More About Steven
I am the son of Steven Sr. & Betty Pratt and was born into a blended family in the small town of Martinsville, OH. I have three older brothers (one deceased) from my father's side and four older sisters and an older brother from my mother's side. We were not a perfect family, not even a role model of a family, but I think my parents did a great job in raising me! My father was a lost man for most of my life and because of that our family struggled, emotionally, mentally, physically, financially, and spiritually. My mother, on the other hand, was saved early in her life and because of her influence, I was able to go to church. I began riding on a Baptist church bus when I was in the 5th grade and under heavy conviction one Sunday I walked down the aisle and accepted Jesus. Shortly after that, I met the prettiest of God's blessings and who would become, much later on in life, my wife.
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At eighteen I had a plan; marry this girl, go to college, become something, start a family, and live happily ever after. Being raised under the secular leadership of my father, I struggled with my relationship with God. Instead of trying to please God, I was always struggling to please my Dad. Constantly negotiating with God what I wanted to do with my life instead of seeking Him. God provided and allowed me to achieve my plan.
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At the age of 33, I was happily married with two kids, went to ITT Tech, certified in several IT Certificates, became a successful Email Systems Engineer for a well-known bank and was approaching a six-digit income. But spiritually I was backslidden and haven't darkened a door of a church in years. I left my church (BBC Wilmington) because of the tragic death of a friend. My friend Chad went to start a church and one day was killed in a car accident. Chad took me under his wing; not only was he a good friend he was also my mentor. Going to church was a constant reminder of him and I allowed the devil to use that to get me out of the church.
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In November 2013, God placed a verse on my heart. Every morning, day, and night, whenever there was a quiet moment of silence I heard these verses:
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"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
-Matthew 7:21-23
Followed by a question: Do I love Jesus?
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This went on for about a month and then one night after kissing my wife goodnight it happened again. Finally being exhausted of the same thought over and over I threw off my covers and looked at my wife and asked her "How do you know if you love someone?" Imagine the look on her face as I realized I should have stated the question differently. I explained to her what I have been going through and then we started to answer the question. We came up with the following that night.
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Q. How does someone know you love them? A. You tell them.
Q. How do you know if someone loves you? A. They tell you.
Q. What do you do when you love someone? A. You spend time with them.
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So then we applied these questions spiritually.
Q. How do we tell God we love Him? A. We tell Him (Prayer) Except we don't pray anymore.
Q. How do we know God loves us? A. He tells us. (Bible Reading) Except we don't read our Bible anymore.
Q. If we love God and He loves us wouldn't we want to be in church? Except we don't go to church anymore.
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It was that night when Jesus Christ became our Lord and not just our Savior. We decided to put Him first in everything and we wanted to go back to our church, BBC Wilmington. However, we were gone for so long that we thought people wouldn't want us to come back. That Saturday the church hosted a 100th birthday party for my grandmother. We came and two of our church friends invited us back to the church and became our anchors as we came back to church. They really poured into us and made us feel welcomed. We have been back ever since.
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In 2014, the year of our calling, I was determined in my heart to read the entire Bible. I wanted a "know so" relationship with God and was tired of all the false doctrines and beliefs that I learned from tv, movies, books, and others. After several months of reading, a fire burned deep in my chest and a new passion for life developed. I desired to share the truth! I wanted to share the gospel with everyone! The more I did the more the passion grew. One Sunday morning our Pastor was preaching and surrendering to God. That's when God called me into the ministry. Two weeks later my wife and I walked down the aisle and surrendered our lives over to the ministry.
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Learn more about our calling by following our blog posts!
See below for a list of posts related to our calling.