‘I love the people in this church’

The Rev. David Calvin Kingsley has retired from his position as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Goshen after 21 years of service.

As of July 31, 2020, the reverend’s small office, situated off the larger business office in the church is bare; his assortment of collectible elephants that adorned every available space is gone, packed up and brought home.

The shelves are bare, the office swept clean of belongings, but the church is still alive with memories.

One memory, as recalled by office secretary Patricia Schwetje, speaks for many:

“Even if Rev. Kingsley was involved with something in the office and someone would call with an emergency or a need, he would drop everything and go to be with the person. He would always be there for anyone who needed help.”

The community of Goshen

Through the years, he has responded to emergencies, great and small, from picking patients up from the hospital to drive them home to sitting with bereaved individuals mourning the passing of a loved one.

Said George Hankins, speaking for himself and his wife, Barbara:

“David spent the last two days of our daughter Judy’s life with our family in Orange Regional and for this we will be eternally grateful. We can never repay him for being there at our time of most need.”

A memorable experience that will stay with the pastor as he steps down from his Goshen responsibilities is the death of one of his young parishioners, Paul Van Dorn, who was killed in a car accident during a Driver Training session.

“The death of a child,” Kingsley said. “This was the biggest hurt the community had to deal with while I was here. How the community grieved with his mother and brothers was done beautifully. I was very touched by the community of Goshen. I have respect for the whole community. I’ll never forget it.”

Church memories run in many directions. It’s well known on church grounds that the pastor has a lighter side, always having a joke to tell.

“David had the best collection of clean jokes,” said parishioner Elizabeth Long. “They were fall-down funny but totally clean.”

No one in the church family was exempt from hearing a Kingsley joke. The groans can still be heard echoing throughout the church halls.

Congregants agree, his sermons were great — clear, easy to listen to, but inspiring, always with a strong Christian message.

But there’s so much more to being a minister than preaching. How about fixing door handles, painting walls, patching the driveway, planting flowers, decorating the parlor and bathrooms, and even fixing the toilets when they needed it?

Pastor Kingsley has many times been spied digging right in and getting jobs done, whatever needed doing.

The calling came in a dream

The Rev. David Kingsley was born and raised in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Growing up, he was a regular attendee at service with his parents and was always drawn to the teachings of the church. Through a dream encounter in the seventh grade, he had his first inkling that he was being called to be a minister.

“I spoke with our minister, Rev. Graham, who said, ‘Well David, I’ll give you advice: concentrate on being a 13-year-old boy. If the message was from God, it won’t go away.’

“I thought about what he said,” Kingley recalled. “It never went away.”

However, before pursuing his career, Kingsley joined the U.S. Navy in February 1967. While he was in the service he was able to do a great deal of traveling, something he loves. He visited 38 countries on four Mediterranean cruises and four Caribbean cruises.

Standing out in his memory was the beauty of Majorca, an island off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean. “I caught a ferry, rented a car, and drove around this beautiful, quaint, unspoiled island with olive trees planted by the Romans,” Kingsley said. “The trunks were twisted around each other at an area called the lane of dancing trees; these trees are still bearing fruit today.”

Upon his discharge from the service, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pittsburgh, graduating with a double major: English Literature and Psychology.

In his senior year of college, he knew he wouldn’t be happy unless he answered the call — the time had come. “I only applied to Princeton Seminary, thinking if God really wanted me, this seminary would take me. Well, darned if they didn’t take me!” said Kingsley, with a chuckle. He was graduated in 1978.

“My whole three years of post-graduate work at the seminary was affirming, from the first class to the last,” said the pastor. “Part of our classwork involved 16-students of different denominations sitting around a large table sharing information; I listened to others and had to explain why I believe what I believe. It’s a good thing to be challenged in your faith.

‘Always be willing to help’

“I’ve never looked back at my choices in life,” he added. “It’s been inspiring, enlightening, frustrating, all things life has to offer in a loving community. We can’t do better than that. I can’t explain any more; I just know it,”

As his first position, Kingsley served as assistant pastor at Park Ridge Presbyterian Church in Illinois; then went on to serve as senior pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Bloomsburg, Pa. He stayed there for 11 years, helping to make the congregation grow. Before coming to Goshen in 1999, he served for five years as pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Spending one-year in New Zealand as part of a pastoral exchange program was a highlight of his tenure in Bloomsburg.

As part of its tasks, the Mission Committee at the Goshen church organizes yearly work trips—one year to Nicaragua then the following year a trip in the U.S.

“I’m pleased that our mission work includes bringing youth and adults of the church to the second poorest nation in the western hemisphere,” Kingsley said. “The inhabitants live in shanties; some can grow their own food, but they don’t have a lot else. But these people are amazingly happy people — they all work together to survive. Our young people who we bring discover how privileged they are in America, but they soon find out when interacting with residents that ‘stuff’ doesn’t matter.”

What does Reverend David Kingsley have to say to the people in Goshen regarding dealing with the Covid-19 virus? He said:

“Love your neighbor in the way you’d want to be loved. Jesus’s message is difficult to keep, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. Always be willing to help others.”

As for the future, he said: “My future plans are to be determined. I’ll be in Goshen for a while — but not forever. . .”

But he does have a final message that he wants to share with his congregation: “I love the people in this church.”