Matt Adiran

First Baptist Church of San Diego

Contact: 5055 Governor Dr., San Diego 858-457-4827 www.fbcsd.com

Membership: 55 (Attendance: 125-140)

Pastor: Matthew Adrian

Age: 38

Born: Kansas City, MO

Formation: Baptist Bible College (now Mission University), Springfield, MO

Years Ordained: 17 

San Diego Reader: Why did you become a minister?

Pastor Matthew Adrian: When I was 16, I was working at my first job for a lawn company in this little town, Hutchinson, Kansas. I was mowing the lawn and I was in prayer. Whenever I was in the backyard cutting lawns, I would pray. One day, I felt a strong conviction that I needed to serve in ministry. I come from a long line of pastors, and my great-great-grandpa was a full-time farmer and part-time pastor in a German-speaking Mennonite community in South Dakota. He wasn’t happy with the way his two sons were spending their lives, and one day while behind the plow, he prayed for his sons. In his prayer, he asked they get their lives on track, and repent and return. He also asked God to call them into ministry. He didn’t tell his boys this, but passed the farm onto my great-grandpa, who at that point returned to a solid relationship with God. One day, he’s plowing that same field and feels compelled to get down in the dirt and pray; he feels that God is telling him to become a pastor. He ends up going to seminary and becomes an evangelist and later a church planter. I didn’t know that story when I was mowing the lawn that day I realized God might be calling me into something like this. I don’t know if my great-great-grandpa had the intention that not only his son but his son’s son, and his son’s son’s son and his son’s son’s son’s son would also experience that type of blessing in ministry. But I believe God was answering a prayer that my great-great-grandpa did not realize would have that kind of multi-generational answer.

SDR: What’s the mission of your church?

PA: To help people find and follow Jesus. This is based on the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20. God has called us to go into the whole world and make disciples of all nations. We want people who don’t have a relationship with God to find a place where they can sort that out and be invited into that relationship with him. We also want to provide the next steps which are clear and help people where they’re at.

SDR: Where do you go when you die?

PA: I believe there’s a heaven and a hell. I’m going to heaven based on my relationship with Jesus: that he died on my behalf and that he is offering me grace even though I don’t deserve it. God is ultimately a God of justice. God doesn’t desire that anyone should perish, but his holiness desires a level of perfection which mankind cannot achieve on its own. That’s why Jesus is so essential and why he wants us to share this message. I don’t think that he wants us to be obnoxious as we share it but to lovingly show he loves people so much that he was willing to sacrifice his own son for us. Hell can be a topic we like to avoid, but it is not loving to do so. Ultimately, we are all sinful based on the things we do and don’t do. God is offering forgiveness through his son, but he is not forcing it on those who wish not to accept it.