About David Keyes
The Professional Minister
I have led church staffs of as many as 20 employees, administered some of the largest churches in the denomination, worked with boards to change governance structures, and revived more than one Religious Education program. My specialized training in interim ministry comes from major consulting and training organizations including the Interim Ministry Network and the Alban Institute.
My doctorate in Congregational Studies led me to explore in depth the work of church organizational development consultant Loren Mead on trends in church growth, both spiritual and numerical. I have several references (password protected) who can tell you about my professional skills and accomplishments.
The Road to Ministry
I have written this about my faith journey:
I was raised partly in poverty and partly in wealth; partly in a major city, and partly on a farm. I was educated in the public and private schools of Kansas City, Missouri, and in the rural northwest part of the state. I delivered papers, sold seed corn farm to farm, waited tables and flipped burgers to get through college.
When I was five years old, I set up a pulpit in the back yard and invited the neighbors over to hear me preach. I’ve known ever since then that I wanted to be a minister; it just took me quite a while to get around to it. When my parents hit a rough spot in their marriage, I went to live with my minister, slept in his study, pored over his books, learned from him and his family so much, including something about love.
We were liberal Southern Baptists. They don’t exist any more; we all left.
When I was 15, I discovered a new home—All Souls Unitarian Church in Kansas City. In college, I was president of the Emerson Club, the Unitarian youth group, and started preaching at the local fellowship. But it was a dry and secular group, and I soon fell away. I sought the community and satisfaction I was missing in the anti-war movement; the civil rights movement; as a reporter; as a teacher of Ute Indians and at an all-Black high school the year Dr. King was killed.
But something was missing, incomplete, out of kilter. I sought to do something like ministry in social responsibility public relations, in the corporate world. Nothing worked.
As is so often the case, my children brought me back to church. After all, we had to take them to Church School, and then there I was. The preaching of David Rankin at the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco refreshed my spirit, and at age 37, I finally gave in and enrolled in seminary. I have never regretted it, not for a moment.
Family
Judy
and I have been married for 39 years. She is a prominent labor and employment
lawyer in San Francisco. Our children are Tanya, Tracy, and Paul. Tanya creates
and sells jewelry in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and takes very good care of Ian, 8, and David, 3
years. Our daughter Tracy in Los Angeles won the Emmy for
“best documentary” in 2004 (Be Good, Smile Pretty) and is the mother of four-year-old
Charlotte and one-year-old Penelope. Son Paul does complicated and secret things with
mainframe computers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
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An avid baseball fan! |
