Bishop T. Veron House interview spoke on his many attributions to the church, to the people and his community. He is also known as Steve Ron and has been a church man since he was young boy. He grew up in the church, understanding the word and realizing that there was a God that he can confide in, find support in & love. But his dreams of becoming a singer turned into him becoming a preacher instead. Without hesitation he took what was being sent to him and turned his ministry into a word that will not just touch the people that were around him, but that will touch the millions that weren’t.
Steve Ron’s story may start in the church but it isn’t where it ends. As he grew older, he started going through his own obstacles that life would throw and figured out a way to get through the struggles he didn’t know he could ever walk pass. He was stronger than he realized, but with God he knew that he could get through anything by following the path that was made for him, even if they weren’t the dreams he created for himself.
While becoming a preacher in his church home Veron House, he discovered the amount of people that needed his word. He realized that preaching was more than sharing the word that the Bible has already established, but actually developing a time to help other people understand themselves.
He has his degree in Business, Christian Counseling & Psychology. He uses his psychology degree to help steer individuals into understanding who they are, their strengths, weakness and helping them to find their purpose because as Bishop T. would say, without work there is no movement in your life.
Bishop T. Veron House is a not just a preacher, but he is also an author with his recently released book, Learning to Be Better, Before I Become Bigger, which gives individuals the ability to help them to do the self-work that is involved when wanting to become a better person than they were yesterday.
We had the pleasure in speaking with the Bishop to discuss more about his book, his church, and his approach when giving others the tools to become better. Here’s our full Bishop T. Veron House interview…
Parlé Mag: Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got started with the church.
Bishop T. Veron House: Well, as you know, my name is Steve Ron, people normally say… Varon or Vernon, but it’s Steve Ron. I’ve actually been in the church my whole life. And that’s a literal statement, literally born in the church. That’s all I know is church as far as when it comes to Christendom and so I’ve been active in church my whole life since I was a little boy. I was always going to some kind of church conference, church event and etc. So that’s how I got into church. I was born into it.
Parlé Mag: Did you already know that you wanted to be a preacher when you were little?
Bishop T. Veron House: Actually, the funny thing is I didn’t want to be a Preacher. When I was little, I would play church with my sister. I’d make her my Member and I would play church, but I didn’t want to be a preacher. Actually, I prayed a prayer. I think when I was around 11 years old, I asked God to make me a singer. But he just didn’t pay attention to me. He didn’t listen to me and the fact that I didn’t want to be a preacher. I had been around preachers traveling with my grandmother, who was pretty big in the church scene and seeing bishops and pastors and behind the scenes and such. Then my godfather was a pastor of a big church but it was still something that I just didn’t want. And you know, here I am, 31 years later.
Parlé Mag: So what would you say pushed you and drove you to preaching then?
Bishop T. Veron House: Actually, to be honest with you, it is God. You know, I had a couple of prophecies when I was little that I was going to be a preacher. And those used to bother me. I didn’t want to hear those, but one day, years ago, the Lord spoke to me. Actually, I had my first message when I was 10, but it wasn’t official. I was standing on the offer table, when he spoke to me and in a vision he told me that he had called me to preach but even then I still didn’t believe it. It was on a Tuesday night at my church, 94 Herkimer St. Albany, NY, and I heard the Lord say it to me again and I said, well, if you called me to preach, just send me with your spirit because that was only way I was going to believe and that’s what happened.
Parlé Mag: In your book, you talk about understanding yourself, and being honest with yourself and getting through all of the obstacles that have occurred in your life. Tell us a little bit about your book and what inspired you to write it.
Bishop T. Veron House: It’s called, ‘Learning to Be Better Before You Become Bigger‘. The inspiration of that book literally came from life experiences of myself and then people over the years that I have given advice to and different genres of gospel, R&B and etc. But more so of my personal experience. Being able to take a look at yourself and understand that sometimes we want to be big. We want a fancy house, we want the $1,000,000 business, we want to preach all over the world. But the key of it is, what good is that if you have not learned and most times people get big, but then they realize there’s some lessons they missed, they skipped and so the book came out of inspiration. Incidents that happened in my life. When I say I should have known better or there’s something I should have learned from this and then just becoming humble in that and understanding that having your name in big lights is not the key because it becomes the lifestyle. And it comes with its lessons, so learning to be better before I become bigger was a cry, a prayer because I preached the message years ago and I told the Lord, I want to be better before I become bigger. So, it was a cry on the altar I was preaching at a church in Florida and Rockland, FL. That was the cry as I got the minister and I was on my knees and I just started praying God make me better before you make me bigger, help me to make mistakes and wrong choices in the infancy of my life so that I’m not making a fool of myself when I’ve reached a certain plateau or platform in my life, so it really focuses on trying to get the individual whoever reads it to really focus their perspective on the groundwork before you reach a magnesium or a big platform and really self-evaluation and honing on yourself. Even though it is my book but I love it cause I go to it from time to time and I read over it myself of what I said and it is still the meat to me. So, it really challenges people to focus on self-evaluation, looking at yourself, being real with yourself, being accountable, making common-sense decisions and common-sense choices and not super spiritualizing things, but finding the balance in your spirituality as well is in your common sense, because sometimes you super spiritualize something, and they just simply require common sense. There’s a chapter in the book that is towards the end of the chapter and it’s called ‘It’s my big’. And the point that I’m making there is that everyone has a big in their life. You have to find your big, your big may not be Oprah’s big, but you have a big and if you understand that you have a big then you should be willing to do self-evaluation before you get there.
