David Kurtz - God Is In the Pivotal Points Of Life
Exploring faith journeys and inspiring ministries that embody the good news of God. This is the Cumberland Road. I'm your host, TJ Melanosky. When we reflect upon our faith journeys, we often use language such as pivotal and changing and different and transformational. Today's guest is Reverend David Kurtz. He's the minister at the Concord Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Texas and he shares in his faith journey the pivotal places and the pivotal moments that has helped him grow in Christ. Dave grew up in the Lutheran Church and at a young age, the people that were around him encouraged him to be in leadership roles. In these leadership roles, Dave discovered that God was calling him into ministry. Let's listen to the conversation that I had with Dave Kurtz recently as he shares his faith journey.
T. J.:Dave, thank you for thank you for doing this. Thank you for joining me on the podcast. I'm looking forward to hearing your faith journey.
Dave:I'm looking forward to telling you about it. Well,
T. J.:if you've listened to any of the other guests prior to you, I really do like to start with beginnings. You know, relationships usually have a beginning. And so would you mind sharing with me an early experience that you had have had with God?
Dave:Yeah, absolutely. To talk about that, I probably should say that I really believe, you know, maybe this is just part of my deep seated theology. I believe that every experience is an experience with God. So like my earliest experiences are ones I don't remember. You know, I was raised in the church, and so I've been experiencing, even if I wasn't raised in the church, I've been experiencing God all my life, because that's how God works.
Dave:God moves through everything. And so early experiences, I would say, first one I can probably remember is being asked to be an acolyte. Now in the Lutheran Church, we don't just light the candles, right? So being an acolyte, and, but was in, there was involved some training. And so you have to go through, I forget how many weeks of training to be an acolyte.
Dave:And then, because you're not only lighting the candles, you're assisting with communion, and we take communion very seriously, you know, it's something you do with reverence and care. And so being a part of that, I remember at an early age thinking, wow, that's special. You know, I got to put on a little robe and wear the special cross and hold the candle lighter and, you know, and follow the pastor around with the cups that you put the little cups in. It was great. And then after that, I would say another really kind of good early experience I had was.
Dave:Catechism. My, my church didn't have very many children. In fact, when I went through Catechism, it was just me, and so my mom would go to, she was the church secretary, so she would go up on Saturday mornings and run the mimeograph machine, and I would go over to Pastor Schmidt's office, and he would run me through catechism. And I think that was probably the initial spark. Of a relationship with God.
Dave:Pastor Schmidt was a POW in the Second World War. He was kind of a hulking man who was as gentle as a teddy bear and could tell stories like you wouldn't believe. And so I wanted to be like Pastor Schmidt. I remember very vividly coming home from catechism class and wanting to be like Pastor Schmidt, you know, because he related the people really well. He was nice to everybody.
Dave:And he just seemed to care. Mind you, I loved going to church. Felt special at church. It was just, yeah. You know, that was kind of probably the initial little spark.
Dave:After that, there was a point when I was about 14 that I decided I was kind of done with going to church on Sunday mornings. I was, maybe I was bored, I don't know, but there was just that point. And my parents, I feel like had the good insight to say, okay, fine, stay home. And, you know, they didn't really I'm the baby of five kids. They didn't really want to argue with any more children.
Dave:If I didn't want to go to church, they weren't going to make me. And so they let me stay home. And for about a summer of my fourteenth year, I watched Rocky and Bullwinkle every Sunday morning when I should have been at church. And, and I guess maybe I ran through the whole, you know, all of them, and got bored with that. And one Sunday morning I showed up in the living room with my church clothes on and my mom was like, okay, I guess you're going to church with us.
Dave:On that Sunday. And maybe this is me remembering this a little bit more flowery than it was, but I remember on that Sunday, finally getting back into church. It was either Connie Hamblin or Betty Cornegie, and those names don't matter to anybody, but it mattered to me because one of those two women, I think it was Connie, asked me would I like to teach first grade Sunday school class? Remember, very small church, not a lot of people, not a lot of people saying yes to much of anything, I guess, because they tapped me, a 14 year old, to teach Sunday school to first graders. And I, for whatever reason said, yeah.
