Pastor Steve Storkel ~ Youth Pastor
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I was born and raised in Clinton, New Jersey, a small town in north central New Jersey about ten miles from Pennsylvania. It was there at age 8 that I accepted the Lord as personal Savior while attending our church's Vacation Bible School. After graduating from high school, my Dad encouraged me and my brothers to attend one year of Bible college to get grounded in the Word and to see what God wanted to do with my life. So, I enrolled into Northeastern Bible College in Essex Fell, New Jersey. It was there that the Lord began to work in my heart through classes and through my Christian service, which I chose to do, as a Youth Leader. It was during that time that I began to see the Lord use me to make a difference in the lives of teens. After two years of helping out a youth ministry, the Lord led me to become a part-time youth pastor in a small church a few miles from the school. During that time as a part-time youth pastor, the Lord really began to confirm in my heart that this is where He wanted me to serve Him with my life. After four years of hard work, I graduated with a BA in Youth Ministry with a major in Bible. I was also blessed to meet and court a wonderful young lady, Becky Claar, from Pittsburgh, PA, who would later become my lovely better half and the mother of my three daughters. |
After graduation, the Lord led me to become the pastor of Christian Education at the Immanuel Baptist Church in Utica, NY. The Lord gave us three wonderful years of ministry there and really used that time to shape me and round off my rough edges. It was while we were in Utica that our first daughter, Jennifer Lee, was born. So after three years in Utica, the Lord led us to move with our senior pastor to Boston, MA, to serve as Director of Christian Education and Youth. This new ministry and new challenge was an exciting time for us as we saw the Lord continue to use us. It was here that we also saw our second daughter, Brittany Marie, born. The Lord gave us many great times in ministry and allowed us to develop many wonderful friendships. The Lord also began to develop a greater passion in my heart for student ministry and also began to develop in me better leadership skills. So after six excellent years of ministry, the Lord moved us to a place of great challenge and a place that was an excellent fit for what the Lord was doing in my heart and life. We moved to Pittsburgh, PA, to minister in the First Evangelical Free Church. The Lord blessed our ministry greatly as we were able to focus all of our energies toward youth. This is what I had loved to do. The Lord used us in great ways in Pittsburgh and allowed us to be part of reaching hundreds of teens and allow teens to use their spiritual gifts and talents to serve Him. It was during this time that our third daughter, Sarah Ann, was born.
After about twelve years of faithful service, the Lord began to stir in my heart again and began to challenge me in my comfortableness at the ministry at First Free. So the Lord decided to move us to Berean, to lay before us a challenge of developing a youth ministry that would make a difference in the lives of those involved in it and also in the lives of students in our community. My desire for the youth ministry at Berean is that the Lord would grow it to be a place where students are loved and challenged in their faith and are challenged to be all that God created them to be; to create a place where students take ownership of their faith and really experience a walk with Him. |
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