As a 16 year old boy I attended a Christian camp in the state of New York. One evening the speaker challenged us with this question: "If you were to die today do you know for sure that you would wake up in heaven?" He went on to say that being 87% sure or 94% sure wasn't good enough. We needed to be sure Christ lived within. That evening I prayed with my counselor and came away with an inner peace that Christ was clearly my Savior and Lord.

While in college I began to work with the parachurch organization, Young Life. I found real joy in sharing Christ with those high school students. This motivated me to pursue seminary training, with the thought that one day I might become a Young Life staff member. I graduated from Bethel College in 1970 and went on to Bethel Theological Seminary.

While attending seminary, an older pastor friend invited me to intern at his church during my summer break. That local church experience changed my life. I truly enjoyed working with all age groups and sensed the Lord calling me into the pastoral ministry. I graduated from Seminary in 1974.

From 1974 to 1979 I served as the Associate Pastor at Hillcrest Baptist Church in Jamestown, New York.

In 1979 my wife, Sher, and myself came to Berean to plant a new church. We began with about 35 children and adults, meeting in a rented facility. It has been an adventuresome and rewarding 23 year experience of God's grace at work. We feel honored to know the lives that have been impacted for Christ through the ministry of Berean and its people.

Sher, and I were married in July of 1978 and we are the proud parents of three sons, B.J., Matthew and Jonathan.

Pastor Bill Heaton
Pastor, Spiritual Maturity & Missions
bheaton@bereanmansfield.com

I grew up in the Cleveland area and attended the College of Wooster, graduating with a BA degree in Education in 1971.

In 1972 I was working as a high school Industrial Arts teacher and I felt an extreme emptiness in my life. The mother of a good friend began sharing Jesus Christ with me. I thought I was a Christian since I was not Jewish, Buddhist or Hindu. It was not until I went to Bible study and began to understand who Jesus Christ was and why He died on the Cross that I recognized my great spiritual need. I knew I was a sinner and I committed my life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

I was teaching school and had my summers free. I served as a summer counselor at Camp Burton in Burton Ohio. I entered seminary in 1975, graduating in 1979. I served summers at Camp Burton and three years as a part-time Youth Pastor while in seminary. God continued to give me more and more responsibility and opened many more doors. Full-time ministry was the logical step and again God opened the door to a wonderful opportunity. Work Experience: I served 5 summers at Camp Burton as a Counselor and Program Director. I served three years as part-time Youth Pastor in Hudson, WI. I served full-time as Youth Pastor in New Castle, PA for four years. I went to my home church as Pastor for three years. I have now served at Berean for fifteen years. Responsibilities: I am the Pastor of Adult Spiritual Development and Missions. This is a position I have grown into as I began as the first Associate Pastor. I direct and teach 4 different classes that we believe help Christians in the process of “becoming like Christ”. I also direct a growing and exciting Mission Ministry that not only supports missionaries and mission agencies, but also sends Berean people to short-term mission in several cross-cultural settings. History at Berean: I began at Berean on March 1, 1987. I was Berean’s first Associate Pastor joining Pastor Dave. I have been part of the excitement that has watched Berean grow into the significant ministry it is today. In the early days I did everything from Children’s Ministry, to Youth Ministry, to Adult Ministry and everything in between. It has been a great blessing to serve God for 15 years here. It has been wonderful for my family. Berean is out family and Mansfield is our home. Family: Julie and I have been married since 1977 and we have three sons, Joel, Jared and Jason and one daughter Beth. I have a wonderful family for which I thank God.

I was born and raised in Clinton, New Jersey, a small town in north central New Jersey about ten miles from Pennsylvania. It was there at age 8 that I accepted the Lord as personal Savior while attending our churchâ??s Vacation Bible School. After graduating from high school, my Dad encouraged me and my brothers to attend one year of Bible college to get grounded in the Word and to see what God wanted to do with my life. So, I enrolled into Northeastern Bible College in Essex Fell, New Jersey. It was there that the Lord began to work in my heart through classes and through my Christian service, which I chose to do, as a Youth Leader. It was during that time that I began to see the Lord use me to make a difference in the lives of teens. After two years of helping out a youth ministry, the Lord led me to become a part-time youth pastor in a small church a few miles from the school. During that time as a part-time youth pastor, the Lord really began to confirm in my heart that this is where He wanted me to serve Him with my life. After four years of hard work, I graduated with a BA in Youth Ministry with a major in Bible. I was also blessed to meet and court a wonderful young lady, Becky Claar, from Pittsburgh, PA, who would later become my lovely better half and the mother of my three daughters.

