When you listen to
Steve Hare's debut DREAM Records album,
Heart Like Your Own, what you'll hear are a baker's dozen worth of uplifting. danceable, singable synth-pop tracks chock-full of the truth of God and the hope of Jesus Christ. (Read our official review
here.)
What you won't hear on that record is the full story behind Pastor Steve Hare's tremendous impact on the kingdom that started long before he laid down a single track.
Steve Hare is the Senior Pastor and primary worship leader of Faith City Family Church in Newark, Delaware. That alone would fill anyone's schedule, but he also happens to be a major player in Christian radio, having founded the Reach Radio network, which comprises 23 stations in 11 states.
Needless to say, this is a man with a mission, and with God's favor to accomplish it. I had to find out more about this "Steve of all trades."
Steve, it's a pleasure to talk with you today! We just wanted to find out more about you, and introduce people to you. You apparently wear a lot of hats. Tell us what Steve Hare is like by day.
I wear a number of hats trying to connect people to Jesus. One of them is a church pastor, I'm a senior pastor in Newark Delaware, about 30 miles south of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The church that I pastor has--to God be the glory--about 3,000 members. It's a very multicultural church.
Our heart is outreach. We have a bus ministry that we began. We call it Project Restoration, where we run buses all over the city of Wilmington, Delaware. We send buses into Wilmington and we pick up hundreds of kids 12 months a year, and I preach to these kids. We offer them life skills programs and tutoring. Then on our big days when we give away backpacks and Bibles and things like that, we run as many as 33 school buses and we fill them all up. We've got video of 1,500 kids coming into our church facility, and we're preaching to them trying to reach these kids.
So now on the other end of things, you're coming out with this record, Heart Like Yours. How would you say this continues your pastoring heart and vision?
Well, it is a blessing that the songs we put together really connect to the heart of the pastor side of things. I'm looking at some of these titles: "Take it Over": God, take over my life. "Reach a Heart": that song was designed for our urban inner city bus ministry. "Beyond our Wildest Dreams" really encourages people to really believe there's no lid on their life. With God there is no lid on your life. The sky is the limit with God's blessing and favor. "I Will Not Be Moved," featuring Beckah Shae, that's about standing on the promises of God when it seems like your life is falling apart.
Back in 2005/2006, I almost lost my wife because they had to remove both of her kidneys from her body. She had polycystic kidney disease. Just in the nick of time, we found a donor for her. So a lot of this music, in an indirect way--or maybe a little bit in a direct way also from time to time--connects the dots on a personal level. I don't know if they told you but I'm also the founder of the Reach Radio Network.
Yes! Twenty-three stations in 11 states!
Yeah, and you know, that's quite a miracle, and it has to be God. In 1994, I did feel a burden on my heart--because we're just outside of Philly--to really reach out for a more outreach-oriented, aggressive, music-driven format to reach this generation. And God just kept opening one door after the next, and we kept finding this signal and that signal. And then an amazing miracle happened. Engineers told me it never should've happened, but we know through God all things are possible. In 1999 I was crazy enough to apply for a signal in the city of Philadelphia. It was laughed at; Philadelphia is market No. 5 in radio. We were awarded an FM license! Our antenna system is on the third tallest skyscraper in downtown Philadelphia and we're covering the city of brotherly love, man, and I get a chill when I'm telling you this, brother.
That's amazing. So really you've experienced a life of God showing you something impossible to do and then watching him do it?
Yeah, and on this music project, God did another. I did not know who Seth Mosley was until I met him when Reach Radio brought in Me in Motion, which was his group and they were out on tour. And we met briefly after the radio outreach concert. One dot connected to the next one. We had
Chris Sligh in for another concert. I would just share with them I had a vision to do this project. The amazing God worked it out where Chris Sligh wrote me the song "Beyond Our Wildest Dreams." Seth Mosely was willing to take on this project, and I appreciate him so much. It's just all a miracle man; it's all God.
That just must strengthen your faith to see those things happen time and time again.
Do you want to hear something amazing? This actually happened. It was a Saturday night, and REACH Radio had a great event at the Wells Fargo Center. It was a Faith and Family night with the Wizards soccer team. It's great for radio, great exposure. Went up there. After the scocer game Reach Radio brought in Sanctus Real. I was getting ready to go out on the field after the game and introduce them, and I'll be honest man, I was low. I was dragging. It was like, "God I'm trying to serve you, reach people, what's going on?"
