The Rev. Jim Elland began serving West Alameda Community Baptist Church and Eaton Senior Programs (ESP) in 1982. In his capacities as both pastor of the church and spiritual leader of ESP, he provided worship services, education, hospital visitation, memorial services, grief counseling and various spiritual enrichment opportunities for both residents and staff. He was instrumental in establishing the Wellspring Senior Foundation, which helps ESP to sustain its holistic ministry of providing a broad array of life enhancing services to the very-low- to modest-income residents of its congregate and assisted senior living facilities.

Elland holds a master of divinity degree from the American Baptist Seminary of the West and a bachelor's degree from Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. He has served churches in California, Kansas, Ohio and Colorado, and worked with the American Baptist Home Mission Society to develop a multi-denominational ministry in Las Vegas. He also served as a student intern supervisor for the Iliff School of Theology and obtained further education through the Spiritual Eldering Institute, Iliff School of Theology, and in the field of spirituality and healing in medicine through the Department of Continuing Education of Harvard Medical School.