After graduation, the Lord led me to become the pastor of Christian Education at the Immanuel Baptist Church in Utica, NY. The Lord gave us three wonderful years of ministry there and really used that time to shape me and round off my rough edges. It was while we were in Utica that our first daughter, Jennifer Lee, was born. So after three years in Utica, the Lord led us to move with our senior pastor to Boston, MA, to serve as Director of Christian Education and Youth. This new ministry and new challenge was an exciting time for us as we saw the Lord continue to use us. It was here that we also saw our second daughter, Brittany Marie, born. The Lord gave us many great times in ministry and allowed us to develop many wonderful friendships. The Lord also began to develop a greater passion in my heart for student ministry and also began to develop in me better leadership skills. So after six excellent years of ministry, the Lord moved us to a place of great challenge and a place that was an excellent fit for what the Lord was doing in my heart and life. We moved to Pittsburgh, PA, to minister in the First Evangelical Free Church. The Lord blessed our ministry greatly as we were able to focus all of our energies toward youth. This is what I had loved to do. The Lord used us in great ways in Pittsburgh and allowed us to be part of reaching hundreds of teens and allow teens to use their spiritual gifts and talents to serve Him. It was during this time that our third daughter, Sarah Ann, was born.

After about twelve years of faithful service, the Lord began to stir in my heart again and began to challenge me in my comfortableness at the ministry at First Free. So the Lord decided to move us to Berean, to lay before us a challenge of developing a youth ministry that would make a difference in the lives of those involved in it and also in the lives of students in our community. My desire for the youth ministry at Berean is that the Lord would grow it to be a place where students are loved and challenged in their faith and are challenged to be all that God created them to be; to create a place where students take ownership of their faith and really experience a walk with Him.

I was born in Connecticut on October 28, 1968 but grew up in Alexandria, VA. I received my BA in English from the University of Virginia in 1990 and my Master of Divinity from Columbia Biblical Seminary and Graduate School of Missions in Columbia, SC in 1995.

I repented of my sin and became a Christian in August 1988 while home for the summer. Although I grew up knowing about Jesus and believing that Jesus died and rose again, I never trusted in Christ’s redemptive work on the cross for my own salvation until that day. Soon after that life-changing event I decided to forsake my plans for medical school and become a minister of the gospel as a full-time occupation.

While in seminary I worked part-time as a Children’s Ministry Director for two years. I have served as Berean’s Children’s Pastor since 1995. I oversee the ministry to children from birth to sixth grade. I administer three Sunday morning ministry hours and the Wednesday night children’s WhAM-O!. The ministry also calls me to reach out to the community through summer events in city parks and backyards, and through the school year in public classrooms. My desire is to develop a team of volunteer leaders that meet the needs of children in Mansfield, the state of Ohio and around the world.. Despite a world in which children are bombarded with dangerous ideas and experience heart-breaking circumstances, I believe that God has the power to change lives and to HEAL KID’S HEARTS!

Pastor Jim Berry
Senior Adult Pastor
jberry@bereanmansfield.com

I was born and raised in Lucas, Ohio, and still live there. In 1968, I accepted Christ at the age of 21 years old in a small church in Lucas. A few weeks later I met Judy at church and we were married one year later. We have two sons. Eric and his wife Dawn live in Oxford, Ohio, where Eric is working on a doctorate at Miami University of Ohio. Tim and his wife Susanna live in Mansfield and are the parents of my four grandchildren born in 2004.

I received a bachelor degree from the Ohio State University in 1970 and a master's degree from LaVerne College in California. I began teaching in the Madison school district in 1970 (where I eventually taught for 30 years), but soon after accepting Christ as my Savior, God began opening doors of ministry. I began teaching Sunday School, which is where I gained a lot of Bible knowledge. Judy and I became youth leaders at the Lucas church. We were always involved in some type of ministry. In 1984, we sensed God was leading us away from that church. We visited several different good churches. The day we visited the fellowship called Berean Baptist at Mansfield Christian School, we knew that that was where God wanted us to be. The warmth of the people and Pastor Dave's message drew us to this congregation. We had been at Berean only a few weeks when the youth leader announced his resignation. I sensed right away that was what I would do. I became the first paid youth leader at Berean Baptist Church. Later, God opened the door for me to serve on the deacon board, and He continued to open doors of ministry.

Bob Hill organized the senior adult ministry in the early '90's, and called it Berean Gold. He invited Judy and me to come to a senior adult dinner, and another door was opened. We fell in love with the older adults. Bob gave us more responsibility as time went on. In 1998, Pastor Dave asked me if I would be interested in coming on staff as minister of senior adults when I retired from my teaching position at Madison. On July 1, 2000, I came on staff at Berean as the Pastor of Senior Adults. As God opens a door, I begin walking through it until God closes it. Since becoming involved in the senior adult ministry, Judy and I have been so blessed by the people God has brought into our lives, and have been blessed by the many Christian friends over the years. I like to call the ministry Berean Gold/2nd Half for Him. The first half of our lives gives us the preparation we need to live the2nd Half for Him.