Dave:And I did it. And I don't think I taught them anything other than the best donuts at Tasty O Donut, which was three and a half blocks up the road. We did that pretty much every, every Sunday. We walked to Tasty O and we talked about Saturday Night Live. And sometimes I do remember we talked, I did, I mean, I had a lesson plan, right?
Dave:I had a curriculum that they gave me. And I'm pretty sure we, we talked about Moses or something.
T. J.:And this is out in Frasier, Tennessee.
Dave:Okay, this is Fraser.
T. J.:Right in the Memphis, Tennessee area.
Dave:Correct. Yeah. The northern part of the city. And we so yeah, went back to church before, you know, before worship services. And that's kind of what I did for that whole school year.
Dave:At the end of that, because I had a couple of first graders in my classroom who were ready to go to summer camp. I was once again tapped to go to summer camp and be a counselor because one of those two kids, there were two in that class, Had a wet bed wetting problem. And they wanted someone to wake him up at 02:00 in the morning and make sure he went to the bathroom and then came back and went back to bed. And, you know, at Camp Clark Williamson, where we went to camp, which is odd. It was a Lutheran children's camp, but it was at Camp Clark Williamson.
Dave:That's kind of my first little exposure. Exposure to Absolutely. So yeah, I did that. And again, I think if, if confirmation was the spark, I believe teaching that little Sunday school class and going to Camp Clark Williamson ignited something in me with my relationship to God. It's the first time I
T. J.:can
Dave:really remember feeling like there was a touch point between what I learned in Sunday school and what I what I kind of learned from my family and from going to church. There was a touch point where that, all of that met the real world, met, you know, kind of who I was. And so, yeah, that was
T. J.:the Yeah. You got you got to share it and live it out with others in your Sunday school class and then then at camp as well. Right. So here's a Lutheran fourteen year old Dave at Camp Clark Williamson, which happens to be a Cumberland Presbyterian camp and then what happens? You're a counselor.
T. J.:You're 14 and 15 year old counselor.
Dave:Yeah. And and I don't think they do this anymore. I know they don't because I, you know, I still am very involved in camp. I was alone in a cabin full, and we always had Cabin 7, which is up at the top of the hill by the bathrooms. And it's the one of the biggest boys' cabins, it was full of first graders and one 14 year old.
T. J.:Wow.
Dave:Yeah, just a bad move. But yeah, we did it. And okay, so after that, we got to talk about camp, I guess, is just
T. J.:Sure, go ahead.
Dave:As a part of my growth, my journey to where I am now, because it's pivotal, campus pivotal to my growth in Christ. When I went to camp, and I don't know if you went to camp as a camper, I never did. My first exposure to camp, well, I'll take that back. When I was a little bitty baby, my mom, you know, did camp stuff and I went, but as far as like going to camp by myself, never did that. Until 14 when I was a counselor.
Dave:And from that point on, was hooked on camp for starters, but I was also hooked on the ministry that camp can, can do. The, The love that you can share with, you know, not just children, but those around you at camp. You can go to camp and be the best version of yourself that you can be. You know, in high school and in junior high, and you know, when you're out in the real world, you're kind of just stepped on all the time and held down and and you don't get to express your your love for others and your, your love for Christ and Christ's love for you. And you get to do that at camp.
Dave:And that was the, the catalyst that that eventually led me to, and I know that's probably mixing metaphor somewhere along the way, I'm sure, but led me to answering the call of the ministry. At Camp Clark Williamson, I feel like I actually met Christ. And, you know, not only the kids who I counsel, but, you know, the pastors who were there who, you know, talked to me, a kid, and showed me, you know, what it means to be a leader in the church, what it means to love, what it means to give of your time and your talents. Camp, you know, yeah, camp will always hold a very dear place in my heart. You get the hugs.
Dave:And it's funny because I never, I never was there as a, you know, a person who went to receive, You know, feeding growth, was there, I was always there in a leadership role.
T. J.:Right.
Dave:But I always received so much love and, and so much of, of that growth and that feeding that, you know, you're there to give, you always receive, but that's the nature of ministry, is it not? Yeah.
