Biography

Erik was born in February of 1978 in suburban Michigan where he lived for two years before moving to Carlisle, Massachusetts. He and his family attended the First Parish of Concord , Unitarian Universalist where the Rev. Dr. Dana Greeley was presiding minister and the future Rev. Lucinda Duncan was DRE.

In 1985 Erik and his family returned to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan where he began to attend school at Cranbrook Kingswood, where he would continue through high school. They also rejoined the Birmingham Unitarian Church where Erik would grow into many roles of spiritual leadership.

Erik began playing trumpet at the age of 9 and would perform throughout high school and college in various school bands. Most notably Erik was awarded the John Phillips Sousa Band Director's Award upon his graduation in 1996 for displaying leadership throughout his career at Cranbrook.

Erik also played basketball for the Cranes and though his athletic career would eventually give way to music and spiritual leadership roles, Erik played against current Houston Rockets star Shane Battier in several key games, and even once converted a four-point play at the buzzer to win a game against a rival high school.

Erik became highly involved in the YRUU Unitarian Universalist youth movement in high school and held numerous positions within his church and the District, including District Secretary his senior year. Co-author of the UUA's first "YAC Pac" adult guide to youth conferences, he and his fellow committee members were recognized at the Michigan District board meeting for greatly adding to the viability and accountability of the youth movement in Michigan.

Erik spent two summers abroad during high school, one year in the Leysin American School in Leysin, Switzerland where he studied French intensively, and the following year outside of Paris in Antony, France where he worked as an intern technician for Symbol Technologies. French-speaking Europe has become a favorite destination for Erik when he is able to travel and has spent over a year of his life there, most recently in 2006 when he took now fiancée Kimberlee Tomczak to experience Paris.

After graduation from Cranbrook in the spring of 1996, Erik moved to Boston to attend the Universalist-founded Tufts University. It was also during this time that Erik got his first guitar and began crafting his skills as an instrumentalist and songwriter. At school Erik studied English and moral philosophy (with an emphasis on comparative religions) and also joined the Tufts chapter of the Sigma Nu Fraternity. Erik lived in the Sigma Nu house for two of his four years at Tufts and still holds some of the friendships crafted there among his most valued.

When Erik graduated from Tufts in 2000, he took the summer to teach himself web design in order to secure better paying job opportunities, and landed a contract position at the now defunct e-StudioLIVE in Chelmsford, MA. After three months cutting his teeth at an entry level position, Erik was hired as a senior technical writer for The-Reference, Inc, in Boston which contracted portfolio management solutions for large investment firms including Putnam Financial.

Erik was laid off in the spring of 2001 and struggled for a while to find decent employment. He had just purchased a condo in the Allston/Brighton neighborhood in Boston, where he lived with his cousin Shannon Carlson until she moved out the next year. Erik founded his first company, Kafui Industries, with a friend Liam Moy from Tufts and built several cold-fusion based websites for private golf courses until Liam landed a high-paying development job at Putnam. Erik began work as a valet soon after and was eventually promoted to weekend manager at the Boston Sports Club facility in Allston.

In 2002, Erik met and moved in with Jonathan D. Craig, a fellow Unitarian Universalist who had moved to Boston in hopes of working at the UUA. Jonathan's technical skills and vision were a good match to Erik's eye for design and user interface development and they founded Revoluution Media in late 2002 to provide affordable and professional technology solutions for Unitarian Universalist and other non-profit organizations. They also developed FUUSE.com which for several years was the center of Unitarian Universalist online community building.

During this period Erik began to write songs, initially as a result of the painful end of his college relationship and then as an avenue to express his frustration for the current political situation in the United States in the new millennium. Erik began playing coffee houses, bars and UU churches regularly and established the first iteration of ErikDavid.com to support his growing performances.

Erik eventually left work as a valet to pursue a more noble course of human service, and started work as a relief employee at several local psychiatric group homes run by the Vinfen Corporation. Erik was able to work with good friends from Sigma Nu Josh Klien and John Saverese at different houses in the Vinfen system.

Erik and Jonathan were instrumental in development of the Church of the Younger Fellowship, the young adult ministry effort of the Church of the Larger Fellowship in Boston, co-authoring and presenting the initial proposal first to the CLF staff and later to the CLF Board and holding positions on the Task Force and Steering Committees that would launch the ministry at GA 2005 in Fort Worth, Texas.

