Steve Lillis is the current President and Founder of the worldwide ministry Gospel Trick Shot Ministries, Inc. (GTS) which is an evangelistic ministry using the BAM (Business As Mission) model for ministry. Recently this past October, he led a GTS team of five Christian American pool players along with a GTS coach from South Africa and two GTS team managers from South Carolina to Tangier, Morocco to compete in the 2022 World Blackball International Pool Championships with 32 nations in attendance. The GTS USA team did live Gospel Trick Shot Artistic Pool shows in the main arena with thousands viewing online from all over the world. GTS distributed billiard products as gifts from leading Amercian billiard manufacturers along with Bibles in both Arabic and English to players and fans in this Arab nation! Steve has recently been nominated and confirmed as the first President and Founder of the USA Blackball Pool Association and has been selected by his peers to be the General Secretary of Blackball International. He has been charged with the responsibility of bringing the vastly popular English styled billiard game of Blackball to the American shores.
Gospel Trick Shot is using the BAM model of ministry by using the sport of billiards in 12 African nations to help the poor become self-sufficient. Blackball pool is the most popular cue sport on the African continent. GTS is not only providing billiard tables for future entrepreneurs but also has located a site in Zambia to build blackball pool tables for distribution. GTS is also partnering with churches both here in the USA and Africa to dig water wells along with a seed planting ministry to produce crops to help combat the great need for both food and water. GTS also currently has 23 international billiard industry partners assisting in this effort. In January, Steve will lead another GTS team to England to compete in the 2023 IPA World Blackball Championships and has again been invited to do special GTS Artistic Pool shows which will be broadcast on the BBC. The team has also been invited to Dublin, Ireland after England for more shows before heading back to the USA.
Steve is a retired professor of English from William Paterson University after serving as an educator for 24 years here in Northern New Jersey. He has run after school programs and summer camps in the City of Paterson. He also was a franchise general manager for Chic-fil-A and the Corner Pockets of America. Steve has served on the Board of Trustees for the Passaic County Community College (PCCC) and has college degrees from PCCC, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), and St. Peter’s University, along with a 4-year Bible Diploma from the Hawthorne Evening Bible School.