T. J.:Well, you said something pretty profound. I think it's true. There's a difference between knowing of Christ or knowing of a specific religion or or faith, but there's also a believing. And it sounds like you went from an awareness of who god is through Jesus Christ to actually accepting and receiving Jesus Christ. And I think there's a difference, and it's pretty powerful.
T. J.:I hadn't heard it worded in a way that you did, but it's it's spot on.
Dave:It's all about those experiences. Right? I mean Right. When you start to experience the love of God in your fellow man, you know, and people around you, that changes the way you perceive faith.
T. J.:Yeah. And so your faith in Christ, looking today, we're we'll jump into the future just for a minute, and we can always go back if you want to, Dave. That faith in Jesus Christ now, how has it given you purpose in your life as a as a minister, as a husband, as a parent, just in your daily walk?
Dave:I say this probably a lot, so forgive me if you're listening and you hear the same thing come out of my mouth, but my purpose and your purpose and everybody's purpose is exactly the same as Christians, as faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Our purpose is to live out the gospel, and that means sharing God's grace. It means reflecting grace into the world, and it means representing the body of Christ. Mhmm. That's our purpose.
T. J.:Now I interrupted your train thought a bit. You were sharing some experiences at a young age, being a camp counselor, and it was leading up to something. You could see these little this trail of of experiencing early leadership opportunities for going somewhere, and you have a Lutheran background. So let's go back to
Dave:Okay.
T. J.:Dave Dave and his teenage years, and we'll pick up from there. And then just carry on, sir.
Dave:Yeah, so I wanted to go to camp mainly, and this is gonna sound terrible. I had seen the movie. What is it called? I never can remember when I want to say it.
T. J.:Shoot meatballs.
Dave:Meatballs is the name of the movie. I had seen meatballs probably the summer before. It's a Bill Murray flick, and if you go back and watch it, it is problematic. But nevertheless, I saw meatballs. And I wanted that experience.
Dave:And so I went to camp kind of looking for it didn't find that but I did find the love of God, and love of a good woman. I met my wife, Bevan, at summer camp. We are summer camp sweethearts. Next year will be our thirtieth wedding anniversary. Meeting her, I think was, again, one of the, another one of those points, one of those places that I can point to on a scale or a map that says that point was pivotal to my growth and my relationship with God, because meeting her changed my attitude about a lot of stuff, my understanding about a lot of stuff, because her and I, we just click and we talk, and we talk about faith quite often, even at that young age, you know, we had discussions, even as ignorant as they might have been about faith and our faith journeys at that point.
Dave:And, and so, yeah, what a gift summer camp can give you, even though I didn't have my meatballs experience. I had a profound experience by meeting, you know, my wife. And that caused me to well, okay, so we'll jump to how all this correlates into Cumberland and Presbyterian. She was also, you know, we were both Lutherans, and her parents moved out of the neighborhood they had lived in, and they moved out to East Memphis. And in East Memphis, there wasn't a Cumberland, there wasn't a Lutheran Church, but there was a Cumberland Presbyterian Church about a mile from where they lived, First Church Memphis.
Dave:And they went and pretty much immediately her parents fell in love with the church. And because Bevan was a teenager at the time, and teenagers are sometimes stubborn, she decided she wasn't going to become a Lutheran, she was a Lutheran. And, you know, which is very much my stance as well back then is, you know, that meant a lot to us to be Lutheran. But, you know, a couple trips to youth group with the youth that were at First Church at the time convinced her otherwise, and they, they joined the church. And because I was a doting, you know, at this time now, 16 year old, I followed them right on in.
Dave:And so I, you know, made the made the drive in my 1979 Ford LTD every Sunday from Fraser to out to East Memphis and went to church at their church. And I joined in 1992 when that was the year we got married. And basically, Pastor Tommy Thompson said, I'll marry you, but you gotta join the church first. And I said, Okay, sounds great. And so I joined the church and, and from that point, we began, like almost immediately to be heavily involved in the things that were going on in the church.
Dave:So we found ourselves on the building and grounds committee for a while. And then we found ourselves on the Christian ED committee for a while, and then there was a. Session meeting once where we kind of knew that they were going to be doing some stuff changing some things up and asking for some more help. Bevan and I on the way in said, you know, we are just, we're busy. We find ourselves too busy to do stuff or to do anything else.