GA 2005 was a watershed moment for Erik: he and Jonathan received the Donna DiSciullo Award for Young Adult and Campus Ministry awarded by the YACM office of the UUA. Erik presided over the CYF booth on the exhibit hall floor where he would meet several people who encouraged him to consider seminary. He also made connections at the Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago where he would apply and be accepted late admission for the following academic year.

Also at GA 2005 Erik connected with and started dating long time friend Kimberlee Tomczak, to whom he is currently engaged to be married and who was invaluable in helping Erik move from Boston to Chicago with very little preparation time.

Erik began school in the fall of 2005 and has excelled at creative ministry projects that incorporate his visual and musical art skills. Examples of his projects at Meadville Lombard can be found on ErikDavid.com in the Multimedia and Music sections.

Erik completed his first unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) for hospital chaplaincy at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago in the spring of 2006, where he delighted in the immediacy and importance of his ministry but lamented the lack of ongoing pastoral relationships with patients. After his CPE Erik was hired on to provide on-call chaplaincy services for Rush University Medical Center and worked several shifts a month through the summer of 2007.

Though Erik tried to find a site for his internship that would not take him far away from Kimberlee who lives in Southern Wisconsin, he was unable to find a suitable match in the area and resigned himself to wait another year before pursuing internship. Amazingly, late in May of 2007 Erik received a request to interview with the Community Church of New Orleans and decided to pursue the opportunity. After only a brief phone conversation with senior minister Jim VanderWeele Erik was offered the position and he accepted. Jim and others have confirmed that the strength of his resume in areas of chaplaincy, counseling and technology outreach were key components to his landing the position.

During the summer of 2007 Erik and Kimberlee traveled to California, Oregon, Kansas, Michigan, and Ontario before moving Erik to New Orleans in August. Though it was a very difficult decision to move 1000 miles away from Kimberlee for the year, the summer became a great opportunity for the couple to bond and think about forming a more permanent tie. At the very same Ontario campsite where they first met in 2003, Erik proposed to Kimberlee and she accepted. Erik and Kimberlee were married at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, WI. Their wedding website is still available at UUsWed.com.

Family

Erik's parents separated in 1997 and have both since remarried, his mother Jean to Mr. Larry Adams in 2003 and his father David to Katriya in 2007. Jean and Larry now split time between their homes in Traverse City, Michigan and Leesberg, Florida. David and Katie live in Irvine, California, where Erik's cousins Shannon and Kim, uncle Hac and grandmother Ellen live closeby.

Erik's sister Kacey lives near Lawrence, Kansas where she runs The Village Witch stone, jewelry and magical arts shop. She and her partners Michael Howard and Russ Bixby live on a farm outside of town with two cats and over four hundred pounds of dog.

Erik's uncle, George Furniss, is a minister from Eugene, Oregon, who spent many years of his life as a hospital chaplain and professor of sociology. He and his fellow-minister wife Sandy are currently in France serving a congregation outside of Paris.

Acknowledgements

Erik knows that he would not be where he is without the dedication and commitments of a huge number of people. In no particular order, Erik would like to thank the following friends and family for their support:

• Kimberlee Tomczak
• Jean and Larry Adams
• David and Katriya Carlson
• Kacey Carlson
• Ellen Carlson
• Rev. George Furniss
• Jonathan D. Craig
• Josh Klien
• John Saverese
• John Contoyannis
• Austin Putman
• David Justin Hartman
• Dori Davenport
• Rev. Doug Gallager
• Tom Cranston
• Rod Schnaar
• Bob Crawford
• Arlice Seibert
• Michael and Marilyn Roche
• Eric Linder
• Sarkis Halajian
• Janet Kapala
• Rev. Scottie McLennan
• Rev. Jim VanderWeele
• Mike Condon
• Michael Phelps
• Jeffry Staw
• David and Jesse Breeden
• Rev. David Bumbaugh
• Rev. John Tolley
• Dr. Mike Hogue
• Rev. Lee Barker
• Revs. Jim and Nan Hobart
• Rev. Karen Stoyanoff
• Rev. Michael Tino
• Will Daily
• Rev. Cristina Wille-McKnight
• Lorraine Dennis
• Denny Davidoff
• Anthony Severe
• Eric Hightower, Esq.
• Burt LaFontaine
• Rev. Del Shinerbarger

To all of you and all who are not listed, Erik would like to say a heartfelt "thank you" for helping form the person he has become.