Walking Out of Trig: Calling, Seminary, and Steven Nelson’s Path to WBU

In part two of Dr. Stan Norman’s conversation with Steven Nelson, Director of Housing and Intramural Sports at Williams Baptist University, Steven picks up the story as a young electrical engineering student at DeVry in Kansas City, still wrestling with God’s call to ministry. He recounts the decisive moment in a trigonometry class when he stood up, told his professor “I’m not supposed to be here,” withdrew from school, and returned home to work on the farm and in a factory while saving for Bible college. 

Steven shares how the Lord used those seasons of struggle, along with the support of his grandparents, to lead him into formal theological training at Spurgeon College and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary—including archaeological digs in Israel—and ultimately into his current role shepherding students at Williams. 

If you missed last week’s episode, be sure to go back and listen to part one so you can experience the full arc of Steven’s journey from farm fields to the WBU campus.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to this edition of the Life Work Podcast. We are joined again today by Steven Nelson, who is Director of Housing and Campus Recreation here at Williams Baptist University. Welcome, sir.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Last time we had our conversation, we left you getting out of high school, going to college to be an electrical engineer, not really wanting to do that, but your parents were encouraging you to go in that direction. Is that accurate? Insistent, yeah. Insistent, not encouraging, insist. Okay. That's a bit stronger. Stronger word. So you left how home to go off into the world. Where'd you go to school? Where'd you start this? Devry. You went to Devry? Yeah. Is there a campus in Kansas City? Okay. All right. So you you were focused in going to Devry to be an electrical engineer. Yes. When you left home and you went there, what was your frame of mind? What was the status of your heart?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Um you know, Devry started in middle of the summer. So you didn't start at the end of the summer. So I had like a month off roughly. Um I didn't know what I was getting myself into. Uh, you didn't go into a dorm or a resident hall, you went into apartments. And uh my thought was okay, I'm starting this new life, I'm going to Kansas City. Uh Columbia, being 90,000, was a big city, but not Kansas City. And uh it was down there by the triangle, and it was kind of crazy. I'm to be honest with you, as much as I love the sports teams in Kansas City, I did not enjoy my time there. And my mindset was still struggling with God calling me and me rededicating my life and me trying to fight that, and especially with the encouragement of my parents.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

So, how long did you stay at Vert DeVry and wrestle with this before you finally just said, Enough's enough, I'm gonna do this thing, other thing?

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Uh, about a semester and a half. Okay. Got through my first semester, got into my second semester. I was in a it was a math class. I know we were doing some trig. And uh I just I truly believe it was the Holy Spirit came over me and said, You're not supposed to be here. And uh, so I stood up middle of class. Professor said, What are you doing? And I said, I'm not supposed to be here. And I walked out of the class.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

So this wasn't a weekend decision, this was in the middle of trigonometry. Yeah, which I probably would get up in the middle of trig if I have a declaration moment myself, but not for the reasons you just outlined.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Uh what reaction It was kind of this look on her face, and uh I walked directly uh over to the rusher's office, dropped all my classes. Um I'd moved out of the apartment uh for that semester and was renting a room from a guy, packed up everything, moved into a camper trailer on the farm next to my grandparents' house, and uh started working in Nordine, building uh HVAC units and trying to save up money to go off to Bible college.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

So before we get to the Bible college thing, I I want to make a statement, and you tell me if I'm right or wrong here. You didn't go back to your parents when you did this, you went to your grandparents. I'm assuming that there was some intentionality about that move.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Um, yes. Though my dad lived right behind there in a trailer, so he lived in a trailer on the same property. But my connection with my parents wasn't great. Yeah. And so uh my grandparents understood my calling and they supported that. Um they asked me questions, uh, but I worked on the farm, I worked in the factory, I saved up money, and uh there there wasn't a moment of just going and sitting around. It was with a purpose.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

So, what was your relationship like with your parents at that point?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Um my dad was a very rough guy uh verbally, physically, and so uh I'm the only child who ever stood up to him, which is fine. Uh I when certain things were not going the way they should go, I would speak up uh only a handful of times, but I did every once in a while. So we'd never had a great relationship. I made sure I kept that relationship. My mother's side, uh, I was very close to my stepfather. Uh my love for sports started with my stepfather. We had season basketball tickets to Mizzus. So I would talk to them, but I could go months without talking to my mother and do that from time to time, which is not always the most biblical Christ-like thing to do, but my relationship has never really been close.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Okay. So now you're working, you're a working man. Yeah. You're in the factory, you're building stuff, saving money, bankrolling a cash right and left. And did you know where you were going to go at that time, or you just knew you were going to go to a Bible college?

