Our Staff

Preston Trail Community Church staff includes the following full-time and part-time personnel in addition to numerous dedicated volunteers.

Jim Johnson - Senior Pastor
Jim spent 12 years pastoring large churches in the Southeast before returning home to Texas in 2002. While he never lost his Texas state of mind, he valued his time outside the state because it gave him the opportunity to relate to people from different parts of the country. Jim's passion is communicating the unchanging love of God in our rapidly changing culture. For 25 years he has specialized in bringing practical truths from God's Word to people who are new to church or are reconnecting to church after a time away. He received his PhD from Baylor University. Jim and his wife, Robin, have three sons and live in Frisco.

Paul Basden - Senior Pastor
Paul is a native Texan who moved around to Virginia and Alabama before ending up back in the Lone Star State. He met his wonderful wife, Denise, while studying at Baylor University. They have two daughters: Kari, an aspiring musician in Dallas, and Kristen, a student at Quad-C. He enjoys crossword puzzles, sports on TV, movies, books, food (especially chocolate), and laughing. His work at PTCC includes teaching at the weekend services, heading up Life Groups, and working with the greatest staff anywhere.

J. D. Tomlin - Director of Connections
J.D. is a small-town boy from Texas who exchanged his cowboy boots, big belt buckle and ranch life for metroplex living 15 years ago. He and Heather met at Texas Tech University and moved to the DFW area to pursue graduate work, marriage, and ministry. JD’s role with PTCC is in the area of “connections” – serving teams, small groups, partnership process (just to name a few) – and loves helping people connect with one another, with PTCC, and with the God who made them. JD & Heather live in Frisco and are the parents of a pretty decent co-ed basketball team with the roster of Brittainy, Brooke, Brandon, and Bethany. Other than refereeing them, he also enjoys eating anything Heather cooks and watching HGTV with her, traveling, reading, golfing, cycling, and basically any other physical activity that ends with “ing”.

Carla Moss - Director of Planning and Women's Ministries
Carla spends most of her days chasing around her two sons, John and Ethan, and the remainder restocking the refrigerator with meat, meat and more meat. She enjoys date nights with her husband, Matt, and a good babysitter who doesn't mind watching an endless string of Thomas the Train videos. She also likes red wine, long, late dinners with friends and a fresh bag of Funyuns. After searching all over the DFW area for a church, the family finally found one in Preston Trail. "It's amazing to be in on the ground floor and not only watch PTCC blossom, but be able to have an impact."

Jerod Chambers - Director of Video Production
Growing up on a farm in Oklahoma, Jerod got the family's first computer when he went to college and hasn't put one down since. Receiving his degree from Oklahoma Baptist University, Jerod headed down to Waco to produce "Inside Baylor Sports" that aired weekly on a variety stations including Fox Sports Net and CSTV. While working for Baylor, Jerod produced a documentary that was a finalist in the 26th National Telly Award Competition. After 2 years of traveling the nation and interviewing college athletes, coaches, olympians, and Hall of Famers, Jerod and his wife Jennifer felt God calling him in a different direction. Now at Preston Trail, his work is on the silver screen every Sunday. When he's not shooting video, Jerod enjoys reading mystery novels, watching cartoons, and beta testing video games for Playstation.

Brian Holt - Director of Children's Ministry
People recognize Brian from either his voices of the many puppets he performs in Big Time Theater or from his hairstyle – both of which are pretty wacky.   Brian comes to Preston Trail after spending the last 6 years working with children in a local mega church known for its excellent children’s ministry.  This experience combined with his insatiable love for kids gives Brian the vision to take the PT Kids Ministry to the next level.  Brian absolutely adores his wife Amy and three children - Ashlyn, CJ and Lily, as well as his two cute and hairy, four legged children Ginger and Snaps.  He and his wonderful family commute from Lewisville but with the prayers of many and a few miracles from God, he hopes to live in the Frisco area someday.  Brian’s pastimes include being a soccer dad, blogging about his family or dreaming about playing golf. 

