Steve was born and raised in Grand Rapids, MI where he enjoyed a lively childhood of camping, big pet dogs, and a large extended family. Steve joined the CCSM staff in January 2008. Steve holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Pacific School of Religion and a B.A. in sociology from Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Steve is responsible for designing and implementing the Senior High youth ministry program, developing affinity groups within CCSM, and creating events to connect with community. Steve lives an active lifestyle participating in triathlons, downhill skiing, and exploring the great outdoors.
Steve has had numerous experiences on outreach trips throughout the United States and Central America. He is a board member for the North American Interfaith Network (www.nain.org) working to promote interfaith relationships.
The most influential life experience that continues to bring me back to my call to ministry was my horrific car accident at the age of sixteen. During my five weeks spent in an in-patient rehabilitation facility, I had a roommate who was of the same age and who had also been in a serious car accident. The miracle for me was that I recovered quickly and was able to return to a normal life, while my roommate remained alive, but in a semi-vegetative state. I am still perplexed, and have often felt guilty, that I recovered while this other young man did not. The exact cause of my accident was never determined, while my roommate's life was significantly altered as a result of being hit by a drunk driver. I found myself asking, "Why me, God? Why do I get my life back and he doesn't get his? Why have I fully recovered and he has to suffer for doing nothing wrong? Where is the justice?"
In my early twenties I lived with intense chronic pain for over three years. Doctors could not find a cause or explanation for it. This pain was slowly eating away at my quality of life. Yet my relationship with God grew deeper during this experience as I learned how to carry on in life amidst great pain and suffering. I now felt connected to my anguish and that of others. Similar questions were raised for me while sharing a room after my first accident. However this time the tables were turned and I was the one with unexplainable suffering. In the midst of living in some of life's biggest questions I learned the transformational power of ministry, of letting go and trusting God.
This experience has made me wrestle with questions around how I live my life and take care of myself. The conclusion that I have come to is that life is a gift. Everyday I am alive my life is a gift. Not only my life, but everyone's life is a gift. Upon making this realization, I feel I have a responsibility to cultivate this gift in myself so that on a daily basis I strive to protect, cultivate, and share the miracle of life.
My calling to build bridges between people is rooted in my experience as a middle child of three brothers. I often found myself as the mediator between different viewpoints within my family, social groups, and leadership situations. Through various mission and life experiences I have been exposed to cultures and religions different from my own. As a mediator, I am often able to see things from different perspectives. My goal is to open doors once blocked by ignorance or fear, thereby allowing people to connect to each other. I understand my call as helping myself and other people reconcile injustice in the world in order to create a world where all religions are working towards the shared goal of loving your neighbor as yourself.
My primary leadership experience in ministry has been connecting and working with youth and young adults. Ministry is about recreating the positive influences we have in our lives in the lives of others. Following God's leading I took a position as youth director of Genesis United Methodist Church in Grand Rapids, MI. Genesis church and I were a perfect match. Over three years I established and ran separate middle and high school ministries for the church and built life long relationships. While in seminary I worked with the Interfaith Center at the Presidio establishing an interfaith young adult group that met once a month to discuss shared values and do work projects with Habitat for Humanity. I also brought together an interfaith high school group of 30 students to participate in the United Nations World Environment Day where we created an internationally published document to help other students become more environmentally conscious.
Another influence in my journey of faith has been my involvement with interfaith organizations. I had the opportunity to work with indigenous cultures and people, in Guatemala, Hawaii, and the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. I have since revisited these places that have so vastly shaped and influenced my life. Through these experiences and my one-year full-time internship at the Interfaith Center at the Presidio in San Francisco I discovered how interacting with different religions helps one to go deeper into exploring one's own faith. I have been involved with the Interfaith Center as a volunteer since my internship ended two years ago. In my work with them as a volunteer I continue to create new programs that seek to connect youth and young adults from different faith traditions. I now serve on the board for the North American Interfaith Network, which connects interfaith groups throughout North America and sponsors an annual conference to celebrate and share resources. Within interfaith dialogue, I have learned valuable skills that I can carry into any ministry team I work with including conflict resolution, appreciative inquiry, and non-violence training.
It is my responsibility as a Christian and ethical human being to cultivate the divine gift of life in myself and others, which is for me the true meaning of social justice. As Jesus shared his life in his ministry and death, it is essential for me to share my gift. Not only do I have a responsibility to share this call to social justice and cultivate this gift of life within myself, I have a responsibility to help cultivate it in other people and in the natural environment. If I do not appreciate life in all its forms, I am likely to take it for granted, abuse it, or completely destroy it. Our society is increasingly becoming aware of how all of life is interconnected. I believe that faith is about accepting responsibility that there is a relationship between ourselves, humanity, the natural environment, and God.
As a pastoral minister I look forward to the opportunity to nurture God's Spirit within all people. I am entrusted with the sacramental gifts of baptism and communion to assist in this divine calling. Through sharing and growing in the Christian lifestyle, I will work with my community in providing the vehicle for internalizing our faith so that it may become an external expression of our daily lives. This is done through lifting up the value of doing inner work by offering education and encouragement for journaling, reflection, reading, spiritual friendship, meditation, and prayer. My leadership style is to work alongside people and not rule over them. I work best cooperatively with my colleagues and in collaboration with my community.
Mary Anne Williamson said, "Everyone is born to make manifest the glory of God that is within them. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone." I know that I have the gift of divine life within me. I have the choice to cultivate, celebrate, and create in myself and in others this divine gift. Jesus is always there, nudging me to cultivate something greater in myself, other people, and in the natural environment. In light of surviving my accident and being able to participate in ministry through the years, I truly believe God's Spirit and divine Glory is present in every moment of life. I have a choice: I am either a part of that glory, or I am silent and inactive and consequently a part of the cycle of despair and isolation that cuts us off from our Creator. God gives us freewill and the foundation to cultivate and create a world that reflects God's Glory. As a church, we are called to stand with the late Martin Luther King, Jr. who said, "An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity." We proclaim this statement as our ministry for the individuals who make up our community and for our community itself.