SPEAKER_01 5:10

So I had two ideas. SBU, uh down in Bolivar, Missouri.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

I know where that is. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

I may have had a pilgrimage through there. I know you did. Uh, and Ozark Christian College in Joplin.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

All the strong believers in my high school went to Ozark Christian College. And as a Southern Baptist going to a non-denominational school, I really didn't know uh very much of the theological differences. Uh, because I'm a young guy, right? I visited both campuses, and there was a there was a lot of structure at Ozark, and I knew a lot of those individuals. So I chose Ozark. Okay. And uh there was curfew, there was uh expectations, dress code, all this other stuff. And at that time in my life, because I was still kind of struggling with my walk being close with the Lord, even though I had rededicated my life, I'm still struggling and uh have a lot of good friends who walked alongside of me to help me uh to be accountability partners, to uh just kind of call me out when I wasn't really living for the Lord like I needed to. And so Ozark, even though uh I really honed some of my theological uh uh stances or where I was at theologically lined Southern Baptist, there because I I was forced to defend uh the security of the believer, uh, that uh that baptism is an outward confession of an inward change. Uh, those discussions, the professors treated me great. I I have one that messages me every couple of years, checks on me, asks about me. Uh, and he actually when I left, he actually sat down with me and a couple other professors and said, How are you treated? And I'm like, Professor's great. Some of the students, it was a struggle for them. Yeah. But it was a good time. And uh I met my wife during the time I was going to Ozark. Was she a student there? No, she was at Missouri Southern. Okay. Uh, I had gotten involved with the Baptist Student Union. Um, and got your Baptist fix? Yeah, I mean, I was going to a Baptist church. Okay. My first mentor I met probably about three weeks after getting to Ozark. And in a Emmanuel Baptist in Webb City, Missouri, uh, Bob Warren, great guy. Um loves the Lord, had been evangelism director for the state of Arizona, and uh really was a great influence and a great we'd meet once a week.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Were you involved in church ministry and any kind of internship or staff position while you were at Ozark?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Uh I started as a youth pastor in Cassville, Missouri. Outside of Cassville, Exeter, Missouri. Okay. Um, and did that for a little over a year. That was an eye-opener, first ministry.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Uh, and then ended up in Joplin as they called an associate pastor, basically was a youth pastor.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Uh I had that position. Yeah. Associate pastor, charge of music and youth.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Yeah, yeah. Um, and it was a uh mission church because it used to be a church that had ran 1500 and now is running like 30. Wow. And census closed their doors, but it was a lot of Joplin doesn't you say inner city. There's some rough parts of Joplin, and we are right in the middle of it. And so did a lot of knocking on doors, working with kids in some rough backgrounds, and you know, the ministry and the experience and some of my own thoughts on if you're called to ministry, you may be going to Bible college, but you need to get involved.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Uh, because a lot of individuals think I'm gonna go take all these classes and then I'm gonna get into ministry. You grow while you're doing ministry. You can take classes and they're important to your knowledge and your foundation, but that experience of speaking in front of individuals, of working with individuals, understanding personalities is just as vital as any classroom.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

So you graduate from Bible college, then what?

SPEAKER_01 9:09

I didn't graduate from Bible college.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

So uh met my wife, we got married. Uh, I was taking some extension classes from SBU at the time. Okay. And uh, and then I did some pastoring of some churches, an interim, and we were up in central Missouri, and a friend of mine called me. He was at Midwestern. Midwestern was starting their undergrad. And that's right.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

And uh Spurgeon College?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

It wasn't Spurgeon College then. It was still Midwestern Baptist Theological, the college side of it. Actually, my my degree, my undergraduate degree does not say for Spurgeon College. Uh, but he convinced me to start driving one night a week over to Midwestern. It was a little over a two-hour drive. And so on Monday nights, I drive over there for class and I did that first semester, and uh then got opened a door to do an archaeological dig in Israel. And while I was there, a church contacted me in Kansas City, full-time position, making, and I'm not wanting to focus on money, but enough to provide for my family and more for the first time. Uh, I I had always been surviving on $14,000, $15,000 in ministry a year. That doesn't provide for a family. Um, and so this position opened up and I was able to finish my undergrad there, start my master's, and then God led into another ministry that I finished up while I was working on my master's.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

So you're now in full-time vocational ministry. Yes. And you graduate with your master's. Next step is eventually you wound up in Washington State.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

