Ministry
On July 27, 1980, Steve was ordained to the Gospel ministry at First Baptist Church, Dyersburg. In 1978 he became youth pastor at First Baptist Church in Milan, Tennessee, where he served for a little more than two years before beginning studies at Southwestern Seminary. While a student at Southwestern Seminary, he was associate pastor/youth minister at Lake Shore Baptist Church in Lake Dallas, Texas. When the pastor resigned, he was asked to serve as the church’s interim pastor, and six months later the church called him as pastor. The church grew steadily during the next five years, adding an educational wing and renovating the church facility. The church also planted Shady Shores Baptist Church in Shady Shores, Texas, during Gaines’ tenure as pastor there.
After eight years in Texas, Gaines returned to Jackson, Tennessee, in 1988 to serve as pastor of West Jackson Baptist Church. In 1991, First Baptist Church in Gardendale, Alabama called him to be the pastor. For 14 years of his ministry at Gardendale, the church membership grew exponentially. For the Easter 2005, services were held at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center where more than 10,000 people attended.
Read more about this topic: Steve Gaines (pastor)
Famous quotes containing the word ministry:
“the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“The State has but one face for me: that of the police. To my eyes, all of the State’s ministries have this single face, and I cannot imagine the ministry of culture other than as the police of culture, with its prefect and commissioners.”
—Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985)