Don't look for the Rev. Ken Locke to stay in one pulpit for long. Not anymore.
As interim pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of South Charleston, he's experiencing his first go-between role, a minister bridging the gap between the former pastor and the new one.
He enjoys the consultant side of his assignment, the chance to suggest changes as his temporary flock embarks on the search for a new leader.
Now, he's looking at interim work as his permanent niche. When he leaves South Charleston, he plans to move on to one interim slot after another.
Reared by liberal Baptist missionaries, he spent several formative years in Hong Kong, his birthplace.
Visits to a Presbyterian student center as a graduate student hooked him on the inquisitive theology of Presbyterianism and led to a divinity degree. He landed eventually in Nashville, where he nurtured a thriving program for the homeless in a landmark downtown church.
The need for a change brought him to the interim post in South Charleston last March.
Lanky and bearded, an avid runner, he peppers his conversation with flamboyant gestures, humor and analogies associated with entertaining preachers. A laid back demeanor belies his unquenchable curiosity and sense of adventure.
"In 1956, my mother and father met on a train to San Francisco. She was going to Hong Kong to be a Pentecostal Holiness missionary. My father was going to Korea with the occupation forces after the war. Pretty girl. Lonely boy. They got to talking.
"In '58, they married. I was born in 1960 in Hong Kong. I'm told I was the only white baby in the nursery in what was then the largest hospital in the British Empire.
"In '62, mother's term in the mission field expired. We moved to College Station, Texas, home of Texas A&M. I was 2. Dad did his doctorate in psychology. Mother saw the light, I guess, and became a Baptist with Dad.
"In 1971, Jan. 2, we went to Hong Kong and they were Baptist missionaries there until 1975 when I was 14.
"They were lay missionaries, teachers at Hong Kong Baptist College. Dad was the school psychologist and taught psychology. Mother taught sociology. They witnessed through their work.
"I went to King George V School. I wore a uniform every day. My classmates were from all over the world, other missionary kids, children of diplomats and a lot of local kids whose parents wanted them to have an English-language education. We had prayers and scriptures every morning. I played soccer at lunchtime.
"When we came back to the States in '75, I was starting 11th grade in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Mom and dad were employed at Ouachita, a Baptist college.
"For Baptists, my parents were pretty liberal and forward thinking. It wasn't until the 1980s that the Southern Baptists became extremely conservative and fundamentalistic.
"In high school, I had my sights set on teaching. When I went to college, Ouachita required one year of ROTC. I enjoyed it. I was heavy into English and the theater and writing. Marching and learning to shoot a rifle and learning to rappel down the side of a building was all great, guy stuff.
"I got an ROTC scholarship and owed Uncle Sam four years. I was thinking about a career in the military. I ended up in the infantry and spent my first two years in Fort Dix, New Jersey, tramping in the snow and cold, and I swore I would never live in New Jersey again. So I traded New Jersey for a year in Korea. If you think New Jersey is cold, try sleeping in a rice paddy in Korea in winter.
"As much as I appreciated the military, I never fell in love with the push-up. If you couldn't do push-ups, you were out. Secondly, there aren't many women in the infantry.
"So I got out and went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and got a master's degree in English.
"I started going to the Presbyterian Student Center across from the university. I started going to Presbyterian churches. Presbyterians appreciated your mind. They wanted you to think. Questioning was encouraged.
"I had started dating Elizabeth, who was getting a master's in library science. I finished my coursework and moved up to Allentown, Pennsylvania, because Elizabeth's family lived in Swarthmore. Her dad was the law librarian at Temple.
"I worked for Airborne Express as the customer service supervisor. If I had not become a minister, warehousing and shipping was my first love. I would probably be in warehouse management now. I like the constant activity.
"I did my master's thesis by correspondence. Elizabeth got a librarian job in the area. We married in the Swarthmore Presbyterian Church in 1989.
"I got a job at a church in Radford, Virginia, as Presbyterian campus minister to the Radford students. I went to staff meetings and was involved in the worship every week. I discovered two things. One, I was a terrible campus minister. I don't have a clue what college students are thinking. One-on-one, I'm as good as anyone, but put 15 of them in a room, and they might as well be from Mars. It about drove me nuts.
