Before his time as an academic, he served in associate and youth ministry roles in Greater Atlanta and as a lead pastor for congregations in Nottingham, England as a British Methodist Ministery.An ordained United Methodist Elder of the Mississippi Annual Conference, and a designated Minister in Residence at the Church of the Village, a United Methodist Congregation in Manhattan, he preaches and leads worship ecumenically in local churches and for larger ecclesial bodies nationally and internationally (“both off and on screen”). He also holds various positions of leadership in national and international guilds of liturgy and homiletics and has published several articles, book chapters, and book reviews in each field. His books are Music and the Generosity of God (Palgrave, 2017) and A Worship Workbook: A Practical Guide for Extraordinary Liturgy (Abingdon) with co-author with Khalia Williams, Assistant Dean of Worship and Music at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Gerald sits on the Board of Visitors of Vanderbilt Divinity School and the Board of Artworks Trenton, New Jersey, a local community arts organization that hosts the largest arts festival in the state of New Jersey and whose focus is professional and educational artistic development in the hard-knock city of Trenton.