My name is Pastor Tim and I want to welcome you to our community at First Presbyterian Leavenworth. Here at First Pres we strive to connect with one another in community and faith. To seek out God is to seek out the Divine in each other's lives which means that the relationships we develop and maintain with one another is the work of the church. There are no unquestionable doctrines, no unbreakable rules, and all people are lovable and to be loved, no matter their identities, backgrounds or struggles. You are welcome here.
My Story
Born and raised in Southern California, I enjoyed singing in the choir, developing relationships in our youth programs and going to Northern Mexico and Arizona on mission trips. As I grew in the church, I also recognized the challenges and problems of politics in the church and how the church didn't respond very well to abuse happening in leadership. The sin and brokenness that I saw in the church pushed me to walk away from the church and from my faith, and yet my heart still longed for meaning and understanding: I may have turned my back on God, but God did not turn away from me.
I searched for that understanding through many other traditions, but I found that being raised in the Presbyterian Church, my faith language was rooted there and so I returned to the church. My time away from church and my frustration with the brokenness in the church now push me to see that the church is broken, because it is a gathering of broken people. At the same time in this place gathered around faith in God, Grace is what God uses us as broken people to grow and flourish and live out love with one another.
In ministry and in my own faith life I find studying the bible to be wonderfully life giving. The bible is a collection of stories, songs, and characters that have reflected and responded to the challenges of faith through a host of different life experiences. In times of joy and celebration and times of suffering and oppression, we can find others who have walked similar paths, responded in similar ways and have found God to be there alongside. I have always found that when I open the bible to a passage or to a story, the words of those who have gone before me are illuminated yet again. The journey of faith is not one that they can point to a beginning or an end, for we stand on the shoulders of those before us and we walk alongside those who will continue the journey of life long after we are gone.
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I am an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the PCUSA. I studied theology and ministry at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas and I have served churches in Georgetown, Texas; El Paso, Texas, and I now serve here at First Pres in Leavenworth, Kansas. My wife and I, both from Southern California, are devoted to our three school age boys who keep us on our toes.