Dave:We're gonna say no. They asked if we needed if anyone if they knew of anyone who could be youth leaders. And we both, without thinking, raised our hands and said, we'll do it. And
T. J.:Now you and I were talking before we started recording, and and you told you were telling me about this. And the two of you got your heads together. You kinda knew what this meeting was about, and you're like, okay. We're adamant. Yeah.
T. J.:Not. We're adamant. We're both in agreement. We're gonna say no. And then you walk into the meeting.
T. J.:I don't wanna tell your story, please.
Dave:And and and God said yes. You know? That's just the only way you can you can think about it is our our hearts were, you know, set on no, but God had other plans for us. So there we are, you know, sure, we'll do it. And again, another touch point, another point on the map that that's leading me toward ordained ministry, I guess.
Dave:That experience was difficult. I will not lie. It was hard to be a youth pastor when you're 20 years old. And the kids are, you know, some of them were 17. They're practicing, they're my peers, not my, you know.
Dave:Right. So it was difficult. But it was also so rewarding, Such a blessing on both of our lives that God would, you know, allow us into that spot, move us, point us, you know, place us into a place where we can, you know, and again, I don't know that, like my experience teaching first graders when I was a 14 year old, teaching 17 year olds when you're a 20 year old, it ain't much difference. I don't know that I did a lot of teaching, but I did a lot of love, and I received a lot of love. And, and God provided.
Dave:And that's, that's kind of a, I would say, in retrospect, you know, with that wonderful hindsight that we get to have, all along the way, God provided places for me to grow, places for me to learn, and places for me to try my hand at this thing called ministry. So there we there we were leading youth group. And I one day on the way home from church, I said, Bevan, wouldn't it be neat if we could do this full time? And she was like, yeah, people get paid to do this. They're called pastors.
Dave:And so from there, we, we kind of started searching out how I could, how we, we both felt called into this ministry. And by the way, she wouldn't want me saying this, but you should probably talk to Bevan too. In fact, you should be talking to her instead of me. She's way better than me at any of this. So we, we answered I guess that's when we answered the call, you know, but we we definitely felt God calling us into ministry at that point.
Dave:You know, there was no denying it anymore. God was moving us toward something bigger. And we went to Bethel and started pursuing, you know, getting my undergraduate work. I went to went to Savannah College of Art and Design right out of high school, but that didn't that didn't work out. So I went to Bethel basically as a freshman at 20 I think I was 25 when I showed up there.
T. J.:Okay. Well, I have a question for you, and it's kinda intertwined. And we're jumping forward a little bit from from Bethel. But I wanted to ask you, Dave, I don't ask everybody this, but let's talk about what's happening kind of your your life in ministry now and that is sort of coupled in with the second part of the question is where you see God working in your life today. So some of our some of the listeners of the podcast may not have met you yet.
T. J.:And so talk about your serving at the Concord Church, and what does that ministry look like? And and how do you see God working in your life?
Dave:Alright. I will say, my ministry, what it looks like right now is different than it ever has before. And I will tell you, and I don't want to jump back, but I'm gonna.
T. J.:Sure,
Dave:go. My time at Bethel was, at the time I thought it was great, but I was a cocky 27 year old or 25, who knows? Don't remember. I was a cocky 20 year old ish who thought I knew everything. And, and, and, you know, looking back on my years there, I didn't.
Dave:I didn't know anything, but I certainly was happy to call somebody a sinner and happy to pretend like I knew it all. I went to Bright Divinity School and got my bottom handed to me and learned a few lessons in humility. And then I joined the I mean, divinity school or seminary can give you a beat down. I don't know if you experienced that, but I certainly did. Then I joined, you know, the ministry.
Dave:I started my career and struggled. And I will tell you that all through seminary, all through Divinity School, struggle. I struggled with, well, in Divinity School with grades. I'm just, I'm not good at tests or anything for that matter I'm. Sharpest knife in the drawer, but.
Dave:Also struggled with my call. Over and over again, I wondered why. Is God really calling me? Surely, surely God's calling Bevan. I was like Moses.
