Hi, I'm Chris

Why this work

I spent most of my career building technology for its own sake — or at least for the sake of a career. That changed in January 2025, when an experience I didn't expect led me into the Catholic Church.

What followed was a realization I still sit with: nothing in a person's story is wasted. The decades I spent in software development, the specific skills I developed, the way I think about systems and problems — it was formation. Formation for this: building in genuine service of the Church.

Believe it or not, I didn't write software until about a year and a half ago — starting with simple scripts built alongside AI tools. That quickly expanded into something I hadn't anticipated: multiple AI development environments, the tools barely keeping pace with the ideas.

As the work grew, so did the needs around me. Parishes wanted better ways to reach their communities and get information to parishioners. The Knights of Columbus needed a digital presence that honestly shows what men of faith actually do together in the world. The tools followed the need.

Good software can be an act of service. A parish volunteer coordination system means someone shows up when they're needed. A liturgical calendar tool means a family prays together. A well-built site for a faith community means people find their way to something true. I care about doing this work well because I believe it matters — not abstractly, but concretely, in the lives of real people in real parishes.

The work

My projects range from parish volunteer coordination (AgapeNest) to liturgical calendar tools to gaming utilities. The thread running through them is intentionality — each one is built to solve a genuine problem for a real community, not as an exercise in technology for its own sake.

I also serve as the web developer for St. Mary of Anacortes, my primary parish, and for the broader Catholic Islands parish family.

The stack

I work primarily in TypeScript and Python — Next.js on the frontend, with Node.js backends and Postgres where persistence is needed. I reach for the right tool for the job rather than collecting frameworks, and I care deeply about shipping things that are maintainable and genuinely useful.

Spirit Ignited

In the months following my conversion, I found myself writing prayers — handwritten, unplanned, arriving at unexpected hours. Sitting with the kids. Pulled over on the side of the road. Kneeling in an adoration chapel at two in the morning. I didn't know what they were for beyond the moment that produced them.

Then I felt prompted to do something I hadn't planned: take one of those prayers and turn it into music. I followed that prompting. One act of obedience opened a door.

Photography has become part of that offering too — bringing a visual layer to the music and ministry work that words and sound alone can't always reach.

My Cup Overflows is the first result — a 14-track dark atmospheric trip-hop album documenting my conversion arc from darkness through Easter Vigil baptism, available on 60+ streaming platforms. In Sadness We Grow follows as a folk and singer-songwriter companion, exploring grief, loss, surrender, and the grace that can only be seen looking back.

The project exists to reach people who are still in the dark. Contemporary music — trip-hop, folk, the sounds of the culture we actually live in — can carry ancient truth into places that are harder to reach otherwise. That's what Spirit Ignited is for.

Both albums and my artist page are at spiritignited.com.

Get in touch

If you have a project idea — a digital tool that could serve your parish, diocese, ministry, or faith community — I'd love to hear about it. Good software, built well, can be a genuine act of service.