Our Story
Carl and Candice Kincaid’s story has never been a straight line.
Their life together was shaped early by ministry, discipleship, and a shared desire to know Christ and make Him known. Through Master’s Commission, they learned to see ministry not simply as a profession, but as a life of service, sacrifice, discipleship, and obedience.
What followed was nearly a decade of ministry across the Southeast—and a much harder education than either of them expected.
In roughly ten years, they lived and served in Louisiana, central Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, south Alabama, back to central Alabama, and eventually Tennessee. Some moves were made with almost no notice. One came in the middle of a hurricane just before their wedding because a church needed them immediately. Their honeymoon was sacrificed so they could begin ministry right away.
Again and again, they encountered churches struggling with many of the same problems: unhealthy leadership, financial pressure, resistance to change, misplaced priorities, institutional politics, and congregations more concerned with preserving familiar systems than reaching people.
At times, those lessons came painfully.
They were dismissed from ministries they had poured themselves into. They saw growth become threatening instead of celebrated. They watched finances and tradition override mission. They experienced what happens when pastors are expected to be spiritual leaders, fundraisers, executives, administrators, marketers, and crisis managers all at once.
And all of this happened while life outside ministry was demanding just as much.
Their family endured serious medical crises, financial setbacks, premature birth, the frightening onset of illness in one of their children, and seasons when simply keeping the family together and moving forward required everything they had. At one point, after another painful ministry ending, they sold much of what they owned just to afford a U-Haul and moved into a family member’s basement to recover financially, spiritually, and emotionally.
For a season, they stepped away from vocational ministry altogether.
But they never lost the calling.
Instead, the hard years forced them to ask deeper questions.
What if ministry did not have to depend on constant fundraising?
What if pastors could actually pastor instead of functioning primarily as CEOs?
What if businesses, schools, property, publishing, and other ventures could help support ministry rather than compete with it?
What if the local congregation could once again become a true center of community life—a place people could turn to not only on Sunday morning, but in the middle of a crisis, at an inconvenient hour, or during a season when they simply needed somewhere to belong?
And what if that model could be built carefully enough to reproduce elsewhere?
Those questions eventually helped lead Carl and Candice to Tennessee, where they planted The Abbey and began pursuing the larger vision God had placed in their hearts.
The years that followed were still not easy. They worked secular jobs, built businesses, developed educational programs, invested in property, wrote, served their community, and continued ministry while raising their family. Candice also walked through cancer while continuing to carry responsibilities at home and at the studio.
Over time, what once looked like a collection of unrelated pursuits began to reveal a common purpose.
The businesses create provision.
Education forms people.
Property creates place.
Writing carries ideas.
Public service strengthens community.
And ministry remains at the heart of the calling.
After nearly two decades of marriage, Carl and Candice are still building—not because the road has been easy, but because the vision survived the hard parts.
They do not believe every setback was meaningless. Many of the things they now hope to build were shaped by seeing firsthand what happens when ministry loses sight of people, discipleship, stewardship, and mission.
Their prayer now is that the lessons, scars, opportunities, and years of rebuilding will become something useful: a foundation strong enough to serve families, strengthen communities, disciple people faithfully, and help build an ecclesia centered on Christ rather than merely another religious institution.
The road has changed many times. The calling has not: to know Him, make Him known, and build faithfully in every sphere He gives them.
Faith & Convictions
At the center of our lives is Jesus Christ. Our first calling is to know Him, love Him, obey Him, become more like Him, and make Him known.
We believe Scripture is trustworthy, authoritative, and sufficient to shape how we understand God, family, marriage, discipleship, leadership, stewardship, education, service, and the way we engage the world around us.
We believe faith is meant to be lived, not simply professed. Following Christ should affect how we raise our family, conduct business, educate children, serve our community, use our resources, care for people, and respond when obedience is costly.
We believe the body of Christ is a people before it is an institution. The biblical picture of the ecclesia is a called-out assembly of believers who worship, disciple, serve, bear one another’s burdens, use their gifts, and carry Christ’s mission together.
We believe strong families matter. Marriage, parenthood, discipleship, responsibility, and generational faithfulness are not peripheral issues; they are foundational to healthy people and healthy communities.
We believe stewardship matters. Time, influence, property, money, education, opportunity, and leadership are all things entrusted to us by God. Our responsibility is to use them faithfully rather than merely accumulate them.
We believe truth and compassion belong together. Conviction without love becomes harsh; love without truth becomes empty. Christ calls us to both.
And we believe obedience often requires building differently. We are not interested in preserving traditions simply because they are familiar. Where systems, institutions, or cultural habits no longer reflect biblical purpose, we believe Christians should be willing to rethink, rebuild, and faithfully pursue something better.
Our convictions are not meant to sit on a page. They are meant to shape a life.
Family
For us, family is not one more priority competing with everything else. It is the first place our faith, leadership, and stewardship have to prove themselves.
We have been married for nearly two decades and are raising our now teenage daughters, Carlie and Chloe, with a deliberately countercultural approach to family life and education. We homeschool because we believe formation matters—what children learn, who shapes them, how they think, what they value, and the kind of adults they are becoming.
We believe it is possible to build businesses, ministries, schools, books, properties, and even influence a community while still failing at the thing closest to home. History gives plenty of examples of men who accomplished extraordinary things publicly but left fractured families or no lasting legacy behind them. We have no interest in repeating that pattern.
Our goal is not simply to leave our children assets, organizations, or a recognizable name. We want to leave them faith, wisdom, courage, discipline, discernment, a strong marriage model, and the ability to build faithfully long after we are gone.
That conviction shapes how we work, what we say yes to, how we educate our girls, and how we define success.
If we gain the world but fail our family, then we have failed.
Background & Experience
Our background is broad because our path has been broad.
Both of us have spent years in ministry leadership, serving as ordained ministers, marriage counselors, youth pastors, children’s pastors, assistant pastors, and church planters. Those experiences gave us firsthand exposure to discipleship, teaching, leadership, pastoral care, team development, and the practical realities of building and sustaining ministry.
Outside of ministry, our experience has continued to expand in very different directions.
Carl’s background includes business management, operations, real estate, property services, accounting, bookkeeping, software systems, web development, organizational leadership, writing, curriculum development, and the behind-the-scenes work required to keep businesses and ministries functioning well.
Candice’s experience includes dance and gymnastics instruction, studio ownership, homeschooling, education, writing, publishing, entrepreneurship, and years of leadership in both ministry and family life.
Together, we have spent much of our adult lives learning how to lead people, build systems, solve problems, manage resources, teach, create, and adapt when circumstances change.
We do not see those experiences as disconnected careers. We see them as preparation.
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