Steve Cobb, son, brother, husband, father, pastor, and apprentice of Jesus, was born on June 10, 1958, in western North Carolina. He was the oldest of two boys. The Cobb family was a regular church-going family, as were many in those days. Yet, a young Steve Cobb decided at a young age that truth was too important to ignore. It couldn't be assumed by adopting someone else's view of reality. It had to be personally discovered. At a very young age, Steve was a truth-seeker. One day while playing hide and seek, he was 'it.' After he counted and looked around, he was alone and began to wonder about his existence and the fact that one day he would die. Would he no longer exist? It led him to tears and to seek counsel from his father, Earl, who referenced him to John 14:1b-3:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."
He never forgot this conversation or this passage. This journey took him away from the church and from God for many years. He turned to the drug world as a young teenager. By the age of 20, so deeply involved in it, his undying quest for truth led him to great despair (Baptist Press article). Is this all there was to living? If so, is life worth living at all? These questions plagued him on the night of December 12, 1981, as he drove up the mountain to sit in solitude, accompanied with Everclear liquor and quaaludes. The next morning, as had occurred numerous times before, Earl invited Steve to go with him to hear an individual who could relate with Steve and where he was in his life. He sat quietly in the very back and listened to the preacher that Sunday, which happened to be Ted Stone. Ted Stone was a man, as Steve would say, who, "Got his education from Alcatraz." Ted was an ex-con who found Jesus and lived out his remaining years speaking all over America to tell people what Jesus had done for him. Steve Cobb decided that he would go forward and ask Jesus to be his Lord and Savior. In his own words, he had tried everything else. There was nowhere left to turn.
That day changed Steve forever. He decided he would '"give all he was, which wasn't much, to all He is." "All He is" was enough to help Steve remain friends with those still in the drug world, without participating in that world. But, as a result of Steve's devotion to Christ, those friends found little left in common with him and would eventually be estranged from Steve. Because of his love for truth and his desire to understand how to live in this new life, Steve's father introduced him to who would become his mentor and beloved friend, Pete George. For the next four years, Pete would meet with Steve one-on-one in the back dining room of Shoney's to discuss how to live this new life with Jesus. Those years were as formative for him as were his childhood years under his parents' care.
Steve attended the local community college where he would not only receive his associates, but he would also meet the love of his life, Maria Dolder. After battling with the Lord for several years regarding the plans He had for his life, Steve finally surrendered to what God had called him to do: full-time ministry as a preacher. Although many people were skeptical of this decision, Steve was certain this was God's will for his life. He and Maria were married in August of 1987. They packed up everything they had to their name and headed to New Orleans where Steve would attend seminary at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary for the next three years. Seminaries, particularly southern baptist seminaries, are full of preachers, sons of preachers, grandsons of preachers, and the like. This guy, who was in the drug world longer than he was out, found himself in the midst of this new environment which was far different from what he was used to. Steve's confidence wasn't very high and he felt like a fish out of water. After taking the required personality test, the counselor asked him to come in to discuss the results. "Son, on a confidence scale from 1 to 20, guess where you scored? A 3!" Steve welled up with tears and confided in the man, "Sir, I just don't feel like I belong here." With tears in his eyes, the counselor replied, "Son, if anybody belongs here, it's you."
He stayed and completed his Master of Divinity. During that time, they lived in an apartment complex near the campus. Steve managed the grounds of the apartment to pay for their rent and Maria became a legal secretary at a large New Orleans law firm. Steve and Maria always joked about replacing their front door with a revolving door as they loved to fellowship and counsel with friends from not only the apartment complex full of seminary students, but friends they had made from the church they became members of.
Steve had an insatiable love for movies which would remain for the rest of his life. To him, the good movies were those with an honest approach towards the human condition and life without God. He could identify with this angst, which helped him identify with those searching for God. Movies were a big way for Steve to keep his finger on the pulse of the culture: how it was thinking and feeling. The Lord would use that to give him avenues through his counseling, teaching, and preaching to reach out to that same culture with the Gospel. Preaching was his calling, and he had an insatiable hunger to read, especially books about homoletics (preaching). He would read every book ever written about the subject. He became enamored with great preachers such as John R. W. Stott, D. Martin Lloyd Jones, James Montgomery Boyce, Steve Brown, and Jack Taylor. In addition to the influence of great preachers, he was quickly drawn to great evangelical thinkers such as Francis A. Schaeffer, J. P. Moreland, and Dallas Willard.
After graduating in May of 1990, Steve became pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church in Alexander, North Carolina. His first experience as pastor was indelible, yet a struggle. The church was relatively small with only a handful of folks doing all the work. Steve would go door to door inviting people to church. On those cold winter days, he would pray that someone would be home to invite him in so he could thaw out with a hot cup of coffee. Steve not only preached two services every Sunday morning and one Sunday and Wednesday night, but he also led a young married couples class. At a certain point, he decided this model wasn't one that could be sustained. He read Rick Warren's A Purpose Driven Church which changed his entire ministry. He prescribed to Warren's pastor-led staff, staff-led church paradigm which resulted in his small church growing.
