He grew up the son of an atheist and never went to church. He came to know Christ through a baseball tryout at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And he went to seminary in a place where he could walk right out his door and into a high-risk area.
This eclectic background prepared Ed Glover for his work with the Urban Impact Foundation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the vital urban ministry he has run for the past 25 years. Called to the area as an outreach pastor, he and his wife moved right into the area of greatest need.
“We moved onto a street where four out of five homes were boarded up and unoccupied because that was the neighborhood. We began to do work, and about six years into the ministry, I walked out of my house, and my car was stolen for the third time.
“I remember looking down the street, saying, ‘Lord, can we make any kind of a difference here?’ And that’s when the Lord gave me this thought: ‘How do you eat an elephant?’
“I said, ‘One bite at a time.'” He took my mind and helped me to see if I can impact one person, then one family, then one block, we could transform the community. That’s when Urban Impact Foundation was born.
“We work with thousands of people now,” Glover says. “Areas, neighborhoods and lives have been transformed, all for the glory of God.”
For the rest of Pastor Ed Glover’s story, listen to the podcast below.