Dave:You know how Moses was like, not me, God. Surely somebody else can do this. Somebody else is better at this than I am. And so I, you know, kind of just struggle with that on a weekly basis, it felt like. And so I want to, I would hope that that's an encouragement to somebody that all along, you know, I joined the, you know, I got a career as a minister now, and I still to this day struggle with calling, you know, am I truly called?
Dave:And if I am, am I doing it right? And for the most part, haven't been doing it right. You know, each church I've served, I've had to learn new hard lessons about ministry and about organization and about
T. J.:And about ourselves as well.
Dave:Goodness gracious. Yes. About yourselves, about who you are and how you relate to other people. And it's, you know, it's not easy. This job is difficult at times, but it's also so rewarding.
Dave:And that's why I'm going to talk about Concord now. Okay. Because, you know, I was let go of my from my job at another church, and I was quite bitter about it for a while. Which is weird, because I talk about grace more than most people do. I'm always about grace, but for some reason, after being let go, I just didn't want to give grace, even though I receive it all the time.
Dave:But then I got here. And this church, you know, I know a lot of pastors think their church is the best, but they don't work at Concord. They don't live in Concord. They don't have this community around them. I have been welcomed and loved, and I will tell you that they.
Dave:They know I'm a weirdo. And they love me anyway. You know? They know I'm an odd bird who, you know, puts on Lycra and rides around on a bicycle, who talks about birds way too much. And they love me anyway.
Dave:And so my ministry today is just filled with God's good grace. And it is a place of healing that I'm in right now. And growth. I recently, this is, who knows? I've recently gone for since preaching class in seminary, and I use, I keep going back and forth between Divinity School and seminary, because everybody calls it seminary, but I went to a Divinity School.
Dave:Since preaching class, I have always preached from a little tiny note card that just had some notes on it. And earlier this year, I realized that I think that might be a parlor trick, that what I'm doing is saying the same thing over and over again, and not really giving good sermons when I do that, you know, and so I went back to taking the manuscript into the pulpit.
T. J.:How's that working for you?
Dave:Love it. Yeah. Even though it's, for me, it's more difficult because I'm being more strict about what I say. And I'm, as you can tell, I talk a lot. I'm a free talker.
Dave:And so it's difficult for me because I have to stick with the script, but What I've learned here is that that's important. And that, you know, if I can stick to the script, I can say what I started off wanting to say. If I do what I'm doing right now, sometimes, sometimes I go a little far field, and I say, you know, who knows what I say? I come home, and I'm like, did I do good? Because I I have no idea what I said.
Dave:Now I can tell you what I said. Yeah. I understand. But I no.
T. J.:I've used I've gone through various methods for preparation and delivery. Yeah. And each each of those times have felt right during that time. Mhmm. Whether it was manuscript or a few notes or an outline or none of the above.
T. J.:Yeah. It's helpful for me to be able to have manuscript so that I am staying on task and topic.
Dave:Yeah. Exactly.
T. J.:Because I could end up talking about, I don't know, baseball, and baseball has nothing to do with the text and the scripture at all.
Dave:Mhmm.
T. J.:And how do you get that back home? And by having a manuscript for me doesn't allow that baseball story or analogy fit in. Yeah.
Dave:No. That's exactly right. What we do, what we do when we do that is we take the focus off of Jesus Christ and we put it back on ourselves, and that, my friend, is sinful. I do believe. You know, when, you know, we're supposed to be telling the story of the gospel, and we talk about bike riding.
Dave:Yeah. You know, that's not what you're up there for. And so, yeah, so that's, that's something I'm learning in this ministry here. How is it? It's great.
Dave:It's just, it's where I'm supposed to be right now. And you know, and this is bad negotiating, but I've already told them gonna have to get rid of me because I ain't leaving. You know? I love it. Man, I love people.
T. J.:I'm glad to hear that you're experiencing a season of grace and healing and growth. That's I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to to know that's how God is working in your life today.
Dave:Yeah, it's it's it's a good place to be.
