Dr. Michael Stephens
Director of Leadership Ministries and Northwest Area Minister: Serving the Harmony, Harrisville, Little Kanawha, Panhandle and Parkersburg Associations
Cell: 304-488-0140, 800-879-9822 or 304-422-6449
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Born in 1948 in Parkersburg, West Virginia, Mike Stephens grew up on a farm at Washington, West Virginia - the same property on which he and his wife, Sherry, now live. Mike majored in Agricultural Engineering at West Virginia University until his call to ministry in the spring of 1968. Transferring to Alderson-Broaddus College in the fall, he majored in Social Sciences, graduating in 1970.

That year, he married the former Sherry Wieland, a 1969 A-B nursing graduate. During his three years at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, he served as youth pastor at FBC Mt. Holly, NJ and then at Upland BC, near Chester, PA. Sons, Scott (1971) and Tim (1972) were born.

Completing his Master of Divinity in 1973, Mike took his family off to pastor Arcade, New York's First Baptist Church in NY State's dairy country southeast of Buffalo. After 15 months, Mike resigned to move to Springville, New York, where he worked with an inter-denominational youth ministry called "Celebration."

Daughter Julie was born there in 1975, and in 1977, Mike moved his family back to West Virginia, where he worked bivocationally in home improvement and briefly in youth ministry with Broadway Baptist Church (Parkersburg), before serving as pastor and contractor of Belleville Baptist Church (Parkersburg), where he led construction of their first building in 1980.

In June of that year, he moved to Bristol, West Virginia near Salem as pastor of Enon Baptist Church (Broad Run). In 1981, daughter Rachel was born. It was also during this time Mike and Sherry served as foster parents to seven children in addition to their own four. Mike also completed his Doctor of Ministry to Marriage and Family degree in 1987.

That year, he also moved back to Parkersburg as pastor of Baptist Temple (Parkersburg), where he served until 1996. As Northwest Area Minister since that year, and now as director of Leadership Ministries and the West Virginia Baptist Convention School of Christian Studies, Mike feels privileged to serve the Lord as part of the West Virginia Baptist Convention team, empowering churches to be Christ honoring communities of faith and enabling them to do together what they cannot do alone.

He and Sherry are proud grandparents of grandsons Kyle, Brandon, Josh, Ty, Isaac, and granddaughter Shayla.