Steve Brooke was born in 1968 with a skull condition that usually resulted in death or severe lifelong debilitation for the children who had been born with it, but when an experimental surgery saved him, he remembers his grandparents telling him early in life that he was a miracle and God must have a purpose for his life. Those may have been the only words Steve ever grew up hearing about God, but they stuck with him for a long time through a lot of brokenness and pain. Growing up in broken, godless marriages and homes, Steve became disillusioned with family, distracted with temptation, and dabbling in sin, quite early in his life. But before his life could spin totally out of control, someone invited his broken family to their church. And even though he was that rebellious high schooler in the eighties, and resisted being part of the church, there was something about the love and family he felt in that church that won him over to trusting Christ as His Lord & Savior, being baptized, and becoming part of the church family. There in the church, serving as a youth worker, Steve also met Renee, and after they married in 1990, his church called him to be their youth minister, where he began to learn and exercise a life of sharing Christ and helping shepherd Christ’s family, the church. That church helped him go to seminary. They eventually sent him to plant churches for them in Portland, Oregon, the most unchurched area of the country. Over that decade, Steve and Renee’s children, Zechariah, Noah and Grace, spent much of their formative years growing up in a happy Christian home. He was thankful for the call to minister on the large team of a large church in Jacksonville Florida.

      It just so happened that a year later in  2019, Steve was asked to come to Lakeland to help lead Legacy Christian Church out of one of those extreme moral crises brought on by a fallen leader that often destroys a church. But when Steve and Renee kept witnessing the providence of God’s timing & the persistence of these Christians at Legacy to be a healthy loving and vibrant church family, the Brookes prayed, and by late 2019, accepted the call to lead Legacy. Initially they thought God’s purpose was clear… help this church family navigate its way back to health from a devastating moral crisis. Only months into 2020 and they quickly realized God had brought them to help their new church family navigate their way through the larger crisis of a global pandemic. After 30+ years of ministry, in the midwest, the northwest, & the southeast, Steve is often reminded of his grandparents’ words from so long ago that God must have a purpose for his life. Steve loves Jesus, His church, his Renee, and their three kids. He is passionate about the Bible and enjoys traveling, paddle boarding, playing guitar, and singing and writing music too.