Allison Harrell - Director of Preschool Ministry
Allison strives to show children that God made them, God loves them, and God wants to be their friend. As you may imagine, she loves kids. And to prove it, she has four of her own at home – Hannah, Hayden, Ava and Landon. In her spare time she loves to read, bake, sew and try to get caught up with scrapbooking, or just lock herself in the bathroom for a few moments of uninterrupted silence! "I have the privilege of heading up the PT Kids Preschool at PTCC."

Jeri Taylor - Director of PT Kids Elementary
The Basket Lady!  Jeri has worked with kids for the past 20+ years and loves to see children get to know Jesus better and helping them to make the “wise choice.”  Jeri and her husband John have been a part of Preston Trail since October ’04 and part of the launch of Round Up.  When not filling and packing baskets she enjoys playing games, working out, gardening, traveling to visit their 7 children and playing with John. 

Ryan Hairston - Youth Minister
Ryan grew up in the small East Texas town of Nacogdoches.  After graduation, he went to college at Texas A&M for a year and then transferred to Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas to pursue work in student ministry.  This is where he met his beautiful wife Laura.  Ryan and Laura were married on December 18th 2004 and have been living in the Dallas area since.  Ryan has actively been involved in student ministry for the last five years and hopes to be doing student ministry for the next 50.  In his spare time Ryan loves to play sports, hunt and fish, read, and hang out with his wife and two dogs, Bella and Boston. He is also widely known across the state for his Merve the Mailman and Harry Caray impersonations.

Brenda Jacinto - Financial Manager
Brenda Jacinto, aka “Danny and Isaac’s mom”, loves a good hot cup of coffee and a little quiet time. But somehow “quiet” time never happens at the Jacinto household. Brenda grew up down the road in Carrollton, and moved to Frisco in 2005. She married her husband Daniel in 1998, just a few weeks after graduating and receiving her Bachelor’s degree in Accounting. Brenda worked in public accounting early in her career and most recently was Controller for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of North Texas. She aspires to receive her MBA with a focus on Not-For-Profit Management. In her spare time Brenda enjoys hanging out with her boys and hubby doing “boy stuff” like fishing, hiking, and camping. The Jacinto family also enjoys watching movies together and listening to music. She’s known to be obsessed with the weather, chocolate and cute stationery. Go figure!

Laura Hairston - Administration Assistant
After graduating from Hardin Simmons University with a BBS in Communications (no, that doesn’t mean she just likes to talk a lot), Laura came back to her home town, Wichita Falls, where she married the love of her life, Ryan. She and Ryan now have two 'kids' of their own, Boston and Bella (their Yorkies). She is not just good for filing, printing and answering phones, she also sings with the worship team, as well as prepares the creative PowerPoints for the service each Sunday. She is actively involved in the student ministry of PTCC leading a high school girls' bible study, as well as serving beside her husband. In her spare time, she plays the guitar, does her work out videos, or just likes to take a walk around Target.    

Randy Jeter - Web servant
Having toured as a musician around all 50 states, and then some, Randy is convinced that Frisco Texas is the greatest place to live...at least among those without a beach or ski resort. Maybe that's because he loves watching things grow...and having a hand in it, whether it's our town, our church, his daughter, Alyssa, his home landscape, or his web design business, Jeter Creative. Randy is part of our marketing team conjuring up graphics, handling the PTCC web site and email communications and plays bass with the worship band. He is sure that he has known the real-life counterparts of every character on King of the Hill.

Jody Wissing - Director of Visual Arts
Whoever wrote the song lyric, "I'll paint rainbows all over your blues," must have been speaking for Jody. A wellspring of unquenchable artistic ideas and design production, she is responsible for much of the graphics you see at PTCC - logos, lobby signs, message series graphics, mailouts, photography, worship slides, stage sets and more. She is mom to Cole, a future video artist, and Joe who wants to be an artist, builder and eat vegetables when he grows up. Local Starbucks suffered a financial setback recently when she purchased her own latte machine via eBay. Consumate artist, she's on a one-woman campaign to rid the world of beige. Jody was drawn to PTCC because of the creative atmosphere and fun attitudes.