October 1, 2026
GLENCOE, Ky. (KT) – Steve Miller is the painting pastor of Poplar Grove Baptist Church in Owen County. He paints with flair and preaches with fire.
First, the painting part. It was a lifelong hobby that he almost lost in 2023.
Miller was in a horrific car crash and was not expected to survive. He came out alive but lost his right eye. However, he did not lose his passion for painting. He had to retrain his brain to become a one-eyed painter.
“I’ve been painting all my life,” he said. “I still have a drawing I did in the Navy. It’s a picture of an old homeplace that I did by memory. It was my grandpa’s home. It was still standing. I painted by what was in my mind.”
He works in oil paints, and most of his drawings are scenes. He has sold some of them but has never made a lot of money.
“The thing about an artist, you don’t think you’re that good,” Miller said.
That brings us to the preaching part. Miller is good at painting the picture of salvation from the pulpit.
“Every service I preach, I give them a chance to be saved, and funerals are the same way,” he said. “A lot of churches have buckled under and gone along with what people want, which is a story. I’ll tell you the story, but you’re going to hear an altar call at the end of it.”
Miller’s life is a story; a vivid portrait of God’s grace. He grew up in Greenup County and joined the military at age 17 after his junior year of high school. He wanted to serve with the Marines in Vietnam, but his mother would sign for him only if he joined the Navy.
He was in the Navy for two years and served stateside, not because he wanted to — but because of his near-perfect teeth. Miller became part of a dental research project for the Navy and worked as a police officer on the military base.
“I had perfect teeth. They wanted to know what I’d eaten and asked questions like that. He said, ‘Sign here, and I will keep you out of Vietnam.’”
But Miller told him he didn’t want to be kept out of Vietnam.
“The captain closed his door and said to me, ‘You don’t want to go to Vietnam.’ Here I am, eager to go because I’d lost some close friends. I signed the paper, and he told me I was in security.”
Miller served for two years before returning home. It was then that he realized the importance of having at least a high school diploma. He had enlisted in the Navy before finishing school. But the 19-year-old military veteran was allowed to enroll and complete his senior year.
But God began to paint the picture of Miller’s future calling when he was 20 and nearly experienced another car crash.
“I was on Low Gap Road begging God to help me,” he said. “I was under conviction. I said, ‘Lord, please, just come into my heart. Take me over.' I remember crying. I was by myself. Life had just got so hard for me. Conviction is something that once it got in there, I couldn’t turn Him down. I rolled (the car) over in the ditch and jumped it back up on the road.’”
Miller said it was a Wednesday, and he went directly to a preacher he knew.
“I busted through the doors, and they’re having prayer meeting,” he said. “I said, ‘Mike, I need to talk to you.’ He was teaching a class. He said, 'Hang on a minute,' and came over and said, ‘What do you need, buddy?’ I was out of breath, and I said, ‘Mike, I got saved on Low Gap, and I want to be baptized.’”
He was. And his life changed.
He began studying the Bible and learning, even as his work life took him to the Kentucky State Police, where he served for 18 years but able to retire with 20 years service including his time in the Navy,
He was called to preach in 1978 while attending Maranatha Bible Church in Webbville. He has now been in ministry for 48 years, including a time as a traveling evangelist. He has spent the past 10 years as a part-time and then full-time pastor at Poplar Grove, a small church of around 50 believers that will celebrate its 200th anniversary in May.
But Miller’s picture was not yet complete.
The Owenton Police Department hired him as a drug enforcement officer. He helped clean up the city from a major drug problem during a seven-year stint using his experience with the KSP.
“I put a lot of people in prison out of this town,” he said. “They (drug dealers) were scared to death in this town. I had an informant ring that was so powerful. That's the only way you can do it.”
But after flushing out the drug dealers, Miller went back to his church, inviting people to the altar — faithfully painting a picture of the salvation found in Jesus Christ.
___
This article appeared in Kentucky Today.
Share with others
