TBI Instructors & Supporters
John Abernethy
John is the Care Pastor at Wildwood Community Church in Norman. He provides pastoral guidance to singles and couples, seeks to lead us as we provide care and comfort to those in and around our body of believers and also teaches and leads adult classes and ministries. He graduated with a B.A. in Communication from OU (1993) and a Master of Theology (1999) and a Doctorate of Ministry (2011) from Dallas Theological Seminary. He attended Wildwood while he was a student at OU and proposed to his wife in the Worship Center at Wildwood! He was on staff at Park Cities Presbyterian Church in Dallas for five years and has been on pastoral staff at Wildwood since January 2001. He and Lori have three awesome children.
Kevin Bradford
Kevin is a native Oklahoman, born in Lawton and born again in Norman as an OU sophomore. At one time or another, he majored in mathematics, engineering, astrophysics, and letters at OU, but has a degree in communications! Afterwards, he earned master’s degrees from Dallas Theological Seminary in New Testament and Cross-cultural Ministries, and a doctorate from Trinity International University in Cross-cultural Theological Education. In 1990 Kevin and his wife, Becca, were sent to Brazil as missionaries, where they trained Latin missionaries at the Word of Life Bible Seminary. After turning responsibilities over to national leadership, he built a team which started a nationwide Perspectivas movement to mobilize Christians and local churches for greater missions involvement. Residing in the US since 2011, Kevin serves as Wildwood’s Global Outreach Coordinator, as well as adjunct professor for Dallas Theological Seminary. The Bradford's have three grown children: Hannah, Sarah, and Christopher.
Mark Burget
Mark is currently an Area Director with Search Ministries in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in accounting in 1976, obtained his CPA license in 1978, and later graduated from the University Of Oklahoma School Of Law in 1979. Mark also attended New York University where he obtained a Master of Laws Degree in Tax Law in 1982 After Law School, Mark joined the Oklahoma City law firm of McAfee & Taft, where he worked for 22 years, spending the last 3 years as the firm’s Managing Director. He joined Search Ministries in 2001. Mark has been married to his lovely wife Elaine for 43 years. They have 5 grown sons, 5 wonderful daughters-in-law, and 9 fabulous grandchildren, with one more on the way.
Preston Collins
Dr. Preston Collins, Executive Director for Union Baptist Association, holds degrees from Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Collins served as a pastor for nineteen years prior to his current position. UBA consists of 76 Southern Baptist Churches in or near Cleveland and McClain Counties of Oklahoma. Together these churches work to strengthen the ministries and leadership of each church, start new healthy churches, and do missions locally and globally. We know we can do more ministry together than separate. Dr. Collins oversees all the ministries of Union Baptist Association. He has served UBA since January 1997. He works to equip church leaders for ministry. He helps churches to improve their ministries by working as a consultant and planning training events. All areas of leadership training are included in his responsibilities. Dr. Collins is excited to see UBA Churches partner with TBI to train small group leaders and disciple makers. Together we are following our Lord's commission to make disciples.
Dagan Flowers
Dagan graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University in 2003, earning a degree in finance. He then joined the college ministry of Student Mobilization where he served for fourteen years helping fraternity and sorority students develop in their leadership, character, and faith. As StuMo campus director at the University of Oklahoma for eight of those years, Dagan and his wife, Krista, managed more than thirty staff and launched StuMo ministries to Pune, Tokyo, and Texas Tech. Dagan, Krista, and their three children continue to call Norman home. Dagan is currently a hearing care practitioner and remains passionate about seeing the next generation of leaders come to know Christ and mature into godly reproducers.
Brian Hayes
Jeff Harwell
Jeff holds the Asahi Glass Chair in Chemical Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, where he has taught since 1982. He and his wife, Joyce, have been married 44 years and have 4 grown children and five grandchildren. In addition to his graduate work in engineering, Jeff received a Master of Divinity degree from Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, Portland, Oregon. He has taught through the Bible multiple times a variety of venues, including small groups and adult classes within the local church. Jeff also serves as an elder at Wildwood Community Church.
Bruce Hess
Bruce graduated from the University of Nebraska with a degree in Broadcast Journalism after originally planning to be a radio disc Jockey. He attended graduate school at Dallas Theological Seminary majoring in New Testament Literature and Greek Exegesis. Bruce and his family came to Norman, Oklahoma in 1979 having been invited to shepherd a very young Wildwood Community Church. He currently serves at Wildwood as Teaching Pastor. Since 1996 Bruce has also had the privilege of serving on the national speaker team for FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaways, and has spoken internationally on marriage and family. For several decades his Bible teaching ministry has been broadcast twice weekly in the eastern European nation of Latvia on Latvian Christian Radio. Bruce and his wife, Janet, have four children, and six grandchildren.
Phil Kemp
Phil earned Master of Science in Biomedical Sciences from the University of North Texas (Denton, TX) and a PhD in pharmacology from Louisiana State University. He has worked in the field of forensic toxicology for over 35 years including 14 years as the Chief Forensic Toxicologist for the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Today, Phil is a supervisory, senior scientist at the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute in Oklahoma City. He also teaches at the University Of Oklahoma College Of Pharmacy and at the Oklahoma State University Health Sciences Center. Phil and his family have been members at Wildwood Community Church in Norman, OK for over 23 years where he has served as an elder, ministry leader, and adult bible class teacher. He is a co-founder and former board chairman of the Eden Clinic in Norman.
Tim Lashar
Tim is the owner of Lashar Home Comfort Systems in Norman. He graduated from OU with a journalism degree in 1987 & was a proud member of the Sooners 1985 National Championship Football Team. Tim came to know Christ while in college through the ministry of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes where he later served on staff. Ordained in 2009, he has taught Bible classes for the last 20 years while also serving as a deacon and elder in his church. Apologetics has become a passion of his, and he regularly attends conferences and is currently enrolled in an apologetics certification program through Biola University. He married his beautiful wife Kelly in 1993, and they have three lovely daughters, Courtney, Jaclyn and Elizabeth.
Mark Robinson
Mark is an Oklahoma native, who has been a part of the Norman community for most of the past 28 years. An OU grad, Mark had the privilege of coming back to Norman to join the staff of Wildwood Community Church 20 years ago. Mark has served the flock at Wildwood in a variety of roles over the years, and became the Senior Pastor in 2016. He holds Doctor of Ministry and Master of Theology degrees from Dallas Theological Seminary. Mark regularly posts to his blog (pastormarkrobinson.com) where he also shares a number of free Bible study books he has authored. Mark and his wife Kimberly have one son, Joshua.
Mike Strauss
Mike is a physics professor at the University of Oklahoma. He conducts research in experimental particle physics using the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, and was part of a team that discovered the Higgs Boson in 2012. Mike graduated with his B.S. from Biola University and his Ph.D. from UCLA. He has been at OU for 23 years and won a number of teaching awards, including being awarded a David Ross Boyd Professorship. Mike has taught many Bible classes to adults and has also served as an elder at Wildwood Community Church in Norman. He has given lectures at universities and churches throughout the world on the relationship between science and Christianity. He is one of the general editors of the Dictionary of Christianity and Science published by Zondervan, and he maintains a blog discussing science and Christianity at www.michaelgstrauss.com. Mike has been married to Julie for over 29 years and has two adult children, Zach and Christy.