“God has slowly revealed my calling to me since I committed my life to Christ at 12 years old.
“I grew up learning about the faith alongside my parents, who began following Jesus around the time I was born. Soon after I believed in Jesus’ death and resurrection for the forgiveness of my sins, my sixth-grade teacher asked us about our dream job.
“I said I wanted to be a pastor of a church when I grew up. She encouraged our class to study someone who did our dream job. I selected Martin Luther King Jr. and ended up memorizing his 'I Have a Dream’ speech to deliver as part of my presentation. The more I studied his life, the more I explored the intersections of faith, pastoral leadership, meeting the needs of both the one and the many, and caring for the unseen and marginalized.
“God was clearly doing something in my life that I couldn’t know or put together myself.
“In high school, I threw my life into athletics. I knew what people expected of me outwardly as someone who had committed their life to Jesus, but behind the scenes, I was struggling with my identity, throwing it all into achievement, pride, insecurity, and people pleasing. I was living for myself, and I viewed people as a means to an end.
“I spent a lot of time with my teammates at school, practice, and events, but outside of that, our day-to-day lives and family situations looked very different socioeconomically and spiritually. This was amplified even more in my experience with college teammates, and I often wondered, Why do our lives look so different?
“I had a season-ending track and field injury my freshman year of college, and God introduced me to a group of men who believed Scripture, boldly applied it to their lives, lived out repentance and accountability, and were authentic in their faith. I had never seen anything like it. I confessed sins I had kept hidden for years and fully surrendered to Christ. God used those men to radically change my life, including how I viewed myself and others.
“After college, I married my wife, Kelsey, and completed my MBA. There, I fell in love with what God could do through Christ-following business owners who had God’s kingdom in mind. I worked in the for-profit marketplace throughout my 20s, maintaining this same zeal, and was discipled really well by men (many of them Watermark members) who showed me how to be a faithful follower of Jesus, faithful employee, faithful leader, and a faithful husband and father. But part of me was wrestling with God. I thought about the desires and gifts God had given me and felt like he wasn’t really using them, like nothing was happening.
“Then, God suddenly connected all the dots when he called me to help start Watermark Community Development Corporation (Watermark CDC). He showed me how he put the pieces together, from 12-year-old Carson wanting to pastor a church, to high school and college Carson seeing the tangible needs of his best friends, and young professional Carson becoming more passionate about how communities flourish when business excellence meets missional impact. Everything God had brought me through made sense. This is what he had been preparing me for all along.
“Watermark CDC is an independent nonprofit organization closely affiliated with Watermark Community Church that seeks to remove economic barriers in Dallas by providing opportunities for financial empowerment, job training, and economic development. There are incredible organizations specializing in relief and rehabilitation across our city, so Watermark CDC specializes in development and empowerment for those who want to take the next step. We provide initiatives focused on financial education, matched savings, job training, career coaching, and business owner support, all with the transformative power of the gospel at the center.
“God has done so much in the first five years at Watermark CDC. The very first gentleman who ever worked with us trusted Christ in prison and came to us after a nine-year sentence with $100 and a bus ticket. After a year and a half of Financial Catalyst (financial education and matched savings course) and learning practical strategies to apply what God’s Word says about stewardship, he was able to buy a house. Now, he’s a manager in his workplace, has reconnected with his family, owns a second home that he rents for additional income, and is discipling people in his hometown. That’s not just business excellence; that’s the transformative power of God.
“That’s the heart of Watermark CDC: dignity (Genesis 1-2), development (Jeremiah 29:7), and discipleship (1 Thessalonians 2:8). People’s worldviews change when they realize they have dignity, work isn’t a curse, and God has given them gifts, skills, and talents to use in the world for his glory. People understand the gospel when they realize the debt they owe God for their sin is far greater than any earthly debt they owe, and the credit they receive in Christ’s righteousness is far greater than any earthly sum they could receive.
“Seeing Watermark CDC’s staff and volunteers use their gifts, skills, talents, and expertise to train and disciple others to understand and deploy theirs is not only a beautiful picture of being a missional, unifying, and community church in our city but also of God’s people at work for his glory.
“This is God’s work, and we have experienced exponential growth in the number of people he's bringing our way—more than we have the capacity to support. God is changing lives through Watermark CDC and the kingdom-minded businesses we serve, and he has so much more in store. Who knows, he might use Watermark CDC to connect the dots in your life too.”