I did. I did. We had a uh uh a time in Florida for a few years, and then my stepfather got uh colon cancer, and we came back to help out, and so I pastored in Missouri for five years, did an uh stint as an interim director of missions, and God opened a door for us to head out to Washington, just south of Seattle, outside of Tacoma, a small town of 80,000 of Pewallop, uh, Washington. And yes, I know 80,000's not small, but they think it is. Yeah. Uh and uh it was a unique experience being out there. We were right off of a uh Air Force Army base, and it was unique in the sense that it was a moderately conservative area for being that close to Seattle. Yeah. A lot of transplants, a lot of individuals who grew up in the Midwest, the South, and the church. I'd say we were running a little over a hundred. There was 14 of us from Missouri. There were, I don't think anybody from Arkansas, um, but Georgia, Ohio, Texas. Uh, it was a unique church, and most of them did not grow up in the Washington area.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

How long did you serve there?

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Two years.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

And while you were there, the Lord had another pit. So up to this point, how many churches full-time have you served as pastor?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

As the senior pastor, uh three, I think.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Including the Washington church?

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Including the Washington, it may have been four. I'm trying to add them up in my head right now. Four. Four full-time senior pastor, full-time associate pastor at another church.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Okay. There was another major pivot on the horizon for you where you're serving as the senior pastor of this church, and that major pivot was what?

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Was coming to serve here at Williams.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Okay. Uh I knew that, but I I wanted to hear. Yeah. So that's a that's a pivot. That's a big pivot. So looking back at that, what prompted you to and we're grateful that you did. Don't I want to be affirming absolutely in this? I'm glad you are here, grateful to God for the pivot. That's a big pivot. It is. So tell our listeners just a little bit about how the Lord redirected your path, and then I want to talk to you about how you're viewing your current ministry context in terms of the thread of God working in your life up to this point.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

See, I view Williams as where God was headed for years before that. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Because let's unpack that.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Uh, because everywhere I served, even um, even in Trenton, Missouri, when I was pastoring for five years, I was serving on the on the board for a Baptist student union, working with college students. When I came back to Missouri and I'm pastoring this church in uh in Kirksville, Missouri. And when I got there, they had had a a college ministry that had fallen apart just as I got there. And for a year there was no college ministry. And I had a couple seniors I had been working with and talking to. I'd met with a group of boys once a week at at Wendy's and paid for their breakfast. And one of them was ready and says, Where am I going next Sunday? I don't have a Sunday school class. And I said, You will. And so I started that Sunday school class. Started with two of us myself and this kid. Next thing you know, we're running 15 students within a year. And uh we were about two blocks from the campus. We had individuals who were a lot of college students coming to our second service. And uh that ministry, I truly believe was helping prepare me for being here at Williams. Also, while I was out in Washington, I was teaching college age class in Sunday school, and all of that work I really think was preparing me to be here at Williams. And then when um I don't know how much you want to get into how God introduced me to Williams. Uh well, yeah, let's briefly, because I do want to get into a question. I'll keep it quickly. Uh quick. Um an alum of Williams, Chris Hicks, was him and his wife were neighbors to us in seminary. Uh, and actually, their daughter and son-in-law came here, Lucas and Sherry Smith, and they were also neighbors. So we all lived in the same apartment complex and played games together, hung out. Uh, our uh the Hicks are like grandparents to our daughters, and so every year at the Southern Mattress Convention, we spend time together. It's like family reunion, and we eat together, we always have a couple nice meals, and then of course, just talking about what's going on with the convention. And he knew that we were starting to have grandkids back in Missouri, and he knew we'd been praying, you know, we'd only been out in Washington for a couple years. We loved the weather out there, we loved the area and the people we were working with wonderful individuals. But when you start having grandkids, it changes everything. It does. And so we are sitting on Monday or Tuesday, I think it was Tuesday, and he goes, I want to introduce you to somebody. And he'd already had a conversation with Brett Cooper. So he walks me up, walks up and introduced me to Brett Cooper and says he's got a couple jobs. This is at the SBC. Is that the SBC? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Last year?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Uh two years ago. Well, uh was it last it had been last summer? Yeah, last summer. All right. Feels like it's been a lifetime ago. Uh and so Brett and I start talking, he starts talking about two different positions that are open, and I get on and I look at it and I go, one of them I could do, but I really don't see that as uh not my personality. Yeah, I I I could do it, but but the director of housing position really intrigued me because I was like, I've my wife and I have flipped houses throughout ministry to help make some extra money. Uh I grew up on the farm. I've helped build houses with my uncle. So there that experience, that construction background, I was like, right there. But also the fact that a lot of people would ask me when I took this position, why are you leaving ministry? I'm not leaving ministry. I have a ministry on this campus. I get to invest in students' lives, and it is a blessing. My wife and I thoroughly enjoy it. As stressful as it is sometimes, it is a blessing to get to know these students.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

