A 1964 grad­u­ate of the Moody Bi­ble In­sti­tute, Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois, where he ma­jored in Voice and Or­gan, Schra­der al­so re­ceived a Ba­che­lor of Mu­sic Ed­u­ca­tion de­gree from the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Ne­bras­ka (1966). Fur­ther stu­dies in the­ol­o­gy cul­min­at­ed in his or­din­a­tion by the Evan­gel­i­cal Free Church of Amer­i­ca (1975). He was an ar­rang­er, com­pos­er, con­duct­or, vo­cal­ist, and or­gan­ist/pi­an­ist, and served as an ed­it­or at Hope Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny, re­tir­ing in 2009.