Stephen Sutton

Though Stephen Sutton was raised in a Baptist Church, he liked to ‘dot in and dot out of doing the God thing’. But tired of this half-heartedness, he jumped in with a commitment to ‘live this life with my whole self’… And it’s been a mad ride ever since!’ He is now pastor at Coulby Newham Baptist Church in Middlesbrough, a community that doesn’t try to be precious about anything, and focuses on ‘growing in our love relationship with Jesus, our love of each other and life as a family and living that love all the time as people on mission.’ Over the past couple of years this has meant stepping out of comfort zones and into the community more, focusing on discipling young people and growing in radical forms of spiritual disciplines. Stephen and wife Leah have three young children. ‘We love spending time together as a family, picnics, days out and hanging out together,’ he says, noting that in ‘pre-child life’ novels and films were more common.

Please click here if you'd like to read more stories