Steve Wimmer, Senior Pastor

Spouse Name:
Dawn Brady-Wimmer

Married since:
6/6/87

Children Names and Year Born:
Brianna (1989), Sage (1991), Rees (1998)

Where were you born?:
Sidney, Nebraska

On Staff Since:
October 1999

Favorite sport:
college football

Favorite Sport team and/or player:
Go Cornhuskers, baby!

Favorite Food:
a nice, juicy steak, medium well, with a great big baked potato, fresh veggies and large diet coke.

Favorite Flavor of Ice Cream:
Neopolitan (because I have so much trouble deciding)

Hobbies:
running, gardening, reading, and watching really good movies

Favorite artist(s) or musician(s):
I'm going to have to go with the '70's here ... hmm ... How 'bout THE EAGLES

Favorite Actor/Actress of all time:
Morgan Freeman

Favorite Movie:
A Beautiful Mind

Favorite Book:
The Chosen

Favorite Author:
Chaim Potok (author of The Chosen)

Favorite Restaurant:
Okay, I know it's not exactly high class, but I love Baja Fresh (which is a lot like Qdoba, but better)

Favorite Animal:
Lucy, our yellow lab. When I arrive home from the church office, Lucy greets me with a bark, a playful sprint around the yard (to work off all of the excitement) and a whole-body wag (because the tail alone just won't do it). Everybody should have somebody so happy to see them! If I can be half the person Lucy thinks I am, I'll be a pretty good bloke.

Favorite Hymn or Praise Song:
Charles Wesley's, "How Can it be?" ("How can it be that I should gain an interest in my saviors love?" An incredible hymn about God's grace. This is one I want sung at my funeral.)

Funniest and/or fondest childhood memory:
I had a basement bedroom directly across the hall from my older brother. I used to listen to fairly hard rock music (70's!) in my room and my brother listened to classical music in his. A friend of my mom's once asked if all that music coming up from the basement drove her crazy and she said, "Oh, no, it's actually kind of nice. Pat's classical mixes with Steve's rock and it comes up through the vents as Country and Western."

Funniest and/or fondest adult memory:
My fondest adult memory is easily the joy and challenge of working together with Dawn to raise three great kids.

If you were mayor and could change one thing about Alma:
I'd pull out all the stops to bring a Baja Fresh franchise to Alma! Come on, where are these politicians' priorities?

Favorite scripture verse, passage, or book of the Bible:
Hmm, this is a hard one. I'm going to go with Philippians 1:6: "I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus." That gives me extraordinary hope for me personally (God isn't finished with me yet!) and for the church (because the "you" in that verse is actually plural. God who began a good work in the whole church will finish what he started).

Main Ministries:
As the senior pastor, I believe that my first and foremost calling is to equip the people of First Church of God to know and serve the Lord. That means that everything I do - leading, preaching, teaching, counseling, administrating, listening, visiting, fund-raising, etc. - is to equip folks to know the Lord and serve him in their sphere of influence.

Testimony:
I was raised attending an old, historic church in my hometown of Casper, Wyoming. There was some very complicated conflict in that congregation when I was in about the 7th grade, which I used as an excuse to drop out of church altogether. I had some very good Christian friends who represented Christ to me very faithfully in the intervening years, but I didn't begin to respond to God until my senior year in high school, when my wrestling coach, Harry Smothers, invited me to a Bible Study he and his wife Marilyn were leading in their home. It's a long story how I actually ended up going to that study, but the short version is that I went and I witnessed a group of students who really seemed to love one another in a way that I had not seen. I heard the good news about God reconciling us to himself through Jesus in fresh ways. I continued to attend that Bible Study, week after week, and eventually began to attend worship. Somewhere during my senior year, I entrusted my life to the grace of God. The first and most immediate change that took place in my life was that for the first time I could remember, I had a sense of purpose. I certainly didn't have any of the specifics nailed down at the time, but I sensed that my conversion would lead me to an occupation of service. I had a growing sense of a desire to serve others in Christ's name, a conviction that is growing still today.

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a: 200 W. Superior Street, Alma, MI 48801 | t: 989-463-3730 e: firstcog@gmail.com

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