Joe was born in San Angelo, Texas, to devout Christian parents. The family moved to Midland, Texas, when Joe was in the first grade, and that remained home until his graduation from Midland High School.
Activities of Joe’s teen years centered on church, music, and speech. Fascination with rhetoric, debate, and drama, coupled with church involvement, led to an early start in preaching. Sunday evenings frequently found him speaking for small, country churches while he was still in high school.
Joe attended Abilene Christian College on a band scholarship, planning to chart a career in music. But the influence of his parents, college professors, and peers tugged strongly, leading him to change his major from music to Bible. During his last two years of college, and into post-graduate work, he preached on Sundays for a small church in Central Texas.
After graduation Joe, now married, accepted the invitation of the church in Anton, Texas, to become their fulltime minister. Twelve years and three moves later found Joe and Alyce, along with their two sons, at the well-known 3,000-member Broadway church in Lubbock, Texas, where they spent twelve happy and productive years.
While ministering at Broadway, Joe became obsessed with finding ways to get the message beyond the walls of the church, thus being drawn to media ministry. He guided the church into weekly radio and television programming, and founded Pathway Evangelism, a print ministry. He also accepted the request to join the Herald of Truth team as a featured speaker on their nationally-syndicated television program.
The demands of administering the affairs of a large church, while producing messages for print and television called for a choice to be made. Reluctantly, Joe resigned a work he loved, relinquishing his duties at Broadway in order to devote full attention to Pathway, a course he has maintained ever since.