Barry's Presenter Bio

Barry is an international speaker and author on the topic of singleness viewed through lens of the redemptive storyline of Scripture.  He offers a distinctive perspective on singleness that emerges from a unified perspective of the Old and the New Testaments around the person and work of Christ.  As a pastor specifically to single adults in one of Canada’s largest churches, and as a lifelong single man himself, Barry is also intimately familiar with the realities singles face in today’s culture both inside and outside the church.  He has spoken on the topic of singleness in wide variety of international settings including to church groups, in pastoral contexts, in academic settings, and on numerous radio programs.  Barry is a graduate of Wheaton College (BS mathematics) holding secondary degrees in pure mathematics (MS, University of Minnesota), Christian thought (MA, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School), and biblical exegesis (MA, Wheaton College).  He was employed as a Member of the Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories for AT&T and Lucent Technologies for 13 years while serving as a lay leader in single adult ministries at College Church in Wheaton, Illinois.  In 2001 Barry felt a call to begin reflecting biblically and theologically on issues related to singles in the body of Christ.  Exploring these issues in the context of ministry eventually led him to complete his PhD in New Testament studies with the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge with the thesis: Secular Singleness and Paul’s Response in 1 Corinthians 7 (2012).  While completing his PhD, Barry also published a lay accessible biblical theology of singleness entitled: Redeeming Singleness: How the Storyline of Scripture Affirms the Single Life (Crossway, 2010).  Since 2009 Barry has resided in or near Calgary, Alberta, Canada where he is ordained with the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada and has served as Community Pastor of Single Adult Ministries at Centre Street Church for eight years. During the same time period he also served as Adjunct Professor of Theology at Rocky Mountain College in Calgary. In 2020 Barry resigned his position with Centre Street Church to launch the work of SEE Global, a new ministry equipping churches in the theology of singleness and how to minister more effectively to singles. In addition to serving as the Executive Director of SEE Global, he also serves on the executive committee of Shoulder-to-Shoulder, an international organization that develops training tools for equipping missions to address issues of singles and marrieds working together in today’s culture. When he is not hard at work developing new content for SEE Global, Barry enjoys: hiking in the mountains, riding his motorcycle, reading his New Testament in Greek and Latin, hitting the gym to lift weights, reading anything on his Kindle, touring the world when pandemics are under control, and imbibing in excellent coffee with sterling company.