I first met Steve at a Midwest Minister’s Fellowship retreat at the Tan-Tar-A resort on Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. It would have been 2001 or 2002. Although I was serving in my second full-time ministry role, it was the first time I had served as a solo pastor and in my late 20’s, I was still very green. At the end of one of the retreat sessions, pastors in attendance were invited to come forward where ministry veterans would be poised to pray over pastors. Not knowing any of the veterans personally, my wife and I randomly picked a line which led us to Dr. Steve Carpenter.
Beyond his welcoming persona, the thing I remember most about that initial encounter was Steve’s prayer. Not the words; rather, I remember having an encounter with God as Steve prayed for my wife and I. There was something different about the way Steve spoke to God. Simply put, his audience was God. He wasn’t speaking to be heard by others who might be listening and he wasn’t trying to indirectly advise me by couching his counsel as a prayer. No, Steve had a way of conversing with God in prayer that maintained an awe-filled sense of reverence while at the same time he seemed to enjoy a deep-rooted sense of fellowship suggestive of life-long friends. Steve had a connection with God that was clearly beyond my experience, but it was contagious.
Steve and I exchanged contact information that night and thus began one of my most rich and formative ministry friendships. Although Steve was in fact a wonderful friend to me, our relationship at this point should more properly be described as that of a mentor and mentee relationship. For example, shortly after our initial encounter, Steve, together with his friend Sam Storms (Steve served on the board of Sam’s Enjoying God Ministries at the time), decided to each take a mentee under their wing and get together on a regular basis for intentional discipleship. I had the privilege of being Steve’s mentee and those meetings in Sam Storm’s living room over the course of a year or so were life-changing for me!
The next season of discipleship between Steve and I came with a different kind of invitation. A church across the street from the Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City was reeling in the aftermath of an affair that had been exposed between the pastor and a woman in the church. Steve was asked to help shepherd the church through this difficult season. Steve accepted the challenge, but he also involved me as a co-interim pastor in this endeavor. Looking back, it is easy to see that ministering in the midst of such a challenging situation was much more for the benefit of me gaining valuable ministry experience than it was about me offering any expertise to the church. Despite my relative inexperience, God used me anyway but the main thing that was happening involved deep inner processing in me. This manifested itself in a renewed commitment to personal holiness in ministry and God was using it to develop an interest in my heart to help churches and church leaders avoid such messes. All the while, the bonds of friendship between Steve and I continued to grow stronger.
It was during the time that we served together to help bring healing to this broken congregation that I was first exposed to Steve’s public teaching ministry. Up until this time my experiences with Steve were characterized by personal interactions or small group settings. In a similar way to the way I was mesmerized the first time I heard Steve pray, sitting under his teaching was unlike anything I had experienced before. It is hard to describe (it is one of those things you need to experience to fully understand) but there was something special and extraordinary about Steve’s ability to mine gems of truth from deep beneath the surface of a text yet make that truth open up in a beautiful, profound and easy to understand way before his hearers. His command of the original languages and especially his keen eye for clues from the literary structure and/or devices of a text were astounding. I would later employ what I learned from Steve during this season in my own doctoral research.
Although I will always think of Steve as a mentor, by this time our relationship had continued to develop and was taking on more and more the sense of a synergistic brotherhood. Steve and Jeannie ate many meals at our dining room table with my young family during our time in Kansas City. When my oldest daughter was learning to talk, she called this grandfather-like character, “Beave.” From then on, Steve was affectionately known to our family as Mr. Beave. In addition to enjoying time together with our families present, Steve and I would often meet at the Lone Jack Cafe to talk ministry shop, share biblical insights, encourage one another and just enjoy our friendship.
Once ministry carried me away from the Kansas City area our friendship continued, but mainly through phone conversations. I could always count on Steve for a listening ear and wise counsel. We kept up the best we could across phone lines and email, but it was always a highlight of my visits to Kansas City to share some in-person time with Steve. During those visits we often met at Perkins for breakfast but ended up leaving with the lunch crowd. We lost track of time nurturing our bond of brotherhood in person.
For me, the loss of Steve is deeply felt. I am forever grateful that the good providence of God placed me in Steve’s line at the minister’s retreat over two decades ago. The mentoring, discipleship and friendship I have experienced with Steve has had a profound shaping effect on me and my ministry. At the moment I am overwhelmed by my significant loss, but next week I will begin discipling a new group of men on Thursday mornings before work and I recently launched a para-church non-profit to encourage and equip pastors. The cycle continues. Steve would be… is cheering me on.
Through thick and thin, Steve showed me the profound advantage that having a friend in ministry makes. I thank God for Dr. Steve Carpenter and pray that God will help me to honor his legacy as I endeavor to pour into others the way he poured into me.
Rest in peace elder brother. I miss you, but I will see you again.
2 Samuel 1:26 CSB
I grieve for you, Jonathan (Steve), my brother. You were such a friend to me. Your love for me was more wondrous than the love of women.