In 1979 they returned to Steve's home state to pastor Maranatha Baptist Church in Ripley, Tennessee. During their five years of ministry there, Steve notes that God continued His work through the annual missionary conference to prepare them for an eventual call to missions.

During his pastoral experience Steve had come to appreciate the quality of missionary and ministry through Baptist Mid-Missions. The application process was then completed and they were appointed for the field of Australia in August 1984.  During their terms of service, they had the opportunity to establish two churches in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia – a city of 3.5 million.

Steve was asked to join the administration of Baptist Mid-Missions upon the retirement of Leigh Adams, the North America Field Administrator.  Since January 1995, the Butlers have served in that capacity, to approximately 200 missionaries across the North America continent, in Canada and the United States. 

BMM’s North America Ministries has a variety of ministries organized under five ministry councils: Messianic, Church Planting and Development, Campus Bible Fellowship, Mormon and Native American.  With these various ministries under his administration, Steve asks for prayer for wisdom in serving the present missionaries and prayer for the “Lord of the Harvest” to send forth laborers to serve in these mission fields or our own homeland.

For more information about the Butlers or Baptist Mid-Missions, log onto the following website…

www.bmm.org