Steve Dighton

Steve Dighton is senior pastoral advisor at the Kansas City-area Lenexa Baptist Church in Lenexa, Kan., a church he founded 25 years ago and where he served as senior pastor until this past spring. Previously, he pastored two churches in Oklahoma after being called to ministry out of the men’s clothing business.

When Dighton founded Lenexa in 1990, the church had less than 100 members. It has since grown to more than 6,000, with three satellite campuses in Missouri and two in Kansas. Dighton has served as president of the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists and as vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference.

Lenexa, which was named a “breakout church” in Thom Rainer’s 2005 book of the same title, cooperates with both the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists and the Missouri Baptist Convention.

The congregation is among the top givers through the Cooperative Program in both conventions, according to a news release from Graham. The church’s total missions expenditures exceeded $1 million in 2014.

Dighton holds both an associate of divinity degree and a master of arts in religious education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

He and his wife Mary, married for 44 years, have two children and four grandchildren.