With 100 congregation members, St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church was on life support in 1980. That’s when Kirby Unti, now 56, became pastor. Twenty-eight years later, the Highlands church on Edmonds Avenue has more than 1,000 members. Programs have expanded from Sunday services and the occasional mid-week activity to seven days a week.

“We are a happening place,” Unti says. “It’s very busy.”

Happenings include providing groceries five days a week for Renton’s Emergency Feeding Program; taking in McKnight Middle School students for a before-and-after-school program; doling out layettes (clothing, blankets and diapers) to low-income moms with newborns and setting up congregation members with mentors.

St. Matthew’s also launched a Chinese immigrant ministry last year, run by two Chinese pastors. And the church, in partnership with The Compass Center and Renton Technical College, is helping redevelop the former downtown Renton Lutheran Church. When finished, the building will provide transitional housing for Iraq veterans, English as a Second Language classes and a coffee shop called Luther’s Table.

On top of all that, St. Matthew’s offers traditional programming, including church services, adult education, Sunday School and Bible classes.

The 2007 Citizen of the Year, Unti also does his part in Renton. He’s active in Rotary, Communities in Schools of Renton, King County Sexual Assault Resource Center and Renton Salvation Army. He was chaplain for the Renton Police Department for more than 15 years, and has officiated at hundreds of weddings, baptisms and funerals. He also writes a column for Renton Magazine.

“God is to be discovered out in the community,” he says.

His congregation agrees.

“St. Matthews has taken the posture of saying the whole world is sacred,” he adds. “Where God is to be encountered is out in the community, in the lives of her people.”