The Man in the Arena

Ethan has led 5 Bridges Church since September 2022. Before entering full-time ministry, he spent roughly 16 years in the U.S. Air Force as a Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) specialist, and later served as young adults pastor at Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola. He holds a Master of Divinity in Apologetics and a Doctor of Ministry in Theology and Apologetics from Liberty University, and hosts the Battlefield Theologian podcast. He was nominated to lead the Florida Baptist Pastors’ Conference and ran for second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2026. He and his wife, Dianne, with whom he co-authored a study of 1 & 2 Peter, have three children.

Rod is a technology entrepreneur, investor, and futurist. He was a member of PayPal’s pre-IPO startup team (the so-called “PayPal Mafia”), serving as senior advisor and special counsel to founder and CEO Peter Thiel. He later served as policy director to Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and was elected president of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies three times. A former officer of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, he serves on the board of trustees at Criswell College and the board of governors of the Council for National Policy. Fox Business has called him a “tech guru” and The Guardian a “philosopher-capitalist.”