Popovich grew up in Westport, Connecticut. In 1971, he was born again in a dormitory room in Gainesville, Florida.
He graduated with business related degrees from the University of Florida and Sacred Heart University.
While working at secular jobs and raising three children with his wife Sharon in Fairfield, Connecticut, he was an elder at both a Baptist church throughout the 1980s, and at a Plymouth Brethren home church during the 1990s and early 2000s.
As of 2013, he lived in North Carolina and was a member of a Southern Baptist church.