All Saints Church Announces Identity of New Rector After 18-Month Search

All Saints Church announced Sunday that the Reverend Mike Kinman will be the Eighth Rector of the 133-year-old Pasadena congregation. The official announcement was made at a special Forum on Sunday, June 12, following a unanimous vote by the church’s governing board on Tuesday, June 7, to confirm Kinman’s nomination by the Rector Search Committee.

“The Rector Search Committee boldly engaged in an exhaustive eighteen-month, nationwide search for the priest who could best serve as the next Rector of our congregation,” Search Committee co-chair Bob Long said. “We sought someone who will claim our rich history of embodying the inclusive love of God in Christ through social justice leadership, spirituality and community, and then build on that history. Through discernment and the work of the spirit, we have unanimously concluded that the Rev. Mike Kinman is that priest. Mike has a marvelous gift for inspiring preaching, a spiritual depth, a compassion for all of the vital ministries of All Saints Church, authenticity and other strong leadership, intellectual and spiritual gifts that will enable him to lead us in being a bright beacon of God’s inclusive love to the world.”

Currently serving as the Provost of Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis, Kinman will assume his duties as Rector of All Saints Church on November 1. In a video greeting to the parish, Kinman said he was “thrilled that we will have the chance together to figure out – as John Lewis says – what good trouble and what holy mischief God is calling us into in the years ahead.”

“For decades and even for Generations you at All Saints have been a beacon for the Church and for the world of the surpassing love of God in Jesus Christ,” Kinman said. “And so as I listened to your search committee talk about All Saints, what really came clear is that you know you’re just getting started, that as much as All Saints has done in the past, you have so much further to go on the inward journey of prayer worship and study and the outward journey of service giving and proclaiming the gospel of Christ, justice and peace.”

Kinman said he is thrilled to be bringing his family – wife Robin and sons Schroedter and Hayden – to Pasadena and asked for prayers for them and Christ Church Cathedral as they wrap up their lives in St. Louis City.

The Rev. Kinman has been a part of the Diocese of Missouri for more than 25 years, from the time he arrived in 1986 to work toward his bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri–Columbia.

After working as a sportswriter for a year after graduation, Kinman took over as full-time campus minister at Calvary in 1991. Beginning in 1993, he spent three years at Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University. After graduating seminary, he was ordained deacon in 1996 in a service at Christ Church Cathedral.

Kinman began work as curate and then associate priest at the Church of St. Michael and St. George in Clayton, MO. He was ordained priest in 1997 and helped start a campus ministry with students from nearby Washington University in St. Louis. That ministry took on a life of its own, and in 1999, Mike moved into campus ministry full time, working as Episcopal Campus Missioner for Washington University and serving on the Bishop’s staff as Diocesan Campus Ministry Coordinator.

In 2002, Kinman took six weeks’ sabbatical and went to live and work with the Anglican Church and an NGO in Ghana; later, he went with Bishop Smith and others to Lui, Sudan. Kinman became involved in a national Episcopal movement to reorient the church toward seeking and serving Christ through ending extreme poverty, using the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). That movement would become Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation (EGR), which in 2006 called Mike to be its first executive director. During his three years as EGR’s executive director, it grew in size and scope throughout the church.