Christian Center’s new executive director comes from a lifetime of service
Dec 17, 2024
Steven Richardson is thrilled to become the Christian Center of Park City’s new executive director.Richardson took the Christian Center’s helm on Oct. 1, a month to the day after retiring as an Air Force colonel chaplain. He succeeds Rob Harter, who after 12 years as director was promoted to the co-chair of the nonprofit’s board and became a nonprofit consultant and life coach.“My job was to provide spiritual care, but also network with all the caregivers on base and help them think through everyone’s spiritual, physical, emotional, relational and social health,” Richardson said.Richardson moved to Park City with Emily, his wife of 28 years, from Travis Air Force Base in northern California.“We were tired of moving, and Emily wanted to settle down and have me do what I do in one place,” he said. “When we found out about the Christian Center, I thought it would be a place where I could invest in the community and do the things I love doing but staying put.”Richardson discovered the job after an early morning online surf in December 2023.“I was on the internet at 3 o’clock in the morning because I couldn’t sleep that night, and I found an ad for the Christian Center,” he said. “So I started watching some videos and reading the articles and seeing all they did with their programming.”The more Richardson watched and read, the more excited he got.“Back in October of that same year, I was told we were going to stay another year at Travis, which was not a bad thing for me,” he said. “But all of my wife’s friends are moving away and many had moved a year before. So, she asked if there was any way to get out and serve an entire community in one place. We also have three sons who live out of the house, and she wanted to tell them to live somewhere near us.”The Christian Center job seemed right up Richardson’s alley.“I served 27,000 people who I would do anything for,” Richardson said. “My wife is a counselor, and I was trained as a marriage and family therapist. So the nonprofit’s counseling programming appealed to me because I’m passionate about counseling and seminars, working with other agencies, and using the gathering space to enrich the community.”Richardson saw that was something the Christian Center of Park City did in partnership with other nonprofits.“I thought it would be a cool opportunity to work with these organizations and with people, no matter what their faith background is,” he said.Richardson’s career as a chaplain was partly inspired by his father, Cecil.“He grew up really poor in West Virginia, Chicago and Wisconsin,” Richardson said. “He put out his thumb on his 18th birthday, which was the same day he graduated high school, and became homeless for a while before getting drafted for the Vietnam War.”During the war, the elder Richardson found faith, according to his son.“When he finished his tour, he went to seminary and became a chaplain, and I was born while he was in seminary,” Richardson said.Growing up, Richardson watched his dad in action.“My father was so passionate about helping people,” he said. “He would invite people over to our house, and we’d go to the chapel and take part of anything that was happening on base. I would go to all of these events from youth groups, to singles meetings and dorm stuff.”When Richardson was 12, his family moved to Iraklion Air Station in Crete, Greece.“It was really far away, and it was only my father as a chaplain,” he said. “So he asked me to help him because he needed someone to help get the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints group started. So it became my responsibility to ride my bike up to the chapel and open it up for them.”From then, Richardson began doing dorm visits and pretty much anything he could as far as service went.“I got so excited to help people, especially the young people who joined the military because they wanted a better life,” he said. “Most of them came from rough backgrounds and wanted something better.”While attending Evangel University, Richardson didn’t think he was going to become a chaplain.“I just knew I wanted to help people, but at the end of my sophomore year I had changed my major three times,” he said. “So I went into the woods for three days to fast and pray, and ask God what I should do. I felt the call to the ministry.”Richardson’s desire to become a chaplain solidified when he went to bed at the end of his self-imposed retreat.“I had a dream that I was preaching, and when I looked at who I was preaching to, everyone was wearing a military uniform,” he said. “So, I went to seminary and became a pastor of a church for a few years before joining the military’s chaplain corps.”Richardson was 26 when he joined the corps.“At that time, my dad hadn’t retired yet, so we had the chance to be the first father and son who were active chaplains in the history of the Air Force,” he said. “We thought it would be maybe a year when we would overlap, and it ended up being 12.”While Richardson loved the ministry and caring for the airmen, he always felt overshadowed by his father’s achievements.“He went on to become the two-star general for the entire Air Force Chaplain Corps, and I always felt like I was following in his footsteps,” Richardson said. “And I kept asking myself, ‘What if I could do this somewhere else?’”So he went on to earn a master’s of divinity in pastoral leadership from the Assemblies of God Seminary, a master’s in marriage and family therapy from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, and a doctorate in preaching and counseling from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.“I’ve been stationed in Missouri, Florida, England, Texas, Colorado, South Carolina, Alaska, Mississippi, Texas, northern California, with four deployments thrown in for fun,” he said with a laugh.Richardson worked at Fort Hood in Texas in the trauma center with people who had post-traumatic stress disorder, and there he and a couple of other people wrote the curriculum for a marriage-enrichment seminar.“I traveled to teach chaplains how to care for marriages, which is a huge passion of mine,” he said. “I have cared for around 20,000 people, personally or through the chaplains who I’ve trained.”Richardson hopes to do more of that with the Christian Center.“I have found that most people enter counseling when they are at the edge of divorce, but if they do it a little earlier, when their marriage is at 50%, it’s a whole lot easier to build a happy, healthy, fun and engaging marriage.”Still, Richardson likes what the Christian Center of Park City already does.“The best stories I’ve gotten are from people who get to the point where they can stop using our services,” he said. “The goal is not to create a crutch. It’s to get a stepladder. So, as we help someone avoid eviction or help pay bills, we also give them ways to help them thrive in the future without our help. So I want to look at how we can improve the programming so we can give the most thought of not just meeting their needs, but helping them take the next step.”For more information about the Christian Center of Park City, and Executive Director Steven Richardson, visit ccofpc.org.The post Christian Center’s new executive director comes from a lifetime of service appeared first on Park Record.