Pastor Steven Cholak grew up in Akron, Ohio as an only child. He attended Concordia University in River Forest, Illinois for college and was an athletic training student in the Exercise Science and Fitness management department. He majored in exercise science and minored in biblical languages (Hebrew and Greek). He attended Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He learned American Sign Language in the seminary’s Deaf ministry program and worked with Deaf churches in Fort Wayne and Denver, Colorado. Pastor Cholak did his vicarage at Memorial Lutheran Church and School in Houston, Texas. During that yearlong vicarage, Steven met his future wife, Stephanie Blake, a pre-kindergarten teacher at Memorial Lutheran and he asked her to marry him. He has served the church as pastor and classical educator in Nebraska, Indiana, Texas, Missouri, and New Mexico.