Kickapoo Kolache

CHANDLER — Bro. Steven James Palmer stepped into the youth pastor role at West Lake Baptist Church this summer, but the area isn’t new to him. He was six when his father came back to the area as the associate pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Jacksonville. His father has pastored a couple of other Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC) churches in the area since, and this corner of East Texas has been home ever since.

A normal week runs heavy. Mondays and Tuesdays go to study and preparation for Wednesday teaching, including Empower Christian Academy sessions where he teaches students practical life skills: how to change oil, build a resume, start a small business, make appointments, and handle banking. Wednesdays he visits the high school and/or junior high during lunch, working the A, B, and C lunch periods table by table. The kids, he says, are often receptive (junior high a little easier); the work is contact, Gospel, encouragement, and reinforcing what they heard at church.

What drives all of it is a passion for discipling youth: helping students grow in following Christ, one lunch table and one Wednesday night at a time.

Right now the concrete local help is presence: visits, FCS connections, being a consistent adult in students’ lives while he’s still learning what each school allows. He’d also love to see more parents plug in. In his experience, when moms and dads are connected at church, their kids tend to stay connected too, and he sees parents as a big part of a young person’s walk with Christ. Parents who want to help are always welcome to come alongside the student ministry.

A quieter win neighbors might miss is unity among area youth pastors: understanding one another, encouragement, and accountability under the Word. Ahead on the calendar, in March, is a WLBC car show as a student-ministry fundraiser and community outreach (categories, concessions, awards, including a kids’ Power Wheels class).

Asked for his favorite Scriptures, Bro. Palmer points to two. Ephesians 2:8–10 is the passage that helped him understand grace, the free gift of salvation, and the work God has given Christians to do, and it is one he likes to use when sharing the Gospel. (“For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.” CSB) He chose Galatians 2:20 because it shows a truly transformed life lived in Christ. (“I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” CSB)

Off the clock, Bro. Palmer is a husband of eight years and a dad to four, with one on the way. He loves fishing and spending time with his children, and his aim in all of it is pointing people to Jesus as King.

The ministry’s name, The Dock, matches his working picture for it, a play on West Lake: prepare at the dock before you fish, leave equipped with the Word for storms and calm water alike, and know the dock is refuge if you get stranded.

Parents, students and neighbors can reach The Dock student ministry at wlbcyouth@outlook.com.