About Steve Dennie
People are often defined by their job, so I'll start there. I'm Communications Director for the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, USA. We're a small denomination with about 200 churches in the USA and another 200 in a dozen other countries. I produce most of our printed materials, and oversee our websites and overall internet strategy. That means I do the following:
- Lots of writing.
- Even more editing.
- Plenty of graphic design.
- Web design.
My primary strength is writing, which came in handy when I edited a monthly magazine. But now, I do more graphic design than writing.
Here's some bio stuff:
- Born in 1956 in Huntington, Ind. (hometown of Dan Quayle).
- I attended schools in four states: K-3 in Huntington, 4-7 in Harrisburg, Pa., 8-10 in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., and 11-12 in Tulare, California.
- We moved to Pennsylvania and Arizona to help church plants (both of which had been going a year or so when we arrived). Dad then entered the ministry when we moved to California for our first church.
- I attended Huntington University (Huntington, Ind.) 1975-1979, graduating with a Communications degree.
- I played on my high school basketball and tennis teams, and on my college tennis team.
- I began working at the United Brethren national office in 1978, while still in college, and welt fulltime upon graduating. I became editor of the denominational magazine in 1982.
- I wrote three humor books (with cartoonist Robb Suggs) for Intervarsity Press in the early 1990s.
- Ball State saw fit to give me Masters in Public Relations in 1996.
In the mid-1980s, Pam Mize began attending New Hope Church in Huntington, Ind., while attending Huntington University. We dated for five years, and got married on July 22, 1989.
Pam is a CPA, and one of four partners in a Fort Wayne accounting form, Christian-Souers LLC. We live in Fort Wayne with our two cats, Molly and Jordi.
We attend Anchor Community Church, which started in October 1998. We were part of a core group of about 50 people from Emmanuel Community Church who were sent out to "restart" the former Third Street United Brethren Church. That congregation was aging and declining, but owned a nice, debt-free building in a huge lower-class neighborhood near downtown Fort Wayne. They voted to disband and give everything to Emmanuel, so that the church could undergo a rebirth.
We shut the church down for five months, totally remodeled the place, and opened with a new name, new leadership, and a new vision. We average around 100 people right now. It's a fun place to be.
I play the keyboard in the worship team, and Pam runs the sound. And we've done all kinds of other things in the church.
Career-wise, I've been hanging around and writing about and cheering on churches and pastors for the past 25 years as my denomination's Communications Director.
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