During his tenure at Macedonia, Steve and Maria were blessed with two children, Caleb, who was born in January of 1993, and Danielle, who was born in November of 1994. The tradition of movie watching continued as each parent had their own recliner with a child in their lap, a bowl of popcorn, and a drink to wash it all down. Caleb and Danielle were definitely the apple of Steve's eye and everything they ever did was going to be done as a family!
God called Steve to complete his education by pursuing a Doctor of Ministry, which he did through Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Here he sat under Haddon Robinson, one of the most world renown teachers of preachers. After receiving his DMin, Steve was overwhelmed with a dissatisfaction with where he was. He felt the church had plateaued and was comfortable just the way they were. So, what next? Is this it? He spent many hours in prayer. Yet, he continued to faithfully lead Macedonia all the while.
What Steve didn't realize was that God was preparing him to pastor another church in North Carolina. The chairman of the search team, Ken Cochrane, of Temple Baptist Church in New Bern, listened to one of Steve's sermons on cassette tape; and in lieu of the team's agreement, gave him a call. To make a long story short, Steve became the next pastor of Temple Baptist Church, where he would serve in that capacity for the next 15 years.
As pastor of Temple, Steve brought with him the pastor-led staff, staff-led church paradigm, resulting in the small church growing from approximately 150 active members to over 1,500 in a relatively short period of time. By 2002, Steve was preaching three services on Sunday morning alone. With very limited space, enlarging the church wasn't an option: it was a necessity. Relocating was the only solution. Temple made do with the current campus until the church could relocate to its new location. On June 25, 2006, Temple moved to its new Kingdom Resource Center, which was built from the ground up on twenty-seven acres of land. The church continued to grow and prosper.
During this period, Steve's pursuit of truth, wherever it led him, never wavered. He took his calling very seriously and understood exactly what was at stake. As he continued to seek the Lord's counsel in the direction of where he was to lead Temple, his message and ministry would change with it. Many times those changes required hard decisions and unfamiliar territory. Because of the obedience of Steve's pursuit of God's will, the church would adjust with great unity. Sometimes the changes were too much for some and they would leave. However, for every person who left, ten more would join.
The message of the Kingdom was Steve's heartbeat. Steve didn't believe it was just about coming to a building every Sunday to hear a sermon and then go home. Steve believed what Jesus had to offer was a new life now, in His Kingdom. As a result, this new life would radically change us and the world around us. His messages were bible-centered and focused on how to live in the Kingdom of God as an apprentice of Jesus. By doing so, this new life changes us through God's grace, a power that doesn't come from us or this world. It is this grace that transforms, redeems, and reconciles. And what was preached was manifest in what was happening to Temple. During this same time, the church expanded through new ministries. Many of these new ministries were led by many of its members, reaching out and extending this Kingdom to the community in the love of Jesus.
In May of 2011, Steve was diagnosed with melanoma carcinoma and had a spot removed from his shoulder. Although this took him out of the pulpit for several weeks, he was back in the saddle just two months later. In November 2012, he discovered the cancer had spread to his brain and liver. After three brain surgeries, he received radiation plus two series of intense cancer treatment as well as whole brain radiation during the spring and summer of 2013. The treatments failed to eradicate the cancer. It spread and created more tumors in his brain. Steve was given three to six months to live. He treated his diagnosis as he did everything else in his life . . . with intense dedication. He read everything he could about cancer and nutrition, and adjusted his life in a healthy way, in conjunction with much prayer, to see if God would eradicate his cancer. Although the cancer didn't go away, he did extend his life well beyond the doctors' expectancy.
During that time, Steve worked on finishing a book that the Lord laid on his heart to write and began work on several years prior. Unfortunately, he was never able to complete it. Steve Cobb died on June 15, 2014.
Although unfinished, the message that he loved and lived for is contained in the chapters he was able to complete. This site was created to make this very message of God's Kingdom, one that captivated his life, available to everyone. As Steve would say, "You don't break the Kingdom of God, you break yourself up against it." God's Kingdom is ultimate reality. We can adjust to it and experience eternal life now and forever, or we can go our own way and experience what's familiar and expected. Steve didn't believe eternal life was just heaven when you die, but heaven here and now, not by getting you into heaven, but by getting heaven into you. He believed the Great Commission; but not just through preaching or programs, which have their place, but by becoming an apprentice of Jesus, learning how to live the way He would live, were He you. By doing so, this comes with great power. It is the power that transforms us more into somebody who looks like Jesus as well as the power to transform the world around us. This is the Gospel Jesus preached. It is the Gospel Steve Cobb followed obediently. And God supremely blessed Steve's life, albeit short, with signs and wonders that confirmed the very truth he earnestly pursued since he was a young boy.