Parlé Mag: When you speak on some of the obstacles in your life, what were some of them you had to go through and internalize yourself?
Bishop T. Veron House: I’ll give you one that I always use. So, some years ago I moved to Syracuse, which was 2 hours from where I lived in Albany and I started the church January 7, 2001 in Syracuse, NY, Central New York, and we were there worshipping in a café. A big café, I think I sat about 400 people. And the Lord spoke to me prophetically and said that you won’t have enough room to see the people. That was the second time that he said it to me and I said “Ok”, but I didn’t have enough room. That service he said to me that in 9 1/2 months I won’t be able to see the people. And literally we moved into a building that I renovated, which had been abandoned for 11 years. It seated about 230 people, we moved into that building with 42 adults and some children, literally within 9 1/2 months. We had over 300 people and the challenge that I found is that I was not prepared. We weren’t prepared for the 300 people and then a year and a half later we were at over 700 people and the Lord reminded me: I told you that this was coming. But there was some things that we didn’t have. So we went from nobody working in our office, we had a big office upstairs, 11 offices executive. To now, offices have eight people working every day and about 20 volunteers in an office setting, all within a year and a half’s time. You know you’re talking about the office going from $1500 a week to $17,000 a week and just kept going and kept going. And so, I learned some tough lessons in that, because we wanted the excitement of the church to grow, but we weren’t ready for the growth. And so we had to start getting ready in the midst of 7-8 hundred people. But it just kept going and before we knew it, it was named the second fastest church in the whole city three years later by that time we were in the groove. We went through a lot of trial and error trying to manage, you know, you’re trying to manage 4 or $500,000 a year in a year and half, so that was a trial and error in that.
Parlé Mag: But you don’t only have churches in the United States, but you have your churches spread out amongst different countries such as Africa. Where else do your churches reside?
Bishop T. Veron House: So, I have several churches throughout Africa. We actually have schools throughout Africa. I started my College in Africa, South Africa, Pretoria. It was called House College of Engineering Innovation Technology but it has recently sold. We started that a few years ago and then we have an elementary and up to high schools. We also have orphanages and we’re in the process of building our second clinic, which will House 500 students. So, we have churches in Africa, we have churches in Jamaica, we have churches in Canada, we have a few churches in India and two churches in Jerusalem. And so, I lived in Africa for quite some time. I lived in Jamaica for quite some time, doing ministries. I am definitely spread abroad and the culture experience is much needed.
Parlé Mag: What is the message that you want others to obtain in order to gravitate towards you? What is the message that you place in your church or your book that they should obtain from you?
Bishop T. Veron House: I’m big on faith. The second thing I’m big on is changing the way you think and expanding one’s consciousness. Consciousness means you’re awake, alert in the moment. I have a saying that I’ve been saying for about 20 years: “Change doesn’t change until you change the way you think.” Often times we change relationships, you can change where you live, what you drive, the church you go to, you can change your job, but if you don’t change the way you think, you haven’t gone anywhere. So, I tell people moving from one city to another city hoping that things are going to be better. It’s almost in vain because if your perspective hasn’t changed, you’re just going to one city to the next city. You’re taking what you had in the other cities like the Chain of Israel. They went out of Egypt, got into the wilderness, but they still had Egypt in there. So here you are in between what God said and what God promised, but you can’t even take it because your mentality hasn’t changed.
And when you change the way you think, it allows your faith to be untouched. Too often people say that they have faith but do they really have faith? Do we really trust? Do we have that genuine faith you know. I can pray today, and give it to God and then two days later because it doesn’t happen, I’m back in prayer. But we missed the essence of prayer. Prayer doesn’t mean come to me every time. If you really believe when you pray, when you ask Him the first time, you won’t have to go back. If you have to go back and ask Him then you’re in doubt because any repetition is doubt when you have faith. So, God, I asked you for a race, now you want to fast for two weeks for the race, and he’s saying why are you fasting? I heard you, you’re fasting because you don’t believe me and you think that’s what’s going to move me. But what moves me is faith. So for me, perspective and changing the thought and that is literally the context of Scripture, is getting the trend of Israel. Even in the time of Christ and after for people to change where they think because the soul is the soul. Soul is psych. Psyche means our mind. So what lives is our mind. He breathes a man, man becomes a living soul. The word soul. Word soul is psych. So, Man’s body was made, but his mind wasn’t alive. And until your mind comes alive, your body is just a shell. So, it’s really changing, that’s transformation. You can have a church full of people, but if you’re not changing the way they think or they’re not willing to embrace fresh conceptualization of who God is in life, then they’re just bodies in church. You know, dancing and shouting is great, but dancing without change is just movement. Yelling without change is just noise. Praising without change is just adoration and without any action, change is inevitable. It has to be embraced from all spectrums of life, no matter what walk of life you’re in. I tackle that also and learning to be better before I come bigger because it’s an action and a push to not just say I need to work on me. But now after I’ve worked on me, let’s go after the big and let’s take the risk.
