At Pasadena’s All Saints Church, Homecoming Sunday Debuts, Celebrates a New Rector-Elect

All Saints Episcopal Church welcomed new Rector-elect Mike Kinman on Sunday as the congregation gathered for its annual Homecoming celebration under a cheerful balloon-dotted tent.

The day was marked festive and celebratory spirit.

Under a hot, brilliantly sunny Sunday skies, congregants enjoyed Fellowship on the Church’s lawn, activities for the children and an array of food trucks.

Kinman preached three times yesterday in his debut at the pulpit in Pasadena. He will officially assume his duties as Rector of All Saints Church on November 1. He comes from Provost of Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis, Missouri.

Describing his tenure there the St Louis American in a June 23, 2016 story quoted Kinman as advocating for “justice over respectability.”

The article reported that “the Cathedral raised more than $750,000 for black churches burned in the South in 2015; opened its doors to Black Lives Matter activists after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson in 2014; and last year, helped open a residential center, Magdalene St. Louis, for women who had endured abuse, prostitution and addiction.”

In St. Louis, Kinman preached frequently about justice and reconciliation.

In a video greeting to the All Saints 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.”

Kinman’s first sermon “Singing God’s Freedom Song” may have laid out what could become the theme of his coming leadership of All Saints Church: “God’s freedom song is never a solo. God’s freedom song is a song we sing together freeing us to remember that none of us are free until all of us are free.”

It may be watched in full here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJzaZD_Jiho