Founding and Early Growth: From Southside Group to Matthews Church
The University City Seventh-day Adventist Church actually began as the Southside Group and was formed around 1984 by a group of mission-minded families from the Sharon SDA Church. They lived in South Charlotte and recognized the area as high-growth. Recognizing this growth, they decided to plant a church there. The first church services were actually primarily held in the home of Doug and Ginger Sayles. Their den and dining room became the sanctuary, and bedrooms upstairs were used for various Sabbath Schools. Once formed into a company, they conducted evangelistic meetings and with growth, began renting the Morningstar Lutheran Church on Idlewild Road, less than one mile from where our first church was built!
After meeting at the Lutheran church, the group migrated to the Candlewyck Baptist Church on Providence Road. This was very near the Sayles home and quite convenient for the leadership at that time. Having a group in a “new” area of Charlotte was beneficial both to the church’s membership and finances. A building fund began to grow rapidly, and by utilizing many talents within the church family, our first church home was built on Idlewild Road. The Southside Group became the Matthews Church as services began in this new structure in the spring of 1990. The Matthews Church was joined into a district with the Gastonia Church within the Carolina Conference.
The original intent in Matthews was to undertake a two phase project. The first phase was to build a kitchen/dining hall/all-purpose gymnasium with Sabbath School classrooms. Phase two would be a formal sanctuary toward the front of the property. The goal was to provide a building that could grow with the church and provide for a variety of uses in the future, including a school. Over a period of a few years, the original core group moved away due to job and family needs. However, the congregation continued to attract new families and membership remained steady in the 90-110 range for quite awhile.
The geographic and demographic elements of the church family continued to change, but our focus remained the same. We have always desired to place a Seventh-day Adventist church in an area of Charlotte experiencing high growth and minimal SDA presence. With membership shifting away from the Matthews area, the University City area of Charlotte represented a tremendous opportunity.
We studied our situation and decided the Idlewild Road location in Matthews no longer met our needs for several reasons. First, maintenance on the large church structure was using all available resources, leaving nothing for evangelism or community outreach. Clearly, this was unacceptable in light of our goals. Secondly, nearly all the members that lived in the South/Southeast/Matthews area of Charlotte had transferred out to Rock Hill, York, and Monroe churches that were formed after Matthews was established. Some members had also transferred back to the Sharon Church. Without these members, there was little incentive to remain meeting in a place that was inconvenient and inefficient.
The church family felt impressed to move, and put out a fleece to God stating that if God sold the church within a certain time period, and for a certain amount, they would move to the University City area. Even before the church officially hit the market, two interested parties entered into a bidding war and the church sold for more that the targeted “fleece” price! So we sold the church, moved to the University City area and held services briefly at the Carolina Conference Office before migrating over to the Newell Presbyterian Church on Rocky River Road. Newell Presbyterian Church shared their historic chapel building with us initially, but we quickly outgrew it and began utilizing their modern sanctuary. At one point the Beginners class grew so large that they met on the stage in the sanctuary and the adult class was moved to a tiny side room!
Relocation and Expansion: A New Vision for University City
On March 16, 2002, we broke ground at our current location on University City Blvd and moved into our new church home in the spring of 2003, with 97 members on the books. This first phase of our new home included the sanctuary, classrooms, parking and a small kitchen. A second phase for a Family Life Center was to follow.
The first conference supplied pastor was Elder Cecil Pomeroy. He was a retired minister that came out of retirement to assist in our church planting effort at Southside. Following Elder Pomeroy, we were blessed with Elder Paull Dixon. He left our church district to fill a conference position (Ministerial Director?). Elder Pomeroy came back from retirement one more time to serve as an interim pastor. He was eventually replaced by our next full-time pastor, Elder David Prest (1989). David Prest eventually took a call to the Alaska Conference and was replaced by Elder Hein Strydom formerly from South Africa. After his tenure, our church worked under the leadership of Elder Tim Sheridan. Elder Sheridan was later replaced by Elder Randy Davis, followed by Elder Gary Tolbert, Elder Ryan Ashlock, Elder Jackie James, and Elder Sergio Quevedo(2024) who leads us by the Word and by example today.
With their leadership and God’s blessings we have planted six church groups. The Huntersville Lighthouse group was first in 2009 and they are now an established church. Lighthouse formed a district with UCSDA for a time. Other church plants followed with the Charlotte Swahilli Group in 2010, the Fort Mill Group and the Myanmar Groups both in 2013, and the Unity Group and Safari Group both launched in 2015. Later, in 2017, another leadership team launched the Mint Hill Group.
Church Planting and Ministry Growth
New church plants were not the only growth for us. Our Cornerstone Adventist Academy was launched in 2016 as plans were laid for a new Family Life Center to expand our various ministries. The school initially had to meet in the church’s small kitchen area and a few adjacent Sabbath School rooms with dreams of migrating across campus to the new FLC. School principals have been Sandi Greenleef, Sonja Eberhart, and Jessica Mairena (2024-).
Building for the Future: Family Life Center and Ongoing Development
The FLC Grand Opening was in 2018 with its first phase of a commercial kitchen, restrooms, classrooms, unfinished gym space, and storage on the first floor. The second floor had flooring but was unfinished. Phase two is pending to finish out the gym, add an elevator, build out the second floor, and complete the building’s HVAC needs. A capital campaign was launched in the fall of 2024 to meet the needs of this next phase.
Through the years, God has blessed and guided us and we still sense His guiding hand. We firmly believe He wants us to continue to grow and serve Him and our fellowman. Therefore, we continue to reach out in many different ways with a variety of Sabbath School classes, church services, and small groups. They all continue to grow! May God continue to bless us as we seek to KNOW LOVE, LIVE LOVE, and SHARE LOVE.