Steve Trader

Well he had already been involved for quite some time in ministry at his church Steve Trader entered into pastoral ministry latter in life (after 23 years in the pharmaceutical industry). Steve explained to us some of the challenges that he faced working in management and living a Christian life style before he started a church plant. One of these challenges comes from the HR aspect of his career. He talked about how it can be difficult interacting with employees when they have to be let go or anything else that negatively effects them because Steve was unable to be completely up front with them.

When Steve felt the call to leave his Job and enter in to full time ministry things were going great for him at his job, which made it harder and harder to leave. Because he knew it was what God wanted him to do he took an opportunity to leave his company during a restructuring and began preparing to plant a church. Because of where Steve was coming from and his credibility he had a unique opportunity to plant a church in an upper income area where the people are often leery. Steve pointed out that everyone everywhere has problems whether it is in the inner city or nicer suburbs.

Steve’s church grew quickly. He said that it had a lot to do with hospitality.  When the church began they put a lot of their budget towards hospitality, which greatly helped to give a good impression. Twice a month they would have meals after church for members of the church to bring their friends to. Steve and his wife would also go out to dinner with visitor that came back to the church a second time. Now that the church is much bigger they are unable to do that as much but they still work hard to provide a pleasing experience to guests.