About Us
We (Derrick, Erin, Shelby, and Jake) lived in San Diego for most of our lives before moving to Northern Colorado in 2019. We married in 2004 and have experienced a wide range of life events. From being on food stamps and relying on family members to cover bills to recovery programs and just about every marriage-ending event in between, God’s grace (and His enduring patience with us) has made it possible for us to continue growing as a family.
I (Derrick) went back to school later in life and bounced around a range of jobs (including some time in church leadership). Since 2012, most of my experience has been in sales management, training and development, and change management at a corporate level.
Erin left the workforce in 2012 to be home with Shelby (who was two at the time). During that time, Erin became a birth doula and supported dozens of moms through their birthing experience. Later, Erin became the owner of a birth and family services business in Thousand Oaks, and after moving to Colorado, she returned to school for nursing. After graduating in 2024, Erin took a position as a Registered Nurse and is now specializing in Labor and Delivery.
As a family, we enjoy hiking, camping, family games, yelling, crushing sarcasm, and trying to not kill each other. Like many families, we grapple with school, conflicting calendars, ADHD, anxiety, depression, teenage attitudes, narcissism, and all the other madness that makes a house a home. And we wouldn’t change it for anything.
Front Foot Ministries exists to support people and churches who are searching for more ways to apply Scripture in practical ways and find the power of the Spirit in daily routines. This is not a church, and we are not pastors. Because of this, we strongly support local church attendance and the preaching/teaching of local, Bible-based pastors. We also believe sanctification is the responsibility of the believer, not the pastor. So we want to do our part to support people who want to understand what it means to truly have a relationship directly with their Heavenly Father.
We believe the bedrock of a community is the family, and the anchor of the family is the marriage. Because of this, our most impactful ministry is our marriage program. It’s radical. It’s revolutionary. It’s controversial. But it’s more powerful than any other approach to marriage we’ve ever seen. We attribute our perseverence through our past directly to the principles we teach, and those principles are taken directly from Scripture in a brand new way.
We are a non-profit, charitable organization, which means 100% of the revenue generated from subscriptions, donations, speaking engagements, and any other cost-generating resources go back into the organization in pursuit of our purpose…to see marriages and families find power in applying Biblical principles in practical ways.
What we do
Our Theology
Core Principles
Our faith is rooted in the divinity of Scripture as the sole and authoritative Word of God. It affirms the singularity of God, the deity of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, recognizing Jesus as fully God and fully man, the divine Word who was with the Father from the beginning and through whom all things were made. He became flesh, dwelling among us as the perfect, merciful revelation of God, empowered by the Spirit, living a sinless life, and fulfilling the law in our place. We believe in the mystery of the Trinity—one God in three persons: Father, Word, and Holy Spirit.
Humanity, apart from Christ, is utterly depraved, unable to seek or please God on its own, enslaved to sin, and deserving of divine judgment. Yet, in His unfathomable grace and mercy, Jesus offers redemption. His sacrificial death on the cross is the singular and sufficient atonement for all sin—His blood alone cleanses, justifies, and reconciles sinners to God. Salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone - human effort able to add nothing to the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. Yet that faith is made evident by our behavior. We believe that salvation is a deposit in us in this life through the indwelling Holy Spirit who comforts us, empowers us, and intercedes for us unto the Father on our behalf, and that indwelling will be made full and perfect upon the return of Christ.
While salvation is a free gift through Christ alone, we believe that God, in His perfect justice, will judge the works (both good and bad) of believers, not for salvation, but for recompence. Scripture teaches that each will receive according to what they have done in service to Him. Mercy and the sacrificial blood of Jesus compell us to gratitude, while the indwelling Spirit and new life compell us to works that advance his Kingdom.
Marriage Theology
Throuhout the Old Testament, God the Father tells His people, Israel, that he will redeem her and bring her back to Him. The New Testament describes the redeemed being joined with Christ. We believe these seemingly conflicting messages combine with unity as a part of God’s greater redemption plan He started in the Garden of Eden and will finish in the end. The eternal depth and richness of the interplay between the Trinity, the transformation of the Word to flesh, and the offering of salvation beyond Israel to all who believe is what we believe to be the Great Mystery Paul refers to in Ephesians 5.
