San Diego First Church of the Nazarene (SDFC), which meets at Brown Chapel on Point Loma Nazarene University’s main campus, welcomed PLNU alum James Kinzler as its new lead pastor in August.
Kinzler graduated from PLNU in 1992, with a degree in biblical studies, and then graduated from the Nazarene Theological Seminary, located in Kansas City, Missouri in 1997. For the past 27 years, Kinzler served as lead pastor of Coast Community Nazarene Church in Santa Barbara.
Kinzler said that he and his family had not planned to move churches, but when they received a call to meet with the church board last spring, following former pastor Dee Kelley’s removal, they reconsidered.
Kelley, who served as lead pastor for 17 years, was stripped of his pastoral credentials after publishing an essay titled “A Hope for Change” in Nazarene Theologian Thomas Jay Oord’s book, “Why the Church of the Nazarene Should Be Fully LGBTQIA+ Affirming.” Although Kelley appealed the decision, he was found guilty of false teaching, leaving a vacant lead pastor position.
Scott Shoemaker, PLNU associate vice president for enrollment and retention, is a member of the church board and was a part of the group that selected Kinzler as a candidate for the congregation to consider as the new lead pastor.
Shoemaker said that the church went into an interim phase while Kelley was in the process of appealing the original verdict. The church board also wanted to give people time for discernment about what they were looking for in new leadership, and recognized that there were people still grieving the loss of Kelley as lead pastor, according to Shoemaker. Shortly before Easter, they began to ask the congregation for feedback and started conversations about what kind of things they were looking for in the next pastor.
“James [Kinzler] was the first person on our list, and a lot of us kind of came to think about him independent of each other, but he had a lot of connections with our church,” Shoemaker said. “His parents were known to our congregation. So a lot of us had a relationship with either his parents or with him.”
The church board, which consists of 12 members, invited Kinzler to an initial interview, and then later invited him and his wife, Kyla Kinzler, to meet people at SDFC before the formal congregational vote. The vote was open to all church members; opportunity for membership is open to attendees 15 years or older.
“They [the Kinzlers] demonstrated that they’re there for the long haul with the community,” Shoemaker said. They are the kind of people who just show up.”
Kinzler said that his parents attended SDFC over the past 15 years.
“I got to know Pastor Dee through my folks and I have other people in the church that I’ve known for a long time,” he said.
Kinzler comes from a long history of Nazarene preachers; his dad and his maternal great grandmother were Nazarene pastors. He said that SDFC and PLNU have been meaningful places to him and his family for a long time; Kinzler’s son Thomas is currently a fourth-year applied health science major at PLNU.
When Kinzler first met with the church board, he said that he told them he did not have the magic solution or perfect formula for the situation the church was in.
“One of the things that we talked about was, how do we navigate this season of grieving, healing, sense of loss, and at the same time, this sense that we want to be faithful in our sense of calling as a church community,” he said.
Kinzler understands that many people are in different places in the grieving process, and hopes that some of the things he and his wife did in Santa Barbara can find connection and meaning at SDFC, primarily healthy community and relational ministry.
“I love the mission of SDFC,” Kinzler said. “It’s just to lift up Christ. And so I’m hoping that in the meantime, we can discover kind of this blending of who I’ve been and who the church has been, and kind of how we become.”
“I do want to be clear that I think of myself as a follower of Jesus first and foremost, and being a Christian comes ahead of being a Nazarene,” Kinzler said. “But I’m largely grateful for who this denomination is and how I’ve experienced it.”
Kinzler said that Wesleyan theology in particular has influenced how he approaches ministry.
“I think the thing that really drives me, in terms of Wesleyan theology, is this idea of the optimism of grace,” Kinzler said. “I really think that’s behind a lot of what I do, just believing that God’s grace is reaching, and it’s saving, and it’s transforming, and it’s sending. And so just this confidence that God’s grace is greater.”
Kinzler said he hopes there is still room for disagreements and theological conversations within the church.
“I’m confident that there can be and will be space [in the church] for learning, growing and discussing,” Kinzler said. “And you know, my hope is that that can happen within a spirit of unity and love.”
Austin Holmes, resident director of Wiley Hall, has attended SDFC for 4 years. Holmes continues to attend following the leadership transition and said that he is confident that Kinzler is someone who will lead the congregation humbly with deep awareness of God’s Spirit.
“Despite the church’s unwanted removal of Pastor Dee Kelley, it was inspiring and uplifting to witness how our church board, staff and volunteers maintained the space for our congregation to still have a space of worship and belonging,” Holmes said via email.
Kinzler and Shoemaker both emphasized that there are still going to be disagreements within the Nazarene church.
“The church historically has settled its disputes with schism,” Shoemaker said. “You know, that’s why we have 50 different denominations and lots of independent groups.”
Shoemaker said the challenge is to value dissent almost as much as agreement, and try to understand why these disagreements happen.
“That’s what we try to do, have hard conversations, maybe even disagree, but to do that in a context of a greater allegiance to what we have in common than what divides us,” Shoemaker said. “ Sometimes it’s really hard to live out in actuality.”
