By Cindy Mullet
Ranger-Review Staff Writer
Believing the mission of the church isn’t just to minister to the people who fill the pews on Sunday or who come to weekly Bible studies, David Steinbron, the new pastor of the Evangelical Church in Glendive, is committed to a strong focus on serving the community.
It’s the responsibility of the church to be the center of the community and to be community focused, he explained. Too often ministry is church focused, but looking at the book of Acts and the history of the early church, he sees Christians serving people who were not part of their group.
Steinbron hopes the church can “reach out and be God’s hands in the community” to find community needs and work to meet them, he said, noting that church members have many ties to the community and those connections can be used to reach lives beyond the church.
With six children in his family, two biological and four adopted, ranging in age from 16 to 3, he has a natural interest in the Glendive school system and sees involvement in the schools as one way the church can serve the community, he added.
Steinbron, his wife Renee and children, 16-year-old Stephen, 13-year-old Madelaine, 10-year-old Daniel, 8-year-old Anthony, 5-year-old Addison and 3-year-old Mariah come to Glendive from Iowa where he was pastor of an Evangelical church in Oskaloosa, he said.
Being a pastor wasn’t his first career choice. He had considered going into teaching and worked in television until around the time of the Sept 11 attacks. Reevaluating his priorities after those events, he decided he wanted out of the television business. His wife, who is a nurse, suggested he try ministry, he said.
Steinbron was already working with youth in their local church so this prompt from his wife to expand that ministry was just the confirmation he needed. A random internet search led him to Crossroads College in Rochester, Minn. and two months after his decision to leave television, he started school there.
“Everything fell into place,” he said.
At first, the family looked at relocating to Minnesota but that didn’t prove feasible so he commuted the 100 miles to the college. After graduating, he and his family moved to Hinton, Iowa where he served as pastor of a small church for eight and a half years before being called to a larger church in Oskaloosa, Iowa, he said.
Other than four months in Philadelphia, Steinbron has always lived in small towns. He grew up in a small farm community and decided he wanted to stay in a small town setting to minister and raise his family. He and his wife had always talked about adoption, and after the birth of their first two children, they decided to do foster care and share their love for children with some who needed it. They adopted the first two foster children they were given and then adopted the second two, he said.
After two years in Oskaloosa, he felt a call to make a change but wanted to stay within the denomination and wanted to stay in a small town. Early in their marriage, he and his wife had agreed they would like to live in a western state such as Colorado or Wyoming or Montana so when they saw the Glendive opening they applied, he said.
Their first visit left a favorable impression, even though before thinking of coming to Glendive, they didn’t realize that Montana wasn’t all mountains. Friendliness was one of the big things they noticed. He and his wife both observed it when they visited local stores. Later, one of his sons stopped at yet another store and later commented, “Those are the nicest people I’ve ever met,” Steinbron related.
He had started the application process in July and was hoping everything would be finalized in time for school to start but the final decision wasn’t made until October so the children started school in Iowa. His oldest son, a high school basketball player, came to Glendive ahead of the family so he could start practice. Steinbron joined him a couple weeks later and the rest of the family plan to come on Dec. 17, he said.
Reach Cindy Mullet at
crmullet@midrivers.com