Karl Ryckman dislikes the title “reverend,” even though he is an ordained minister in the Southern Baptist Church. He prefers to be addressed by his first name, partly because it is less formal, but mostly because the formal title does not begin to describe what he does through his ministries at Wilderness Community Fellowship.

Located in the former Western Auto store in downtown Dexter, Ryckman, his wife, Kim, and a few devoted families offer a clothing exchange, a food cupboard, Sunday school, worship services, Bible study, a monthly meal for senior citizens and a teen program. While Ryckman believes that all of these activities are important, it is the youth group, called the Oasis Teen Club, that is closest to his heart.

The son of a Southern Baptist minister, Ryckman, 35, lived in several states before moving to Cushing, hometown of his mother, Ramona Crute Ryckman. He lived across the street from the house she grew up in. After graduating from Thomaston High School, he left Maine, as did many of his classmates.

“I felt God call me to the ministry, but I rejected it,” he says, sitting backwards on a chair in the “sanctuary” of his church. “I wandered for about nine years. At 27, I felt God call me to let go of resistance and give my life to him.”

Ryckman returned to Maine in the early 1990s and took a part-time job as youth minister at Essex Street Baptist Church in Bangor. He also worked at the Standard Shoe Store on Main Street, where he met his wife, Kim, when he sold her a pair of shoes.

“I did not get my training as a youth pastor in college or any formal way,” he says. “I got it from my father and other pastors I have known. I had a special bond with my father that other preachers’ kids didn’t have. He was my mentor.”

Ryckman moved to Dexter in 1995 to work as a part-time youth minister at one of the town’s 13 churches. A year ago, he founded the WCF when he saw that “a lot of teens here are kind of just left by the wayside.” They began meeting in the home of Gary Giles Sr., whose son, Gary Giles Jr., had met Ryckman through his girlfriend. Within a few months, the group moved to the armory temporarily. When the owner of the former Western Auto building heard of the group’s need, he offered Ryckman the building for a nominal monthly rent. It became the headquarters for the WCF’s programs in March.

The storefront that houses WCF sits at the top of the hill that winds into downtown Dexter. Nestled in the hills behind Main Street sit the empty mills and small factories that once bustled with activity. Many of the stores in town are empty, too.

“The youth in Dexter have a lot of free time on their hands,” he observes. “There’s not a lot for them to do here. There’s a small outdoor ice skating rink that’s used in the winter, a few programs at the town rec center, some school activities, but that’s all.”

The cavernous downstairs is used for the youth center and the monthly senior meals. One back corner is devoted to the Clothes Closet. Oak pews, discarded from a Southern Baptist Church located out of state, line the outside walls. Scattered about the room are Fooseball, ping-pong, and air hockey game tables, as well as exercise equipment.

The upstairs has been divided into two large rooms, including a kitchen, several smaller offices and restrooms. The front room is used as the sanctuary. A carpeted platform serves as the altar, and the electric piano the Ryckmans bought each other as a wedding gift sits beside it.

“Few of the churches have large enough congregations to offer youth programs, and young people are more reluctant to go to a church than a storefront like ours,” Ryckman explains, as two of his four young children vie for his attention. “We meet from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Saturdays with middle and high school-aged kids. We spend about an hour and a half playing games, then use the last half-hour as a devotional time.”

Ryckman describes the majority of the young people who regularly visit the WCF as “rough and tough kids.” About 80 percent of them “come from broken homes and quite a few are in foster care.”

“These kids spend a lot of time just hanging out, walking around town,” Ryckman says. “The community expects the town government to do more than they can for these young people. We are helping to take the pressure off the town. We are doing what churches did years ago, helping to take care of families in our community.”

Gary Giles Jr., an 18-year-old senior at Dexter High School, wants to follow in Ryckman’s footsteps and become a youth minister. He calls the pastor his mentor.

“Karl knows how to work with us,” says Giles Jr. “He relates better to us than most adults do. The stories he tells about his own experiences make him seem like he’s one of us. He does all that he can to help out with family situations. He does all he can to help families out, sometimes getting them in touch with professionals about the kind of help they might need.”

The WCF’s senior program, the Silver Saints, grew out of Ryckman’s desire “to have a balanced ministry,” he says. “We have several small senior complexes here and seniors need to be reached out to as much as kids do.”

Joyce Davis, who attends First Baptist Church, says that she comes to the Wednesday noontime Silver Saints’ meals to spend time with other seniors. “A lot of people don’t have anyone to eat with. People enjoy eating with others. It doesn’t matter what you eat, as long as you are with other people. There’s not a whole lot of other things going on on Wednesdays.”

Virginia Inman invites her friends and neighbors to join her at the Silver Saints’ programs “because a lot of people don’t have family nearby and feel isolated. We are doing spiritual outreach, what Christ told us to do. Jesus Christ said if you take care of the poor and hungry, you take care of me. He said if you don’t love your brothers and sisters, then you don’t love me.”

Gary Giles Sr. serves on the board of WCF. The group recently set its 1999 budget at $22,000, about $12,000 of which is expected to come from sponsoring churches out of state. The rest will be raised locally.

“We’re in hopes of reaching people spiritually,” explains Giles Sr. “But we know we must first help meet their physical needs. The Lord has called us to meet the spiritual and physical needs of the people in this community. … has a real heart for the teens. He’s willing to reach out to them, to work with them, when other people might have given up on them.”

Kim Ryckman, a graduate of Bangor Christian School, does the behind-the- scenes work vital to making WCF work for the community. She handles the secretarial work, teaches Sunday school, plays the piano and organ at services, cooks for the Silver Saints meal and cares for the couple’s children, ages 4 months to 5 years.

“We are an evangelistic church,” said the pastor of WCF, “so, one of our goals is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We want to reach out to people in the community who are unchurched and invite them to join us. In fact, 10 or 12 teens that now come to Sunday services were introduced to WCF through the youth group. However, they don’t have to join the church to come to the Oasis Teen Club.

“In five years, the ultimate will be to have a full-time teen center, open during the day with different activities every night,” he says, excitement creeping into his voice. “The Oasis Teen Club will be a good, positive place for young people to hang out and learn about what faith can be and do in their lives.”

Sunday worship services are held at 10:45 a.m. at the Wilderness Community Fellowship, 410 Main St., Dexter. Sunday school classes begin at 9:30 a.m. For information on the WCF and its programs, call 924-9716.