One of the guys at the arena said, "Stop, they don't want you to start yet. Come here." There was this family waiting in the wings, saying it was urgent they had to talk to me. I hadn't seen this family in seven, eight years. When I saw them, I vaguely recognized them. Long story short, this short little lady--her name's Daphne--said, "I felt we needed to talk to you. How have you been? How has your wife been?" We had been friends years ago before this family kind of moved out of the area.
I said, "Daphne, it's not too good; it's just not too good." She said, "What's wrong?" I said, "Well, we can't find her an organ for her transplant." And then she began to just cry, right there, and said, "You tell your wife I'm calling her and I'm going in for a test. I would give her my kidney if it could work."
I'll never forget sitting with my wife with the surgeon there at the University of Pennsylvania in downtown Philadelphia. He said, "We have found a match from this lady," and he said--quote--"The kidney is like it came from your own sister." Brother, I almost fell out in a cold sweat praising God. God, thank you!
That's amazing! Really, something like that--among everything else in your life--really has to stand out as a display of God's breakthrough and His faithfulness!
Yeah, man. And the tune on the CD, "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet," written by Manny of
Group 1 Crew, is almost like a chronicle of having been through the valley of the shadow of death. But as long as I'm alive, I got a future in Jesus. You ain't seen nothing yet, man.
You mentioned Manwell Reyes of Group 1 Crew. There are just some great names you got to work with on this album. Stylistically, this is cutting edge stuff. It's danceable; it's fun. Tell me about how you arrived at this sound and your influence, musically.
The way this thing came together is, my son, Steven, works with us here in the ministry at the radio station studios. We just kept listening to music by different artists, and some of them were secular. Hey, good music is good music. God made music, and it's unfortunate that the lyrics go another way. But hey, we always love this kind of sound. We began to put together sounds from different artists, different beats, different things, and we started sending them down to Seth Mosley. We started talking with Seth, vibing with Seth, and we just kind of found our way with this sound.
Are you going to be touring at all, performing this summer or anything?
What I plan to do is this summer do some release concerts in our core area but I am talking to people about the touring aspect of things, and going out there when I can. Because you know my heart is simply, "God please use this music if you can to connect people to Jesus--no more, no less."
That's my sincere heart. Wearing these different hats that I'm responsible for, it's just about tools. This is just another tool that'll hopefully connect people who wouldn't walk inside of a church building. Maybe I can get them to start thinking about Jesus this way, I don't know.
So you're the senior pastor of your church. Are you also the worship pastor?
We have three services on Sunday. I do them all. I've been really blessed to have a really amazing band, all studio-level type of musicians. I go and open up with the band, doing very current, very relevant-type worship stuff. So I'm doing the music, and I happen to be the guy that's going to give you the sermon, too.
That's great! So you have those two hats by themselves; you have the radio thing, and now the music thing, too. So what have you learned as far as juggling all these hats--plus family! What advice would you give to people who feel such a large calling on their lives like you have?
I would submit some thoughts on the order of life. The order of life is God first, and right underneath that is family, and in my personal conviction, underneath that is what God has assigned for you to do. God's got to be first, but man, then my family, because if I don't take family to Heaven with me, I've messed up. And I will never put ministry or skill set or passion to do those different things above serving God and making sure that my marriage is strong. And I want my son to see that he, you know, has a dad that certainly is not perfect, but he sees a dad who's trying to serve God and love his mother.
And finally, once you get to that third level--your skill set, what God has put in your talent pool--you go out and fulfill that. But it's not the size of the team; it's who's on the team. Some people think it takes a lot of people to get stuff done, but you look all throughout the Bible and God would use a few disciples and told Gideon to get rid of a lot of the 10,000 warriors. Pray that God would put the right people on the team. So I don't know if any of that has any weight or that matters. Just my two pennies out of my pocket, man.
What I hear you saying is that you've only been able to do as much as you've been able to do because of the grace of God and the relationships with the people He's put around you.
Amen, with a good team, man, because except for God and people to help me, man, I'm nowhere.
Well, we're excited to let people know about the new record and see what happens with it. So the style that's on this CD… would we hear that in your church on a Sunday morning?
You know, you really would. You'd hear the four on the floor, the same rhythm patterns. I guess I'm a different kind of preacher guy, the Irish boy with the red hair. I've always got a lot of soul brothers and soul sisters around me. I'm probably not for everybody, but I gotta do what I gotta do, man.
Thanks for talking with us, Steve. How can we be praying for you?
Pray for me, brother, that the Lord would continue to just have me where He wants me, doing what he wants me to do, and making the most of opportunities to tell people that Jesus is their way out. That he would continue to bless my wife with good health, which I know He will.
