About
UPDATE - MARCH 2008 — As we complete our new ministry center, I am moving on from my position as Executive Pastor at Park Community Church, back into the marketplace as the CEO of Fanfuego.com, a social network built especially for sports fans.
I love Jesus, my wife and kids, the city, the arts, the intersection of culture and the church, and everything to do with entrepreneurship (this is my fifth company I have helped get started). My other passion is being part of the movement to reshape our culture through investment in artists and other artistic endeavors.
These are my opinions alone — not of my church, not of my wife, not of my many children (although they come up with some doozies themselves!)….
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Having had a successful marketplace career in accounting, banking and corporate finance, Steve has a background as a serial entrepreneur, and has grown successfully four different companies over the last ten years. He also took his wife Sue on a once-in-a-lifetime, one-year World Tour, covering 25 countries (before kids and a mortgage!) in 1996-1997. Ask him about that awesome adventure – he highly recommends it to all!
As Steve rounded the inevitable 40-year mark several years ago, he began to reflect on the fact that that he has about 20 million minutes (38 years for the mathematically challenged!) left to make his life significant. This blog hopes to chronicle that journey.
Steve now serves as the Executive Pastor at Park Community Church, a growing church of about 1,200 urban energetic folks in the heart of Chicago on the near northside, where he adds his direction and creativity to areas like strategy, information technology, human resources, communications and other cool stuff.
Park has bought a building and is beginning to renovate that building — check out the progress at the Imagine More stewardship campaign website!
Over the last ten 15 years, Steve has had some cool jobs…….Steve helped start Dakota Beef LLC, the country’s largest organic beef company now serving delicious meat through Costco! He also co-founded Envestnet Asset Management, a successful venture-backed financial services firm, which has grown significantly through multiple acquisitions. Steve also served as the VP-Chief Financial Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of American Disposal Services, Inc., a publicly-traded consolidator in the waste services (garbage — yuck!) industry, which was acquired in October 1998. Steve’s also enjoyed his marketplace experience as a money center banker with Bank of America and Continental Bank and more than five years as a CPA with a Big Six firm. He earned his undergraduate degree in accounting and economics from the University of Michigan and an MBA in finance and corporate strategy from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Steve and his wife are active in a number of charities in Chicago, love the theater (including Provision Theater - the best theater company in Chicago), and he and his wife and their four children reside on the northside of Chicago.
Comments»
Hi Steve, chanced upon your personal website. You have lived a life well as yet, and I am sure that the less-than-20-million-minutes shall be spent well-lived as well. I am a hospitality professional of 19 years leaving the rat race behind and opting to reclaim a few years by migrating with my pretty wife of 4 years and a bonny boy of all-of-20-months to the beautiful country that you have described. I had subscribed for all-matter-pertaining to New Zealand through google search and hence came across your website.
I come from Mumbai, India and my younger brother is a Networking (IT) expert holed in Los Angeles since the past 5 odd years.
I leave for Auckland for good (hopefully) on the 18th of next month.
God bless you!!
Sunny
Steve, keep posting away. If anybody can fill those 20Million+, you can.
Thanks for fixing this page, Steve.
I’m interested to see that Park CC is now buying its own building. I was attending Moody Church back when Park first began. I went once or twice to see what it was like but the music was too loud for me
Is there anywhere you’ve written more about going from full-time ministry back into the business world? I’d be curious to read more about that - because it seems to me that people who go into full-time ministry usually expect to stay in it - was that what you thought and did you change your mind? Or did you always think you’d be returning to the business world at some point? If you don’t mind me asking. And just to be clear I’m not asking because I think there’s anything wrong about what you did - I’m just curious about how people make decisions about entering or leaving full-time ministry.