"The other thing I found was that I enjoyed Presbyterianism. I enjoyed the theology, the thinking about God, the sovereignty of God, their understanding of church history and how that affects your thinking today, and the connectionalism. What one Presbyterian church does affects all the other churches, and what all the other churches do affects the one church. I fell in love with Presbyterianism.
"Elizabeth's family lived a hop, skip and jump from Princeton, and Princeton gave me a full scholarship. I was going to get a master of divinity degree. It was a gradual awakening that this is what I wanted to do. I was prevaricating. Elizabeth said, 'Ken, God is calling. Would you please pick up the phone and get on with your life.'
"I finally did. Second semester of my senior year, I applied for the Ph.D. preaching program. I wanted to teach preaching to seminarians. Then I got this note from the Ph.D. committee that said it wasn't going to happen for me.
"The dean wanted me to apply again. But I had lost my gut for that sort of industrial-strength study. I had to get a job because I had to get out of married student housing two weeks after graduation.
"I had my divinity degree and I'd won a preaching award. I was in the top of my class. I circulated a resume and ended up at a 100-member Presbyterian Church in northwest Indiana, a conservative red brick church built by the farmers themselves where the Republican women met in the basement. I'm this liberal theology East Coast guy wearing a little earring, and we just fell in love with each other.
"I enjoyed being a pastor, writing sermons, preaching. I love to go see you in the hospital. I can talk about your hip replacement all afternoon.
"Every Sunday I get paid to stand up and tell people what I think. I get paid to go out and drink coffee with interesting people. Does it get any better?
"I was almost five years at that church. We wanted a bigger place, more continuing education opportunities. I got the call for the Downtown Presbyterian Church of Nashville. I was there 12 years.
"That church was built in 1851 in the Egyptian revival style. It seated 600, but they were lucky to have 100 on Sunday. As a downtown church, at least 10 percent of the people would be from out of state. We were on everybody's list of historic places to see. It was the Westminster Cathedral of Nashville.
"By the time I left, we had a thriving ministry to the homeless. We were feeding them lunch on Wednesday and breakfast on Sunday, 20,000 meals a year. We were writing them $200 to $300 a month in checks, primarily for ID cards. Since the Patriot Act, it's illegal to hire somebody who does not have a valid state-issued ID.
"I was getting sort of burned out. I wanted something different. I'm a fix-it kind of guy. I want to know how something works. I enjoy walking into an organization and asking what would happen if we tweaked this or shifted that.
"That's in line with what interim pastors do. I'm called in when an installed pastor leaves. You want a period where you can sort of cleanse your palate. 'Our former pastor always did this or liked that. What do we like?'
"What I do is part church pastor and part outside consultant. You've seen 'Dancing with the Stars?' I'm out there on the floor dancing with the church. I preach and marry and baptize and do your funerals and moderate your meetings. But I'm also up in the balcony watching and saying, 'What if we tried the steps this way or made the music a little louder?'
"I help the congregation see things through a new set of eyes. When Bob retires from the shipping department after 25 years, maybe we ought to have a transitional shipping director who can say, 'Hey, exciting things are happening in shipping technology.'
"I started here March 1. It's not in my contract to stay. I really enjoy this. When my time here is up I want to go do the same thing somewhere else. I want to hone these skills.
"We have finished the who-are-we part. In the next couple of months, they will elect a pastor nominating committee and there will be an interviewing process. There's a lot of vetting to make sure the church and pastor are compatible.
"At some point, I would like to do more traveling. When I was in seminary, we stayed six weeks with my parents in Moscow. Five years ago, we spent two weeks in Turkey.
"I'd like to master Hebrew. I know just enough to make a fool of myself. And I'd like to learn to drive tractor trailers and spend some time out on the road.
"One of my hobbies is trail racing, foot racing. I run probably 20 to 25 miles a week. I run four days a week.
"I'm a little bit of an adrenaline junkie. If somebody would come to me about sky diving lessons, I would do that.
"My wife would prefer for me to have an installed position. We have agreed that she is the home base, and I will go do these other positions. I still have wanderlust in me. I'm only 55. I want to experience other things."
Reach Sandy Wells at sandyw@wvgazettemail.com or 304-342-5027.