By Lindsay Robinson | Echo
As a soon-to-be graduate of Asbury Seinary in 1968, Taylor alum Jim Mathis faced an unusual problem. The denomination he was preparing to enter suddenly combined with a different denomination. Suddenly, he was a young preacher without a denomination-and without a church to pastor.
While Mathis floundered, Taylor called and asked him to return to work as a men's residence hall director. Accepting this job would mean taking a detour from a path he thought followed his calling.
Even before attending Taylor, he felt called to be a pastor and planned to head straight into ministry after seminary. Mathis graduated from Taylor in 1964 with a degree in sociology and religion. He met his wife Joan at Taylor and they married in 1965 after he graduated. Although being the hall director of a men's dorm was a ministry, it was not the type of service he anticipated.
Mathis accepted the job offer, but clarified that he did not wish to make his career at Taylor. He signed a five-year contract before he and his wife moved into Wengatz, thinking it would give him enough time to search for a new denomination.
He spent his first two years working at Taylor as the Wengatz hall director and took an additional job at what is now known as the Student Development Office his second year. His third year, he ended up switching over as the hall director of Sammy Morris and remained there for the final two years of his contract.
During his fourth year, Mathis was approached by members of a small church that had just started in town called the Upland Evangelical Mennonite Church. Wally and Marlene Roth were founding members. She said that for the first two years the church met in the Upland Lions Club fieldhouse in a park on the east side of Upland.
"The nursery was actually in the lady's restroom in the park there," Marlene Roth explained.
Roth's husband had been Mathis's hall director during Mathis's time as a Taylor student. Roth described Mathis as an energetic, enthusiastic student-just the type of person the congregation wanted to lead their young church.
In its infancy, the church saw potential to reach out to the greater community of Upland. It found an opportunity to bring Taylor and the surrounding community together through worship.
After a promising first year of pastoring the church, Mathis resigned from Taylor to concentrate on his duties as a full-time pastor. Upon entering the role, he found that God had already prepared the way for the small church to succeed.
"The church just grew tremendously,"Mathis said. "It was just an easy thing because (Taylor) students were so hungry for something . . . The students were looking for a church. At that time there wasn't much to relate to on a Sunday basis."
The services, which had been held in the Lions Club fieldhouse, were moved when the church gained enough members to buy its own property in Upland. They built a house that would serve both as a church and home for Mathis and his family. The house had a basement that served as a youth center and a garage that was used as the chapel.
"People were always walking into our house thinking they were walking into the church," Mathis said with a laugh.
Mathis loved getting to know community members. He even volunteered with the Upland Fire Department to become more involved. In the evenings, he would let the youth in the area play pool and hang out in his basement, and he would join in the fun.
"The students and congregation loved him," Roth said. From planning field-trips to pulling silly stunts for them like eating a tube of lipstick, she recalled how committed he was to the people of his church.
"I was having too much fun, it wasn't that much of a challenge," Mathis said of his role as pastor.
He is thankful for the church's board and committee members who were there to support him, especially as a young pastor.
Mathis spent fifteen years as pastor at what is now call Upland Community Church (UCC) before he felt it was time for him to pass on the leadership role. He went on to pastor another small church, Gaylord Evangelical Free Church, in Gaylord, Mich. He stepped down as head pastor after that church also experienced tremendous growth and now works as an associate pastor at the church.
"I learned I can build a church to seven or eight hundred people because of the type of personality, style and different gifts that God has given to me," Mathis explained. "But, when a church gets past a certain point, it needs a very different style of leadership."
Although his career started off differently than he imagined, he would not have been able to discover his gift for encouraging the growth of churches without the detour. Looking back on his career, all he can say is, "I'm the luckiest guy around."
