Born in Sacramento, California, Jonathan grew up in a Christian household and was taught the gospel from an early age. He experienced God’s saving grace and believed on the Lord Jesus at the age of 6, and was baptized a few years later. During high school, after having numerous opportunities to preach and teach in his local church, Jonathan began to aspire to the office of elder and prayerfully sought the counsel of his church leaders.
Upon completing his BA at the University of California, Irvine (2015), Jonathan worked several years for the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) before being sent by his local church in 2018 to Louisville to receive theological training at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he would receive both a MDiv (2021) and a Research ThM (2022).
Throughout seminary, Jonathan was a member of Cedar Creek Baptist Church, where he served as a deacon, led a discipleship group, and taught Sunday school, while providing pulpit supply preaching at various local churches in the greater Louisville and southern Indiana regions.
He accepted the call to pastor at Franklin Street Baptist Church in July 2023, began serving bi-vocationally as the church’s preaching elder shortly thereafter in August 2023, and was formally ordained at a joint service held by both Cedar Creek and Franklin Street in January 2024.
In addition to his role at Franklin Street, Jonathan serves as a teaching assistant and writing mentor at Southern Seminary and Boyce College, and substitute teaches for Jefferson County Public Schools. He is the author of Everlasting is His Steadfast Love: The Messianic Macrostructure of the Fifth Book of the Hebrew Psalter (Wipf & Stock, 2026), a contributing author of Dear Aspiring Pastor: Letters from Pastors and Alumni of Southern Seminary (SBTS Press, 2025), and has also written for The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology and Themelios.