T. J.:Well, let's expand that a little bit. We talked about how God's working in your life. Dave, where do you see God working in the world in which we live? One
Dave:Well, I would say it's kind of the Christians. What am I trying to say? We tend to jump to all the good things that are happening in the world or in our lives, you know, whatever is happy, we say, Oh, God's doing that. Do you know what I'm saying? And sometimes, you have to take a step back and say, maybe, just maybe, the struggles that are going on in our world today, the difficulties that people are facing also are God working in some way.
Dave:And so where I see God working right now, in my, you know, from my view of the world is race relations, you know. I think we thought everything was dandy. I'm just gonna say it from a from a white boy's point of view, you know, everything was dandy. But it wasn't. And it's not.
Dave:And I don't feel like it's been for, you know, it hasn't been. And so The struggles that were, that folks are going through right now, that the the pain and the ugliness that we're seeing can't be for naught. I think God is working through that. God isn't making, you know, us be cruel to each other, but I think God wants us to work this out.
T. J.:There's the presence of God even in the midst of human struggle.
Dave:Thank you. For sure. Right. Yeah. And I think we have opportunities that are God given to behave like the body of Christ.
Dave:Right now, more than any other time in my life. We have opportunities to share God's grace. And so and that's God given that to us, right? That's that's God at work in the world. Even when it's ugly, God is at work in the world, giving us opportunities to act like Christians.
Dave:Mhmm. We should probably jump on board with that.
T. J.:Dave, what do you think the grace of God looks like or could be shared or experienced for that matter, through us as Christians and through us as the body of Christ?
Dave:Ma'am, it looks like caring for your brother or sister, your, your fellow human being. It looks like grace is getting what you don't deserve, right? I mean, it's an old adage and it's kind of stale, but not getting what you do deserve and getting what you don't deserve is grace. You know, if we can think about how much true grace God has given us. You know, I am a broken sinner.
Dave:And God loves me. God cares for me. God put me in this heaven called Concord Tumberland Presbyterian Church. That's grace. And so for me to look on somebody else and say, well, they, you know, they don't deserve my time or effort is stupid.
Dave:And it's once again, sinful. The grace that I have must be shared, must be turned on my fellow man, or I am not being a child of God. I'm not behaving like a child of God. We tend to be, you know, we talked about theology before, you know, and we tend to have this kind of, as Southern Christians, little bit of a works righteousness attitude where, you know, we, we feel like you gotta really work hard to get God's favor. You gotta do some stuff before God will love you.
Dave:I know we don't preach that, but sometimes that sentiment comes right through the church. And so I I feel like. I don't feel like, this is just the truth. God loved us first. Right?
Dave:God died for us, even though, you know, even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, right? That's what grace is. And so looking at someone else out in the world and thinking that they don't deserve my love is wrong. So what does grace look like in the world? It looks like loving everybody.
Dave:Everybody. My good friend, Tara Cisco used to say that all the time. I just love everybody. I thought she was crazy. Turns out, she is absolutely right.
Dave:You got to just love everybody. I would say that she has taught me so much about love and about Christ's love and loving God.
T. J.:Dave, I I appreciate your time and your sharing and taking me on this this faith journey from Lutheran Church to Bullwinkle to meatballs to your calling to ministry and meeting Bev and even the struggles that you shared in life. I thank you. It's been an honor. Really has.
Dave:You're certainly welcome. I'm glad to share. I wish I could be more articulate sometimes, but there we go.
T. J.:Well, how how can folks continue to follow you on your faith journey? Where can we find you if we wanted to reach out to you?
Dave:Alright, so you can reach out to me. You know my phone number, call me. You can look on the we have a Facebook page at Concord Cumberland Presbyterian Church. We're in Concord, Texas. I'm sure there are lots of other Concord Cumberland Presbyterian churches.
Dave:And I know there are because I've looked on the Internet and went, Oh, no, that's not the right one. You can, well, yeah, as far as ministry, that's how you can, you can, you can find me. I do have an Instagram and a Facebook. I couldn't tell you how to get there. If you want to follow me on Flickr, you can look at my photographs I'm called Brother Dave on Flickr.
Dave:And if you're an athlete and you want to follow me on Strava, you certainly can do that.
T. J.:Right. Well, you, Dave. And thanks to everyone to listening to today's podcast. Grab a friend and travel with me on the next journey down Cumberland Road.
