not about what I have or haven't done, but it was all about God and his free gift for me. This freed me from my doubt and put the pressure off of me to be perfect.

I have been doing student ministry ever since, serving at churches in McKinney, Dallas, Bandera, Fort Worth, Conroe, and Clyde, TX. I have been a student minsister since 2009. I married my high school sweet heart, Jessika in 2011, and we had our daughter, Averi in 2015. I am a graduate of Dallas Baptist University and received my Master's degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.