Stories to Inspire...

Faith at work on the margins of life

Michael Mata understands the tough side of life

Los Angeles pastor, Michael Mata understands the tough side of life. Growing up in Southern California as well as Texas, Mata understood only too well the hard times faced by those who somehow never found their way into the mainstream of society. In Texas, Mata lived not far from a bridge near railroad tracks across from his house. Hungry, homeless men would often knock on the door of his home and mother would offer them tortillas. The impact of his mother’s generosity, sharing meager fare with those who were down on their luck, left an enduring influence that has been a contributing force in shaping his own ministry.

As an ordained elder and pastor of a local congregation of the Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles, California, he worked hard to develop programs for teens that would keep them off the streets. It didn’t take long for Mata to realize that the teens needed more than another program, they really needed jobs. Joanna Corman of the Los Angeles Times interviewing Pastor Mata wrote, “With their spiky hair or dark skin, they couldn’t get jobs, not even at McDonald’s. It wasn’t the money they wanted so much—they could sell enough drugs in two weeks to buy a car,” Mata said.

Combining his pastoral training with his personal values and experience, Michael Mata set out to find jobs for teens. When his search proved fruitless, he combined imagination with insight, creating a program in which teens would escort seniors on errands. For their services, the seniors wrote job recommendations to accompany their resumes. According to Corman’s interview, “It worked…Mata said.”

Corman went on to say, “Mata has dedicated his career to that kind of work: bring disparate groups together in the name of social causes. He did it after riots in Los Angeles, encouraging black, Korean, and Hispanic leaders to meet despite their trepidation. He does it as a professor of urban ministry at Claremont School of Theology. And he does it for President Bush’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative, a controversial piece of pending legislation that, if passed, would make it easier for secular and religious grass-roots organizations delivering social services to apply for federal grants.”

Mata is known as a “conservative Christian” who is open to dialogue. He has demonstrated this by working with other groups and organizations to help the marginalized in our society. “That for me, in very tangible ways, demonstrated what our faith should be about, helping those on the margins of society,” said Mata.

Michael Mata’s ministry is the continuation of over a century of visionary ministry of the Church of the Nazarene in the Los Angeles area. In October 1895 Phineas F. Bresee, D.D., and Joseph P. Widney, M.D., with about 100 others, including Alice P. Baldwin, Leslie F. Gay, W. S. and Lucy P. Knott, C. E. McKee, and members of the Bresee and Widney families, organized the Church of the Nazarene at Los Angeles. At the outset they saw this church as the first of a denomination that preached the reality of entire sanctification received through faith in Christ. They held that Christians sanctified by faith should follow Christ's example and preach the Gospel to the poor. They felt called especially to this work. [From the MANUAL, Church of the Nazarene]