Stephen Ministry

Stephen Ministry offers a proven and effective way to organize, equip, and supervise a team of congregation members—called Stephen Ministers—to provide high-quality, one-to-one, Christ-centered care to people in the congregation and the community experiencing life difficulties.

Stephen Leaders are church staff, lay leaders, and pastors trained to provide ongoing leadership for their congregation’s Stephen Ministry. They are equipped for this key role through the Bridge Leader’s Training Course offered by Stephen Ministries St. Louis.

Stephen Ministers are congregation members trained by their Stephen Leaders to offer care to people who are hurting. A Stephen Minister typically has one care receiver at a time and meets with that person once a week for about an hour.

Stephen Minister training teaches principles and skills that equip you to provide high-quality, Christ-centered emotional and spiritual care to others.
– gives you new insight into the thoughts, feelings, and actions of people who are hurting.
– equips you with relational and caring skills you can apply to all aspects of your life.
– helps deepen your faith as the Holy Spirit fashions you into a Christ-centered caregiver.
– builds a special bond of Christian community and camaraderie among all those in your class.
– is highly interactive, engaging, and a lot of fun!

In Acts 6, Stephen was among those chosen to provide caring ministry to those in need. Since Jesus’ time, the caring ministry has been a hallmark of the Christian faith community.

Stephen Ministries St. Louis is an independent, not-for-profit Christian educational organization founded in 1975 and based in St. Louis, Missouri. For the next few years, the Haugks, along with a few seminary students, traveled to congregations throughout the Midwest and trained Stephen Ministers. The ministry grew and grew, and they looked at how they could best support it for the long term. As it was, they could visit only a limited number of congregations, and these congregations were then dependent on these few visiting equippers to train additional caregivers. So their focus shifted to training the trainers.
The first LTC was held in 1978 with 14 Stephen Leaders in attendance. Today, more than 75,000 pastors and lay leaders have trained as Stephen Leaders.
So in 1978, Stephen Ministries St. Louis held the first Stephen Ministry Leader’s Training Course (LTC) and trained the first Stephen Leaders—lay leaders, church staff, and pastors who then returned to their congregations to recruit, train, and supervise their own Stephen Ministers. Today, more than 13,000 congregations and other organizations have enrolled in Stephen Ministry.