A Personal Testimony from Dr. Steve

My walk as a Lutheran began in 2012, some 495 years after Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the eve of All Saints' Day. Through the McMurray Rotary Club in my hometown of McMurray, PA, I had become friends with a local pastor, Rev. Dr. Jamison Hardy. He invited me to serve as the physician on a mission trip to South Africa in October 2012, and I went with him again in May 2013.

I remember that first trip clearly. After a seventeen-hour flight to the other side of the planet, we worshiped first at a Lutheran church in Soweto, and I have never felt quite so alien in my life. We then drove four more hours into the rural landscape of Dirkiesdorp, Mpumalanga. It was beautiful and it was poor, and while I served, I honestly had no idea why I was there. God was working in me anyway, and I tried to pray and meditate on all of it. I volunteered at a local clinic, seeing patients with HIV, fevers, and many other conditions, and then went back to the manual labor of our work at the local creche, which supports a day care program for the beautiful, happy children there (they sang "Amen" for us on our second trip). All of this was in support of the Themba Trust.

I came home changed, and so did my work. I began serving my own community in different ways and with a different sense of meaning, building up an annual Winter Boots for the Homeless street medicine project with my Rotary Club, with help from Pastor Hardy, who went on to earn a doctorate in sustainable development. The following spring I went back to South Africa. Over those two trips Pastor Hardy became a trusted friend and confidant, and I began asking him about my own faith. Until then, my faith had been a story of false starts, fears, and doubts, shaped more by feeling than by understanding. Soon after, I joined Peace Lutheran Church in McMurray (website, YouTube). My faith has grown since then, especially once I began attending every Sunday and keeping a daily practice of Lectio Divina. Today I serve as an elder under my pastor and dear friend, Rev. Justin Schmidt.

It was a long road to get there. I was baptized and catechized in the Presbyterian Church, and I often went to Mass with family, taking my grandmother on Sundays or gathering for funerals. Still, I never felt I understood the church or the sacraments, and I had no idea what a devotional life could mean. I poured myself into learning and work instead. In private my thoughts drifted toward agnosticism, sometimes close to an intellectual atheism, and I tried to keep every door open. I judged myself harshly and others too quickly, and churchgoers often seemed pious or even hypocritical to me, when I knew how far I was from righteous myself. Underneath it all I wanted to believe. Like the father in Mark 9:24, I was praying, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."

Other translations: NIV · ESV

I first studied anthropology, hoping to understand how the world works, from molecules to biology to culture. Since then I have worked as a hospitalist, briefly in private primary care, and now in urgent care. Along the way I supported street medicine with Dr. Jim Withers and Operation Safety Net and served on the board of his Street Medicine Institute. My heart for service started out secular and practical. Over these fifteen years it has grown into something more spiritually centered, purposeful, and meaningful.

I want to use the tools and talents God has graced me with to keep learning alongside others and to share the fruits of a faith-centered fellowship. For about the past year I have kept my own Lectio Divina with an app and found it deeply meaningful. With some new tools and skills, AI among them, I wanted to build a Lectio Divina that follows the Lutheran tradition. I hope it is useful to you in your own walk of faith.

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A Personal Testimony from Dr. Steve

In memory of my ancestors