Senior Pastor
Pastor Jeff Stam & Denise
PJ was born and raised in Holland, Michigan. He graduated from West Ottawa High School in 1968. Jeff was brought up in a non-Christian, abusive family setting, fractured by two divorces and alcoholism. He was for the most part living on his own at age 15, but points to his accepting Christ as Savior at age 14 as the most formative part of his teen years.
PJ and Denise met while both were in high school and married after he returned from service in Vietnam at what they acknowledge to be the far-too-young age of 19 and 18. Since PJ was still in the Army, they moved out to Ft. Lewis, Washington. They remained there after PJ got out of the Army, until Denise finished her nurses’ training.
At that time they moved back to Michigan, so PJ could take his turn in school at Reformed Bible College (Kuyper College). In 1976, he graduated and took a call from Classis Minnesota South, moving to Worthington, MN. It was also the year they had their first child, Michelle. Because the pastor of the calling church took a call to another church three weeks after they arrived in Worthington, PJ was unexpectedly called on to pastor Worthington Christian Reformed Church, a church of about 110 families. His main duties, however, were to direct a campus ministry at the local college and teach and develop the college’s Religious Studies department. This was a unique challenge because it was a state college.
PJ’s heart, however, was in missions, so in 1980 they moved to the Chicago suburb of Vernon Hills to go to seminary at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS). He postponed plans to do doctoral studies in Islamics, after he accepted a position at Reformed Bible College. The family moved again, this time to Jenison, Michigan.
In 1983, PJ and Denise were asked by Christian Reformed World Missions to consider doing church-planting work in Costa Rica. They accepted, and moved to Costa Rica with Michelle (7) and Danielle (4) in August of that year, becoming the first missionaries to be sent out by Friendship Chapel. They lived in Costa Rica for eight years. During that time, PJ planted one of the country’s first CRC congregations in a suburb of the capital, San José. A work team from Friendship came to Costa Rica to help with the construction of a church building for the congregation PJ was pastoring. Later, PJ began teaching and supervising the churches in Nicaragua, while at the same time being seconded half-time to the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), doing pioneering work with university students primarily in Nicaragua but also in Costa Rica and Honduras. PJ spent his final term in Central America as the Field Director for Central America. It was also during this time in Central America that PJ began writing and working on his doctorate, but now in the broader field of Missiology.
Moving back to the U.S. in 1991, PJ continue working for the World Missions, but now as the director of C.I.T.E., a ministry which developed programmed theological training resources for Latin America. Since this was primarily a publishing ministry, this work was shifted over to CRC Publications (now Faith Alive Resources). PJ later became the managing editor for World Literature Ministries, the non-English publishing arm of CRC Publications. At that time they were publishing materials in six other languages.
In 1996, due to an increasing involvement that PJ and Denise had in helping people work through
deep-seated spiritual issues, PJ founded Set Free Ministries (SFM), becoming its first director. SFM’s first office was in the old back office at Friendship. Since their return from the mission field, PJ had been serving as an Associate Pastor at Friendship. This was a volunteer position due to his involvement in other full-time ministry. Pastor Jeff requested Friendship to give spiritual oversight to this new ministry. Set Free Ministries is now an international ministry with offices in India and East Africa.
In 2000, PJ was asked to bring the individual healing ministry of SFM to the larger congregational setting by serving as an interim pastor to a church in crisis in Byron Center. In early 2002, PJ was asked to return to Friendship Chapel to help the congregation walk through a similar crisis. Because it was a full-time position, PJ at that time left the ministry of SFM. For PJ, it was like “coming home.” Friendship Chapel has been his and Denise’s home church almost since its beginning in Hagar Park in 1980.
Things you should know about PJ:
- He and Denise have been married for 36 years.
- He has been in the ministry for 30 years.
- Michelle Alderink and Danielle Schut are their daughters.
- PJ has been a conference speaker/teacher throughout the U.S. and in several other countries.
- PJ has authored a number of books, Bible studies, pamphlets and training materials (Katie Boelema found one of PJ’s books in the staff library in China).
- He is currently teaching a course at Cornerstone University and is frequently asked to lecture at Calvin Seminary and do training seminars for World Missions, Home Missions and CRWRC.
- He recently received an invitation to present a paper at Oxford University in England.
- Other than play the guitar, he started out on the violin (which “didn’t work out so well”), loves to read and has dabbled in painting (one of his pictures is currently hanging at Mocha-n-Music).