JOURNEY - Pastor Kyle Smith followed his heart in 2014, pursuing ministry. He has returned as new ‘old’ pastor at First Lutheran Church of Ellendale.
Star Eagle photo by Deb Bently
By DEB BENTLY
Staff Writer
In 2014 Kyle Smith decided he should “finally listen” to the messages in his life urging him to become an ordained pastor. He knew the path would be demanding, calling on him to complete about six years of schooling in addition to the two he had already completed. But he had no way of knowing how large a role First Lutheran Church of Ellendale would play in helping him attain his goals.
As he made his plans, it became clear that, before even starting his schooling, he needed a level of stability that his part-time position as a youth director for a North Dakota church could not provide. Based on that realization, he applied and interviewed for a full-time job of the same title at First Lutheran. “I warned them from the beginning that I would only be there for a short time,” he remembers. Even with that understanding, though, the church took him on.
In 2017, his bachelor’s degree completed and his application to the seminary accepted, he resigned. “I thought I wouldn’t be back,” he says with a wry smile. “It just goes to show that you can never predict how things will go.”
Not, by the way, that anyone is complaining.
“We couldn’t be more pleased with the way things worked out,” observes First Lutheran parishioner and call committee member Ross Sletten. “We feel as if we’ve walked a path with him, like we’ve been companions on a shared journey.”
“Journey” seems like the right word: In addition to building a strong connection with the congregation’s youth during those earlier years, Pastor Smith completed an online bachelor’s degree, married his fiancée, Alicia, and became father to a pair of twin boys, Malachi and Levi, who will turn four this September. Since then, the boys have been joined by younger sister, Annabella, now about a year and a half old.
Flash forward to 2021. After completing his classroom studies and finishing an 11-month internship in Eagan, the young pastor is looking for a place to begin his service. He has a surprising number of options, and is contacted by about a dozen churches, some as far away as California, Oregon and Montana. But also contacting him after having recently lost its pastor is First Lutheran Church of Ellendale.
“We couldn’t help wondering what the odds were,” he says. “And we weren’t sure what to think. Was this something God is using to point us in a direction, or were we letting our love for the people and the community cloud our judgment into thinking God is pointing us in this direction?”
The young couple decided on a practical approach. “I had asked the same questions of all of them,” says Pastor Smith of the various churches he interviewed with. “So I was able to divide them into two lists: the ones I thought would be a good fit and the ones I thought wouldn’t be. [Ellendale] was the first one on the ‘good fit’ list to call me back, so I accepted.”
Pastor Smith began his service at First Lutheran on June 1, was ordained at his home church on June 20, and will be installed on August 29. In the meantime, the stretches between the milestones have also been filled with activity and accomplishment. “I knew the community, the church, and the people,” he says, “so I was able to hit the ground running, so to speak. Some days I’m hardly in the office at all, other days I spend 12 hours at the church; there’s just a huge variety of what needs to be done.”
The “variety” includes visits to less mobile church members and nursing homes, overseeing Vacation Bible School, and assisting with planning and administration.
It also includes a continued journey. “I hope we can keep growing in our faith together,” says Pastor Smith. “I look forward to being able to help people think about not only what they believe, but why they believe it. We can all benefit from looking more deeply into our faith.
“I want to point folks to Jesus, to what He’s done for us, and what He continues to do. And then I hope they can see that sharing the word with others is not something they ‘have to’ do, but something they ‘get to’ do. There’s no greater privilege than sharing Jesus’ message in love.”
If their reactions so far are any indication, this is yet another journey the members of First Lutheran look forward to talking with their “new, old” pastor.
“We’re very glad that he chose to come back here,” says Sletten, who recalls that, at the time his committee placed its call there were 28 AFLC churches looking for pastors. “He’s a really good listener. He’s been paying a lot of attention to outreach, and we’ve appreciated the ideas he shares in his sermons—he’s an excellent communicator.
“We’re really looking forward to seeing where we can go from here.”