MennoMedia
Former Virginia Conference coordinator joins MennoMedia
Carpenter tapped as development director
By Steve Shenk
Steve Carpenter
HARRISONBURG, Va.—Steve Carpenter, former coordinator of Virginia Mennonite Conference, will join MennoMedia on March 19 as the first full-time development director.
Carpenter succeeds Randy Miller, who has worked half time—based in Goshen, Ind.—with MennoMedia while also serving as transitional pastor at Walnut Hill Mennonite Church in Goshen.
In his role as Virginia Conference coordinator from 2003 to 2011, Carpenter served as business manager, office supervisor, and development director. The Virginia Conference office is situated next door to the MennoMedia building on Virginia Avenue in Harrisonburg.
For five years before moving to Harrisonburg, Carpenter was church administrator for Washington Community Fellowship, a Mennonite congregation on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
Carpenter spent 20 years as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, based in Guam, Hawaii, Louisiana, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. At one point he commanded a 15-crew patrol boat. At the end of his career he was chief of quality management and public affairs at the Coast Guard’s National Pollution Funds Center.
A graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Carpenter earned a master of business administration degree from Tulane University and a master’s degree in religion from Eastern Mennonite Seminary.
A prolific writer, Carpenter was published in The Washington Post under the title “Sorrow and Christian Faith Lead a Military Man to Embrace Pacifism.” For the past eight years he has been a regular media columnist for Mennonite Weekly Review, publishing more than 50 columns on movies, books, culture, and faith.
Carpenter is already involved with MennoMedia as a monthly columnist for the Third Way Café website and as a regular speaker on the Shaping Families radio program.
MennoMedia, formed in a merger last July, serves Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada. It earns most of its income from the sale of Sunday school curriculum, Herald Press books, hymnals, videos, CDs, periodicals, church supplies, and other materials.
But donated funds are needed for outreach efforts like the Shaping Families radio program and Third Way Café website. Funds are also needed for the development of major projects like the next children’s Sunday school curriculum and a new hymnal and song collection.
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For more information, contact Steve Shenk, director of marketing and sales, at steves@mennomedia.org or 540 908-2592.
Image available:
ftp://ftp.e.mennonites.org/public/NewsPhotos/MennoMedia_SteveCarpenter.jpg
Steve Carpenter