Parlé Mag: You not only have your degree in Ministry but also in Psychology. Would you say that you imply psychology into your practices with ministering?
Bishop T. Veron House: I do, years ago in Syracuse for seven years I had my own center. I ran my own center, and it was exclusive for this particular genre of professionals. So, I did that for seven years and then it got exhausting. I kind of got away from that, but I always incorporate that because I’m big on psychology. So, I incorporate my secular profession that I’ve learned academically wise as well as balancing it with the spiritual revelations that I have. So I use that all the time. I’m never without being the psychologist. I just balance it.
Parlé Mag: How do you find the balance in being a father & still preaching?
Bishop T. Veron House: You know, people ask me that all the time and to be honest and be very transparent, I think you’re forever learning to balance better. I’ve got three boys and then I have two adopted daughters and the dogs.
Everyone has their life, my son is married with two kids, like I said, my middle son is in college at a university, and then my youngest son will be going to school next year. Then my other two, they’re older, so they are adults and have their careers. One has a business and the other has two properties that she owns herself. So, it’s finding the balance and you’re forever happening to recreate the balance and it’s not easy. Sometimes you have to make the balance. Sometimes you have to create the balance. What I mean by that is that you have to make the time. You mean this is the time we’re going to spend. And then sometimes it happens organically, and you appreciate the moments when it happens organically. Sometimes it could be 3 hours of time, or two hours on FaceTime, and I always tell them that’s time, so they appreciate that time if we’re texting for an hour for them that’s big because that’s time. And so it takes a maturity to do that, but I’m forever learning because something is always being added to my life, to their lives, and they’re seeing now how it is when you’re juggling life, because sometimes I text when they don’t text right back. Sometimes I call them, but they don’t answer. I get a text. “Hey, I’m trying to reach you” and they come back and let me know, “Hey, Dad, I’m busy. Can I call you back?” which turns into six hours, but now they’re learning to appreciate the balance. So, it’s creating balance, organic balance. And making the best of the time that you have, it’s not easy, but we make it work.
Parlé Mag: Are you still preaching today or have you shifted more towards the business side of things?
Bishop T. Veron House: Well, I’m still preaching. I’m now in Mount Vernon, NY. I started 7 churches on my own, the church where I’m pastor now. I took this church over due to the Pastor dying. The founder asked me to come and help out, and I was supposed to just be helping out for a year but here I am five years later at this location. I left Jamaica which it was only God, because I would never leave Jamaica. But I’m here, I’m still a Pastor and I still have my businesses which is Court House Global Investment. I have an investment corporation that we invest in companies and properties and people’s businesses and things of that nature. So, I balance out that along with ministry. I make it work. Make it happen.
Parlé Mag: What else can we expect from you?
Bishop T. Veron House: I’m… you know, I have a few things that I’m working on actually, hopefully this fall getting at least one more book out this far, another one out next year. In the in the book that I’m working on this year will be called the power of one or the power of me. And that just consists of finding one’s true self and understanding power that you have that God has given every individual in their own life. I started last month something I’ve been talking about for years, actually months, excuse me, it’s called the dialogue show and that’s on Facebook; I do that every Monday night and the dialogue is creating a platform outside of me preaching. It’s a transparent take the elephant out the room where I deal with and have conversations from politics, relationship, religious… The dialogue set the tone for me to be able to remind people that conversation can be agreed or disagreed. Otherwise, I don’t have to agree with you, what the dialogue means, that I respect you. I’m seeking to understand that I’m not seeking to change you. I’m just seeking to understand you. So it creates that platform. I’m also working on something called the sanctum or the sanctuary, and that would be a place where people can go to have sanctuary and have sanctum where they be their human self and have therapeutic help, but also enjoy life outside of everything. I do a lot of advising people on personal issues that most people probably wouldn’t even touch. I’m nonjudgmental, but I’m yet firm. And so I find that a lot of people need a sanctum someplace or somebody or somebodies, where they can be honest. A lot of preachers, and not just preachers, struggle with mental issues. They struggle with quitting. They struggle with fatigue and so they need that sanctum place where they can say: listen, this is what I’m dealing with. Whoever it is, creature, no matter what. This is what I’m struggling with. This is my battle. This is my addiction and I just need a place where I can be safe in. And so, I’m… my goal is that over the next eight months to acquire a property that I’m looking at, that will be a secluded private property by invite only. Where people can come and have a sink and a few other projects, I’m looking at doing as well.
We thank Bishop T. Veron House for allowing us to speak with him about his many ventures and we look forward to what else he may have in store.
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