Joey Kemp was born to Joseph and Sandra Kemp on October 2, 1977. He was their first child, followed four years later by a sister, Elizabeth. After his sister and brother-in-law died in a car accident, Joseph Kemp also served as a trustee for his niece, Zina, who was twelve years older than Joey and orphaned when she was nine.

Soon after deciding to start a family, Joseph and Sandra bought a home they could ill afford, and they spent every day afterward stressing over how they could make ends meet. Joseph worked in a machine shop, grabbing every overtime shift offered to him, and Sandra found employment as a secretary in whatever school Elizabeth happened to be attending. After school, Sandra taught piano to children in the neighborhood, leaving Joey in charge of keeping Lizzy occupied and quiet.

Joey did what needed to be done—a lesson he'd learned from his parents—but he acted out whenever he felt free to do so. Teachers soon described him as a troublemaker and negative influence in class, and he was heading towards being expelled until his sixth-grade math teacher, Mr. Miller, saved him.

Mr. Miller managed to reach Joey and find a way to awaken his young charge to a love and understanding of mathematics. For his part, Joey discovered logic, an academic study where things made sense. In the certainty of mathematics, Joey gained a worldview that somehow seemed fair.

While Joey was studying to become an accountant, his father was killed in a work accident, and Joey dropped out of the program to take care of his family, accepting a mindless job in a warehouse to pay the bills. Having lost the sense of meaning he'd only recently found, Joey turned to his cousin, Zina, and followed her example by embracing the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Two months later, when Pastor Martinson mentioned to the congregation that the church was seeking a treasurer, Joey offered to take on the role, seeing a chance to combine his two great loves.