You know, I I have an adage that has been so directive for my life, a nugget of wisdom from a man that I have respect, consider him a mentor, even though I never worked with him or for him. He had a saying that God wastes no life experience. So without putting words into your mouth, I guess I might be doing that. Growing up in a broken, blended family experience, growing up in a farming ag community experience, growing up in a hard working environment, growing up part of that, not a context of faith, then moving into a context of faith, growing up thinking you were going to, or your parents wanted you go to one way, but feeling a call to go in the other. All those different threads, all those maybe say better said, tributaries flowing into the river that is now your life, looking back, how do you see those different things? And you alluded to it. How do you see those different things preparing you for this calling, this vocation, and this place?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

It's integral. Without it, I wouldn't be prepared. Um there's definitely a learning curve switching from pastoral ministry into the ministry here on this campus.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Um and yet you're pastoring and shepherding even in that.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Right. And it's I've had I've I've even had conversations I've been here. They're like, people who want me to come and pastor their churches. There's been a couple conversations, and I'm like, I don't feel like that's where God has me right now. The pastoring, the mentoring, the the shepherding, the the investment into the lives here. I see the experience of pastoring churches, knowing it and getting to quickly assess who individuals are, where their spiritual gifts are, and being able to find individuals to do the work that needs to be done here on campus, whether it's uh RAs or ARDs and uh putting those relationships and building those relationships, that experience as pastoring taught me how to build those relationships, but also to notice when somebody's struggling. I've had a few different experiences with some of my RAs and a few others where you just tell something's not right and you go, Hey, what's going on today? Are you okay? You know, and them being able to open up and have those conversations. Um I I I I don't know, always know exactly how I come across to other individuals, but I do believe that um God has given me the ability and my wife, because um while my calling is not my wife's calling, she's definitely in the ministry with her. Uh I don't know if you notice this on uh on during the week. We try to sit with, especially my RAs. I do notice that is the time sharing meals where we can connect with them and know what's going on in their lives. And it's something that we're trying to do, have Sunday night uh meals, maybe not every single Sunday night during the school year, but we've tried to do that the first semester last year. We're gonna make it a at least making twice a month where we get together on a Sunday night. I make a meal and we sit down with them and we just see what's going on with them. We encourage them. Uh, we talk to them about their walk and and what God is doing in their lives because being an RA is a ministry. Um the passion and love for physical labor started on the farm. Continued through uh flipping houses, through other work that I've done. I I when you're a pastor, there are times things need to get fixed in the church. Yep. And if you can do it, you gotta do it. Um and um, like I said before, my wife and I travel, we enjoy life, but at the same time, uh there's a something rewarding about the physical labor along with the intellectual side of uh ministry. And so putting those two together really comes together here at Williams in my position, and I thoroughly enjoy it. When uh Dr. Foster started talking to me about being an adjunct professor, it was a fulfillment of a dream. I actually have a uh one of my mentors goes, How's it feel? And I said, I love it. Yeah, uh, because uh I get the intellectual side, I get the physical labor. Uh there are definitely some late nights. Um, there are some times that uh uh and and I'm not the kind of person who can sleep in. So I save all that time up to, you know, maybe head out on a Friday and head up and go see my grandkids and uh just take time for family at other times. But uh we are blessed that both our girls are are uh out of the house, have their own kids, married, and so we have a little more freedom. And we my wife has said this before. She goes, I feel like God opened the door for us to continue to. And uh both of us feel very blessed. Living in the girl girl's dorm in the apartment there is is unique. Yes. Uh, I actually had to buy a sound machine, so at night it's a little, you know, uh we can sleep, uh, but it's enjoyable to be able to walk out our front door and have some conversations. Um, when we had the snowstorm this last year, crazy things happened, but it was it was awesome to be here on campus during that time.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

I'm really glad the Lord led you here. And I'm glad that the tributaries of your life have so well prepared you for this platform, for this calling, this vocation. Thank you for your work here. Thank you for joining us today as a guest on our podcast. I hope it's been encouraging to our students, to your fellow employees, and to the Broader Williams community. You're making a difference.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Thank you.