SHORT BIOGRAPHY:
Greetings friends. Just a short note for those who don't know me yet.
My name is Kenneth Myers, and I was born in Denison, TX in 1959. My father was an Assemblies of God pastor while I was growing up, and I was nurtured in the faith and given a love for God's Word at an early age. After marrying at the age of 18, my wife Shirley and I moved to San Antonio where I attended Bible College, and for the following dozen years served in non denominational churches in Texas and Wisconsin.
In 1993 I was ordained a priest in the Anglican tradition (in the Charismatic Episcopal Church) and was consecrated bishop in 1995. Since that time I have served as pastor for Christ Church Cathedral in Sherman, TX (later named Church of the Resurrection) and have just recently (February 2014) stepped out into a full time teaching ministry.
I am a member of the Anglican Church in North America, Missionary Diocese of All Saints, but have a love for teaching God's people across the broad spectrum of denominations and traditions among Christ's people.
I lost my beautiful and wonderful wife Shirley in January, 2017 after nearly 40 years of marriage. I am dad to three grown children and a grandfather to five delightful grandchildren.
Personally, I love music, travel, reading, writing, and photography.
LONGER BIOGRAPHY
My life isn't too amazing, but it's my life. Below is a short biography of my life thus far. Unfortunately, it is incomplete, and I'm about 20 years behind! I will add to it as time permits.
EARLY DAYS
I was born a poor Cajun fisherman's boy. Well, not exactly. My father, Larry Myers, was born a poor Cajun fisherman's boy, and by the time I came into the world on January 27, 1959 he had moved to Texas (thanks to the US Air Force), met and married Mary Ross, and had become a barber. But still...he was poor...he was Cajun...and he never gave up being a fisherman. So, although I was born in Denison, Texas (famous for: the birthplace of Dwight David Eisenhower, the birthplace of the Ice-Cream Float, and the birthplace of Marx Brothers comedy [they bombed in their musical revue here, and desperately switched to impromptu comedy - Harpo grabbing a red mop to use for a wig!) - I never fully escaped the influence of South Louisiana.
By the time I was six years old, my dad was pastoring in the Assemblies of God. Throughout my childhood dad served 3 different congregations in north and east Texas. I grew up in the full swing of Pentecostalism, and by the time I was twelve I was helping "Brother Larry" study for sermons by doing research - particularly in the realm of eschatology (an itch I have still not completely scratched).
At 17 I met the love of my life, Shirley McSorley (and Irish to the core). Her sister Anita duped me into visiting her house, and when Shirley opened the door I knew then and there that this was the woman of my dreams though we had never met before. I actually left that evening thinking to myself that I would someday marry this girl.
We were married on July 30, 1977 (both age 18) and within a year we were heading to San Antonio to attend International Bible College. This college held the unique position of being composed of a variety of Pentecostals from both independent and denominational affiliations. It was in my second year of school that the Rev. Elwood Jensen, a Foursquare Pastor, gave me my first lessons in Church History. I had been bitten by the bug, and I would never be the same again. After reading the Apostolic Fathers (Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement) I began a journey into the historic faith that would culminate in my serving as a bishop in the Anglican tradition.
EARLY MINISTRY
During my tenure at Bible College I served as an assistant pastor to my father-in-law, Jerry McSorley, at Lakeshore Tabernacle in Zapata, Texas - Shirley's hometown. For six years I co-pastored in Zapata, and had a hairstyling shop on the side. It was during these years that our three children were born to us - Stormie (1979), Kenneth II (1982) and Jay Francis O'Neil (1983). It was also during this time that I continued my journey toward the historic faith, developing close friendships with an old semi-retired Lutheran minister, Ted Gherkin - who spent many hours with this Pentecostal whippersnapper teaching me the depths of the Creeds and the historic doctrine of baptism, and things of that nature; I also became close to the Episcopal priest who served as Rector of Christ Church in Laredo. Fr. Eulalio Luna ("Rev. Moon" in English!) was a Spirit-filled priest who gave generously of his time, his books, his wisdom and his love. We spent many afternoons together discussing things of the faith, and on more than one occasion he spoke into my life prophetically.
HEADING NORTH
In the Spring of '83 I began to sense strongly that I was supposed to leave Zapata. This was a very difficult decision; Shirley's father had done so much for us, getting us started in ministry, giving us land to build on; and my father had given a summer of his life to build a new home for us - and now we were talking about leaving it. It felt something like we were betraying them, but at the same time there was this compulsion of the Spirit that we needed to move on. Not having anywhere to go, I felt God direct us to move by August 15 whether we had anywhere to go or not!
During the July 4 holiday, while visiting my family in Denison, TX, I received a telephone call from a Bible College classmate and good friend, Pastor Timothy Warner from Hayward, Wisconsin. He had shared breakfast that morning with a Pentecostal pastor who informed him that he was leaving his church and was looking for a replacement. Tim told him about me, told me about him, and arranged contact. In July I drove to Wisconsin and "tried out" (what an abominable practice!) for the pastorate of Living Word Fellowship in Clear Lake. By the time I made it back home to Zapata, I had received word that I had been voted in as the new pastor of the church. We arrived in Wisconsin in mid-August - the exact timing I had sensed we were to leave South Texas.