This mystery is so unfathomable to our human minds, God (in His generosity) gave us the earthly institution of marriage to help us better understand the redemption story of His people and the relationship that was severed by sin. With this analogy, God uses words we can understand like bride, groom, betrothed, wedding, and others to help us peek into the Great Mystery that is Christ and the Church and the plan of reconciliation. The final reunion of God’s people and the Father, made possible by and through Christ, may be described in Scripture as a wedding feast. But we believe those words are a condescention to our limited ability to understand an eternally deep and meaningful moment.
Further support for the belief that earthly marriage is an analogy are Christ’s words as recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke where he says, “…for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage.” We take this to mean marriage is not about us here on earth…it’s a window into a greater idea that we could never imagine without a more accessible concept.
Therefore, we believe the single greatest purpose of marriage is to serve as an analogy that makes the profound, eternal depth of Christ and the Church more accessible to our human minds while we are here on earth. Companionship, intimacy, and other attributes commonly associated with marriage are the fruit of two people pursuing a deeper understanding of Christ and the Church. Our marriages grow when we dig deeper into the redemption story, and the more we dig into the redemption story, the more we learn about marriage.
Marriage Practice
Believing that marriage is meant to help us understand the power of Christ and the Church, we believe the purpose of a husband should align with Christ, and the purpose of a wife should align with the church. We also believe in a duality for husbands. In addition to aligning with Christ, he is also a member of the body of Christ. As such, he is to represent Christ to his wife as well as be a member of the church.
We draw our practical guidance from the Garden of Eden. God created Adam and told him to cultivate and tend the garden. An unknown time later, God said it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone and said He will create a helper fit for him. This is the role of a wife: helper. God did not say He would create a partner, spouse, companion, or any other common label we use for modern marital relationships. Upon her presentation to Adam, God did not revise his call on Adam. His responsibility is still to cultivate and tend the garden. Eve’s role is to help. Adam is responsible for the garden while Eve is responsible to help Adam in his responsibility. These roles are further reflected in Christ and the Church. Jesus took full responsibility for the work of reconciliation. He did not ‘split’ the responsibility with the church. However, He knew it wasn’t good for him to work alone, so He invited the church to help Him.
Therefore, we believe a husband is to be responsible for everything God has placed under his control (his ‘garden’). And, we believe a wife is to help her husband in his responsibility. Just like God said, “It’s not good for man to be alone”, it’s not good for a husband to labor alone under the full responsibility of his home. He should invite his wife to help him. But if something goes undone, is mismanaged, or is otherwise in need of attention, it is the full responsibility of the husband alone to see to it the home is maintained.
We believe the wife, through careful prayer, spiritual guidance, and wisdom based on Scripture, is to determine what help means. As a daughter of God first, she is free to define ‘help’, and we encourage this definition to be founded on earnest prayer for wisdom and clarity as she will answer for her actions both as a daughter of God as well as how she helped as a wife. Let Proverbs 31 illustrate the depth of help a Godly wife can offer. Further, let this passage illustrate the autonomy available to a wife. She has her own ambitions, goals, and passions, and she contributes to the home. But she does all of this without the burden of the responsibility for the home. This allows her to rest in faith in her husband the way the church rests in faith in Jesus.
We believe the husband is the head of the marriage for the practical reason that he will answer for how he cultivated and tended everything placed under his control. We, without condition, believe in the equal value of life and the inseperable respect that follows both men and women, husbands and wives. A wife is not lesser for being a helper. God calls Himself by the same term (ezer) throughout the Old Testament. Because of these truths, a husband’s headship is not meant to be used to oppress or subjugate his wife. He is to represent Jesus and His interaction with the church and answer for how he fulfilled his responsibility which includes how he nurtured, loved, and cared for his wife the way Christ did for the church.
These beliefs reconcile many passages that may be considered controversial. Wives are to submit to their husbands not because they are considered lesser. They submit because the husband will need to answer for everthing in the home. As such, he should have headship and authority. We are called to submit to each other which means husbands must consider their wives in their decision-making. It’s not good for a husband to manage the home alone. Wives are to respect their husbands, and this call becomes more rewarding when her husband is carrying the full mantel of responsibility. Husbands are to love their wives, and when a wife helps her husband fulfill such a heavy obligation, such love is a natural response.
Front Foot Ministries and associated publications (i.e. Front Foot Minististries Podcast) is a Christina nonprofit organization focused on strengthening marriages and equipping churches through faith-based teaching and practical resources. The ministry serves individuals, couples, and church leaders by providing sturctured content, tools for small groups, and publicly available teaching designed to support healthy, biblically grounded marriages.
For a clearer, factual overview of our mission, services, and partnerships, please refer to www.frontfootministries.com