Pastor hoping to cook up a winner

By Andrew Beckner
Charleston Daily Mail
Staff writer
April 18, 2007

Preacher. Tennis coach. Fund raiser. Name a job, Matt Santen's probably done it.

Heck, he got the head tennis job at the University of Charleston because they liked the way he cooked, for crying out loud.

"When this year's senior class were freshmen, Sean Murphy was the coach," Santen said. "He's a friend of mine. They went to Hilton Head (for a match), and I went as the team cook. I wore the cook hat that week."

Now, he's the coach, presiding over a UC men's tennis team that enters Friday's West Virginia Conference Tournament on the strength of a 6-3 win Tuesday over West Virginia State.

Yeah, the win is nice, but Santen probably doesn't dwell on it. He's too busy multi-tasking. In addition to his coaching duties, Santen is the founding pastor of River Ridge Church, here in Charleston.

It's not your daddy's church the doxology at their Greenbrier Street sanctuary is in electric guitar, not a pipe organ.

"There aren't a lot of people who drive around listening to organ music on their radio," Santen said. "We talk about being biblically accurate and culturally relevant."

That means living faith in the real world, and that's what Santen does as a tennis coach. And you can bet his experiences growing River Ridge from humble beginnings to a healthy 200-member plus congregation helps out on the court.

"In some ways, there are a lot of similarities. As a tennis coach, I wear a bunch of different hats," Santen said while, ironically enough, stringing a tennis racket before Tuesday's match with State.

"I'm in charge of fund-raising, I'm in charge of racket stringing, I'm in charge of team morale, team building, recruiting," he said. "A lot of those things ... go into building a church. It's working with people, it's getting people involved, it's recruiting people in ministry as opposed to recruiting members of a team. So, there are some similarities there."

Santen has had plenty of experience working with people.

He played high school tennis growing up in Cincinnati, and was good enough to be team captain his senior year at Connecticut College, where he graduated in 1990.

He spent a year in as youth director of a Presbyterian Church in Cleveland, working mainly with high school kids before becoming area director of a group called Young Life.

That brought him to Morgantown in 1996, where he served as the Young Life director there until starting his pastoral internship at Chestnut Ridge Community Church, one of the fastest growing congregations in Morgantown.

So, when Chestnut Ridge decided to expand its influence and plant a church in Charleston in 2002, Santen jumped at the chance. He's been the UC men's tennis coach since July and has led the Golden Eagles to a 7-13 record.

"For me, I am who I am and my faith is central to who I am," Santen said. "That does play a role in coaching in just who I am. We don't sit down and have team Bible studies or team prayers. At the same time, the guys know where I stand. They probably watch their language a little bit around me."

He calls it an outlet from the stress and strain of shepherding his congregation, but, really, he's just trading one flock for another.

"There's some definite overlap ... (being a Christian) is all about caring for people, about loving people," Santen said. "That's what I do as a coach. I try to care for them beyond the tennis court, and just be there for them in their lives."

So far, mission accomplished.

And that overlap? It works both ways.

"Our church has become known as a tennis church," Santen said. "We have attracted a lot of tennis people, so if we were to field a tennis team, we'd probably win the city championship."

Matt Santen (photo courtesy of the Charleston Daily Mail.)