I pastored Word of Life Fellowship for a little over a year. It was a tough time, especially for a young minister. The congregation had just come out of a legalistic Pentecostal denomination with some, shall we say, rather unique doctrinal views, a group called Christ Gospel (founded by B.R. Hicks, Jeffersonville, Indiana). After a few months of pastoring, hearing stories from the folk and reading up on some of their past teaching, it became clear to me that there were basically two camps in the congregation - one that desired to move forward experientially and theologically, and one that, while wanting to progress, wanted to retain some of the beliefs and values from Christ Gospel. Tensions built and it became more and more difficult to keep things together. That's when I got an invitation to come play golf....
LIVIING WORD CHAPEL, FOREST, WISCONSIN
The golf invitation came from an older pastor just down the road from me. His name was Bill Bastian, or “Brother Bill” as he was called by his congregation. Though he was only a couple of miles from me, I had not met Brother Bill, and had never talked with him until a few days earlier. A good friend of mine, Mark Witt (Marcos Witt - Google him) was coming to spend a week with me and minister at the church. I had called Bill and asked him to host Mark while he was in town. Bill called me back and asked if Mark and I would join him for a round of golf - to get to know each other - which we did.
Toward the end of the game, Bill asked if Mark might drive my car back to the house and if I might ride with him, as he wanted to have a private conversation. On the trip back, Bill dropped the bombshell: though we had never met, he had been praying, and he believed God was telling him to resign, and for me to merge the two churches and become the pastor! Talk about a bolt of lightening out of the clear blue!
The leadership of both congregations had several meetings of discussion and prayer, and in the end a portion of Word of Life Fellowship did not want to merge, for fear of losing their particular beliefs and practices (the very ones I felt they needed to lose!). In the end, about half our congregation merged with Living Word Chapel, and I began pastoring the newly merged church. I served there for nearly three years, and I must say it was the closest thing to heaven I had ever experienced: loving congregation, eager to grow in the Lord; a church full of solid German, Swedish and Norwegian farmers who were very much “salt of the earth” people. My time was spent cocooned in my little office, studying the Word - sometimes as much as 40 hours a week, teaching and preaching and writing, pastoring these wonderful people, and freezing my rear off! The coldest day I experienced (and ever hope to experience) was 35 below 0, with a strong wind that pushed the windchill to under 50 below. After two and a half years of pastoring, I sensed God calling me back to Texas, and how we ended up making THAT transition was something of a miracle in itself.
LEAVING THE NORTH COUNTRY
After about two years of ministering at Living Word Chapel, I sensed God calling me back to Texas. I prayed about it. I cried about it. I talked to Shirley about it. Then I went to the elders of the church and told them, “God called me back to Texas”. They all told me I had missed God. So I agreed to stay another year and continue to seek the Lord. It was a great year of ministry and spiritual growth for me, but at the end of that year I knew that I knew that I knew it was time to go to Texas.
I prayed that God would give me an opportunity to help choose my successor, and he laid a man on my heart that I had met only one time, at a conference in Georgia. I called his home in Dallas, but he wasn’t there so I shared what I was thinking with his wife. She nearly flipped! She told me, you don’t know this, but Randy is from Wisconsin, and just last night he sat down our family and told us, “I don’t know exactly how, and I don’t know exactly when, but God is taking us back to Wisconsin to minister.” Obviously the hair stood up on the back of my neck when I heard this.
So we hatched up a plan. Randy Dean came to our little church as a guest preacher. Nothing more. No one was any the wiser. On Wednesday night we tag-team taught and it was like a Vulcan mind-meld. He spent time with the people through the week. He preached on Sunday. I had people coming up to me the whole time saying, “I think that young man needs to be on staff here”. One lady said, “Oh, Pastor Ken, we don’t ever want you to leave...but if you ever did, we sure would love to have that Randy as our pastor.” It was uncanny how the people joined their hearts to him.
A week later I called the elders together and said, “I have good news and bad news. First the bad news: the time has come for me to leave.” Their eyes were all staring at the floor, some saying, “no”. Then I said, “And here is the good news. I believe Randy Dean is supposed to be your new pastor.” Their countenance instantly changed. One of the elders, half joking (but only half), popped up and said, “How soon can you leave?” If it hadn’t been a God thing I would have been offended. But it was and I wasn’t.
I moved south and Randy moved north. We even shared the same U-Haul truck!
GLAD TIDINGS ASSEMBLIES OF GOD
I moved back to Denison, TX, my birthplace, with the intention of helping my father develop a study program for pastors in Mexico. Very soon afterwards I was invited on staff at Glad Tidings, an A/G church in Sherman, TX. I served for two years as the associate pastor under Pastor Clyde Causey. When Clyde resigned in 1990 I was asked to serve as Senior Pastor. In retrospect, I probably should have said no to that invitation. You see, as the Associate, it was my job to help fulfill the vision of the Senior Pastor. But as Senior Pastor it was my job to set vision - and my vision was not in keeping with the other leaders of the church. For about a year we moved forward together, but after a while it became clear to everyone that this arrangement wouldn’t work. I had a vision for a church rooted in the ancient faith, and the elders had a vision for a more traditional Assemblies of God church. After much discussion, prayer, and heartache, everyone agreed that I probably shouldn’t be the pastor! So I resigned in May of 1992.
On the one hand, the lay leaders were glad to see me go. On the other hand, they recognized that a lot of folk in the congregation shared my vision, and though it was bittersweet, they agreed that I needed to plant another church in Sherman. So, with equipment loaned to us from Glad Tidings, on Mothers Day of 1992 Christ Church was birthed.
MORE TO COME