Gene Grate, Lead Pastor
Gene began his pastoral ministry in rural Missouri with a church of sixty members in a town of twenty-nine people, including his family. His second assignment was a church plant in St. Charles, Missouri and was organized as the Harvester Church of the Nazarene, where he served for sixteen years as Lead Pastor. The church prospered and grew to become the largest church on the Missouri District in its tenth year as a church. In 1994, Gene accepted the call to become the Lead Pastor at Colorado Springs First Church of the Nazarene.
Gene has given leadership to several denominational initiatives. He helped design and implement the Intermediate Church Initiative as a church-size strategy for churches with morning worship attendance of 100 – 250. In 1994, he accepted the position as Dean of the School of Large Church Management, a key component to the K-Church Project, a leadership development strategy for pastors serving churches with a membership or morning worship attendance of 250 or more. He continued to give leadership to the K-Church Project until its conclusion in late 2006.
With a growing passion to equip and train pastors for effective ministry, Gene founded The Minister’s Toolbox as an outlet for a library of pastoral resources he has developed for local church use. Doing business as Real Life Resources, Gene has used his thirty-one years of ministry experience to provide practical and usable resources for pastors in all size churches. He possesses an unusual gift to make complex ideas simple and understandable.
Gene has been the teaching pastor for the Colorado District Church of the Nazarene, teaching best practices for local church ministry six half days a year. In addition, he has taught a seminar on Church Finance for Point Loma Nazarene University, was a presenter for the Summer Minister’s Conference for Northwest Nazarene University, and has spoken at pastoral training days on several districts.
Gene and Ronoyce, his wife, have two adult children and enjoy their ministry in Colorado Springs. He enjoys being in the mountains, taking pictures, and watching the bears on the deck behind his house.