TEMPERANCE — The Rev. T. Leslie Hobbins, who as pastor of Lewis Avenue Baptist Church oversaw a growth in facilities and attendance and the opening of a Christian school, died Nov. 8 in his Temperance home. He was 87.

He was in declining health, said his son, the Rev. Steve Hobbins, who succeeded his father in 2008 as church pastor and also became administrator of State Line Christian School.

In June, 1971, months after arriving at Lewis Avenue Baptist, Pastor Hobbins presided at the dedication of a new church building, with a sanctuary seating 250. In 2001, a 1,300-seat sanctuary opened, plus new classrooms, offices, and a choir room. About 900 attended Sunday services then, with 4,000 members on the rolls. The 1971 membership was 125.

Through counseling and preaching, he was rebuilding lives, the younger Pastor Hobbins said.

“Dad made the statement several times, ‘Church isn’t a museum. It’s a hospital. People are coming to the church for the first time, and I’m helping them put their lives together.’ He was preaching the word to them and seeing them grow in Christ. It was a very emotionally connecting experience,” he said.

Pastor Hobbins also began a bus ministry so that those in central Toledo without transportation could get to Lewis Avenue Baptist.

“He was very committed to the word of God,” said his son Tom, who formerly was church youth ministry director and taught and coached at the school. 

In 1973, State Line Christian School began as a ministry of the church. In time, more than 500 students from kindergarten through high school were enrolled, with Pastor Hobbins serving as superintendent.

“He was so pleased with the students,” the younger Pastor Hobbins said.

Thomas Leslie Hobbins born March 18, 1935, in Halifax, N.S., to Florence and Thomas Hobbins, who were officers in the Salvation Army. He was at a Salvation Army youth meeting at age 14 when “he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior,” the younger Pastor Hobbins said.

At age 20, he was baptized at a Baptist church in London, Ont. After attending the University of Western Ontario, he went to London Teacher’s College, from which he received a teacher’s certificate. He later received a bachelor’s degree from Columbia Bible College in South Carolina, where he met his wife, Mildred, who was born in Kenya to Presbyterian missionaries.

He was ordained in 1963. Afterward, he was pastor of churches in Ontario and in Hesperia, Mich., and attended Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary in Michigan. He received a doctor of divinity degree in 1986 from Hyles-Anderson College in Indiana.

He and the former Mildred Woll married Aug. 19, 1961. She died April 7, 2019.

Surviving are his sons Thomas Hobbins, Jr., Daniel Hobbins, and the Rev. Stephen Hobbins; daughter, Deborah Keesee; 14 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 3 p.m.-8 p.m. Friday at Lewis Avenue Baptist Church, Temperance, where funeral services will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday. Arrangements are by the Michael W. Pawlak Funeral Home, Temperance.

The family suggests tributes to the Lewis Avenue Baptist Church Inner City Bus Ministry.

First Published November 18, 2022, 5:00 a.m.