Niles’ Guy Biddle knows the power that a good and compassionate pastor can have on a person’s life.

Around 20 years ago, Biddle, then a resident of northern Indiana, was discontented with his life. While he had a very successful career as an auto parts salesman (who his coworkers said could “sell ice to Eskimo,” he said) as well as a loving and supporting family at home, Biddle said he still felt he was missing something from his life.

Decades earlier, Biddle had turned to the church for help when his first marriage was falling apart, only for the pastor to deliver a 45-minute explanation on tithing. The experience caused him to reject the support from his faith, and instead tackles his problems on his own.

“I bought into the idea of handling your problems ‘like a man,’” Biddle said. “I didn’t believe I needed help from anyone. I never showed my emotions. If I had a problem, I just walked it off.”

Following the death of his uncle, who he was extremely close with, Biddle met with the pastor of the West Goshen Church of the Brethren, whose comforting words during such a trying time helped pierce the emotional shield the man had erected around himself.

During the burial ceremony of his loved one, those cracks the church leader made caused Biddle’s shield to shatter into pieces.

“I was holding my youngest son when they started playing taps, and I just broke down into tears,” Biddle said. “I knew then I had to make some changes in my life — and joining the church was the first one I made.”

Today, Biddle wants to make the same impact in lives of others, at the pulpit of Dowagiac’s First Christian Church.

The Niles man took over as pastor of the 142-year-old Oak Street church Sept. 17, bringing with him more than a decade’s worth of experience in ministry. While less than a month into the job, Biddle and the congregation are hard at work making some sweeping changes to the church, including adding more contemporary music to services, starting a new children’s church program and expanding the church’s outreach efforts to the community.

From high-powered salesman to clergyman, Biddle’s path to the pulpit of First Christian was anything but straightforward.

Biddle grew up in Elkhart, and graduated from Elkhart Central High School in 1980, where he also played football until a shoulder injury cut his high school athletic career short. While he initially wanted to become an architect, the economic downturn at the time caused the high school graduate to hit the job market right away.

Seeing an advertisement in the newspaper for a receptionist position at Consolidated Marketing Services — the largest conversion parts distributor in the world at the time — Biddle decided to make the trek over to the company and apply for a job.

“I hadn’t even made it home before someone called and said he wanted to talk to me about a job,” he recalled.

Biddle worked his way up the chain, from a low-level employee to a salesman with this own territory, before leaving the company five years later. The man continued to work in sales in the years that followed.

In spite of his success in the field, it was only after he and his family joined West Goshen Church of the Brethren where he began to feel like he finally found his calling in life: ministry.

Under the mentorship of his church’s pastor, Don Snell, Biddle began learning more about the Bible, the word of God and the power of Jesus Christ.

“Don did a great job exposing me to every aspect of ministry — visitations, jailhouse ministries, all sorts of things,” he said.

In 2002, Biddle became the youth pastor of his church, and instantly connected with the children and teenagers he worked with, using a love of sports to bond with them.

In 2004, Biddle left the Goshen church to become a pastor at the Syracuse Church of the Brethren, where he served for two years before participating in a yearlong supervised ministry program with the Baugo Church of the Brethren. He later became pastor at the Mt. Pleasant Church of the Brethren before the church was forced to close its doors due to declining membership in 2011.

Over the next several years, Biddle committed himself full-time to his education, receiving his master’s degree theological studies from Bethel in 2015, he said. He is currently studying to receive another master’s degree, in discipleship in church ministry, from Liberty University, which is he on track to earn next spring.

For the last several years, Biddle and his wife, Sarah, were members of Hope Community Church in Niles. Several months ago, he saw a post on Facebook from First Christian Church, announcing that the church was looking for a new leader.

Just as had he felt years earlier, Biddle said that him stumbling on the post was God’s way of showing him the next path he should take in life.

“My wife and I knew the first time we walked through the doors that this was where I belonged — that this was where I need to be preaching,” he said.

First Christian Church has around 40 members who regularly attend service, a number that Biddle is hoping to add to through the new initiatives he is spearheading.

Since being hired on, the congregation has welcomed him with open arms, treating him like he has been a part of the church for years, Biddle said. The members have embraced, and, in many cases, initiated the changes the church is implementing.

“We’re a small congregation, but we really care about people,” he said. “We want to know people on a personal level, not just as members of the church.”

For service times and other information about the church, people may call (269) 782-6220 or visit the church’s Facebook page, at facebook.com/FirstChristianDowagiac.