The Journey of Cade Sanders
Cade Sanders grew up in Owatonna, Minnesota.
He was in a Christian home, and his family was part of Grace Baptist Church for as long as he can remember.
But somewhere along the way, he realized that he didn’t know the Bible nearly as well as he thought he did.
“I chose to go to Faith to deepen my understanding of God’s Word and my biblical knowledge,” Cade reflects. “I realized that I didn’t know much at all, and I wanted to grow in that area.”
God used that honest self-awareness to lead him to Faith Baptist Bible College, where he graduated in 2025 with a degree in Biblical Studies and an emphasis in Biblical Counseling.
But when he arrived on campus, he certainly couldn’t predict where God would take him after he left!
Plans That Kept Changing
Cade didn’t arrive at Faith with a clear five-year plan. His first thought was simple: go for a year, maybe two, then return home, pick up a trade, and find ways to serve the Lord from there.
But that plan didn’t last long.
“After freshman year, the Lord really was working on my heart to open me up to ministry,” he says. That nudge led him toward a pastoral degree for a while. But as he prepared for his junior year, he made another shift—this time to the Biblical Studies program.
He still wanted to be equipped, but his heart was not set on pastoral ministry.
“At that point, it was kind of open,” he explains. “The Lord had begun putting on my heart, maybe Christian education.”
So he followed that, and it turned out to be the right choice.
Coming Home
Today, Cade serves as the administrator at Owatonna Christian School—the school attached to his church.
It’s the kind of full-circle story that’s hard to plan for and easy to be grateful for.
“A door opened up for me to come back home and to be in the ministry back here, which was my heart all along,” he says. “It’s been a huge blessing.”
Of course, coming home as the administrator rather than as a student comes with its own set of interesting dynamics. Some of his former teachers now answer to him, and he’s working alongside people who remember him as a kid in the hallways!
“Suddenly, I’m some of my former teachers’ boss, which has been a unique experience,” Cade admits, laughing. “But people have been really good.”
He’s also connecting with students who are younger siblings of his old classmates—a reminder that ministry is often more personal than people expect.
What Faith Built
When Cade graduated from high school, the idea of leading a Bible study would have scared him. Reading his Bible was still mostly devotional.
Faith changed that.
“Faith helped equip me in that way a ton,” he says. “Being able to open up God’s Word and to actually exegete it—through the preaching classes, the Bible classes, the theology classes—they’ve all prepared me well.”
Now he teaches chapel twice a week, leads a Bible study, and instructs science classes from a biblical worldview.
“Even what I’ve learned in apologetics class and through biology, things like that, have been a huge blessing,” he says. “Faith was enormous in equipping me to be able to do that effectively.”
He came to Faith not knowing much. He left knowing how to open the Word.
Today, he’s doing exactly that, in his own hometown, with the next generation sitting right in front of him.
