Pastor Jacob Mathew was born and raised in a nominal Christian background until the teenage years in Kerala, India. His mother who hails from a Jacobite family was the first one to accept Christ and embrace Pentecostal faith following a major illness. Though Jacob accepted Christ as his Savior at a young age, a genuine surrender to the Lordship of Jesus occurred only during college days.
Following that spiritual awakening, Pastor Jacob joined for theological education and has spent the next seven years, completing two theological degrees from two prestigious seminaries. After the graduation, he taught briefly in a Seminary and later joined a campus ministry called Inter Collegiate Prayer fellowship [ICPF] as a campus staff.
In 1987 he got married to Shyja and moved to the United States in early part of 1989. He pursued studies in Chemical Dependency Treatment and obtained professional license and national certification. He worked mainly with the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse in its various projects, as an Assessment Specialist, Treatment Counselor, Project Coordinator, etc.
In 1997 Pastor Jacob left his job for full time ministry to India with his wife and two daughters. Prior to the current assignment as the Pastor of IPC Orlando, he served as the General Secretary of the Inter Collegiate Prayer Fellowship few years and travelled around ministering the word and conducting Family Enrichment seminars. Pastor Jacob’s Marriage Enrichment lecturers were attended by over ten thousand people in different parts of the world. He still serves as the International Vice-President of Inter Collegiate Prayer Fellowship and travels and ministers in church retreats, student camps and family counseling seminars whenever time permits.