Meet Jeff & Rebecca

Fellow pilgrims on the way.

Jeff and Rebecca Mathis have spent a lifetime helping people recognize the presence of Christ by creating opportunities to share the path and share life together.

Jeff Mathis

A life shaped by the Church and the path.

A graduate of North Carolina State University, Jeff continued his theological studies at Princeton Theological Seminary before earning a Doctor of Ministry degree from Campbell University. His doctoral work in Celtic Christianity explored the formative power of Christian friendship and accompaniment, deepening a calling shaped by the conviction that people come to recognize Christ as they walk together.

For more than thirty years, Jeff has served the Church through children, youth, and college ministry, chaplaincy, pastoral leadership, preaching, and teaching. His ministry has been formed among congregations, including the First Baptist Church of Asheville, which ordained him; Metro Baptist Church in New York City; First Baptist Church of Boone; First Baptist Church of North Wilkesboro; First Baptist Church of Chattanooga; First Baptist Church of Sylva; and Wake Forest Baptist Church—places where shared worship, conversations, tables, and faithful relationships made discipleship tangible.

Today, as College Minister in Residence at Forest Hills Baptist Church, Jeff partners with the congregation to cultivate an intergenerational community of discipleship among students at NC State University and nearby colleges. Bible studies, retreats, pilgrimages, and the ordinary work of hospitality remain part of the same calling: to help people discern God's presence, discover their calling, and become more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

Across these different seasons and communities, Jeff has come to see that the Church becomes most fully itself when generations share the journey together. The friendships, mentors, and fellow pilgrims who have walked with him have made clear why accompaniment is not an addition to ministry, but one of the ways disciples are formed.

Rebecca Mathis

Helping others listen for God's call.

Rebecca is a minister whose work is grounded in spiritual formation, vocational discernment, and helping others recognize God's invitation in their lives. After graduating from Western Carolina University and serving as a public school educator, she earned a Master of Arts in Theology with a concentration in ethics from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. She was ordained to the Gospel Ministry by First Baptist Church of Chattanooga.

Throughout her ministry, Rebecca has served churches, nonprofit organizations, students, ministers, and lay leaders. Her teaching and leadership create room for people to listen carefully for God's invitation, to name the gifts they have been given, and to respond with faithful lives of service.

As Executive Director of the Center for Calling and Ministry at Campbell University Divinity School, Rebecca accompanies students and leaders as they discern vocation and practice Christian leadership. Her life's work reflects a deep trust that calling is discovered in community—when people are known, encouraged, and given companions for the road ahead.

Rebecca's vocational journey has shown her that people often hear God's invitation most clearly in the presence of others who are willing to listen, ask meaningful questions, and remain alongside them. That pastoral attentiveness—expressed in teaching, discernment, and shared life—has become an essential part of the vision that gave rise to Sharing the Path Ministries.

Walking together

One shared vocation, expressed through distinct gifts.

While their experiences have differed, Jeff and Rebecca's calling is one and the same: helping people recognize Christ's presence, discern God's call, and become more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

Together, they bring more than thirty years of pastoral ministry, spiritual formation, and leadership experience to Sharing the Path Ministries, helping people deepen their relationships, share life, and discover that the Christian journey is not meant to be traveled alone.

Loving Your Neighbor

One shared calling. Many paths walked together.

The deepest work of discipleship happens not only through preaching, teaching, or programs, but through shared life—through friendship, hospitality, worship, pilgrimage, conversation, service, and the ordinary moments in which Christ continues to make himself known.

Sharing the Path Ministries is their effort to give lasting expression to that conviction: cultivating communities where people share the path, share life, become like Jesus, and join Christ's mission together.

The companions we hope to be

Present, prayerful, and grateful for the path we share.

Jeff and Rebecca hope to be companions who listen carefully, welcome generously, and help others notice where Christ is already at work. They are grateful for every church, every mentor, every friend, every pilgrim guide, every student, every family, and every companion who has shared this journey with them.