Dr. Kenneth Lee Heflin

1957 STM degree

Dr. Heflin submitted the following account of his life:

I did my under graduate work at what was then Iowa State Teachers College (now University of Northern Iowa), graduating in 1954. I was ordained a deacon in the South Iowa Conference in 1955 and an elder in the Oregon Annual Conference in 1959. After graduation from Boston University School of Theology in 1957, I founded a new congregation in Veneta, Oregon (Valley Methodist Church)—the only mainline Protestant church between Eugene and the Pacific Ocean. Valley Methodist Church served five difference communities which were centered around the lumbering industry. In 1960 I was commissioned as a missionary of the UMC to Alaska where I served Anchor Park UMC and was President of the Anchorage Council of Churches.
In 1965 I was appointed a missionary to Hawaii where I served on the staff at First United Methodist Church of Honolulu. While at Honolulu First UMC I established the Waikikii Ministry through the Hawaii Council of Church. In 1969 I was appointed senior pastor at Kailua United Methodist Church where I was one of the founding members of the Windward Coalition of Churches—an ecumenical group of churches representing 6 denominations that did cooperative ministry such as having a well-known “theologian in residence” for various periods of time such as Eugene Carson Blake. I was also the preacher one year for the famous Punchbowl of the Pacific Easter sunrise service with 7,000 in attendance.
From 1979 to 1986 I served as senior pastor at Lancaster United Methodist Church in California, and from 1986 to 1993 I served as senior pastor at the “Cathedral of the West” at First United Methodist Church of Glendale, California. In 1993 I was appointed senior pastor at the First United Methodist Church of Redlands and retired in 1997 after 42 years of ordained ministry.. However, in retirement I served four interim pastorates: First United Methodist Church at Temple City, CA; Lancaster United Methodist Church in Lancaster, CA; Holliston United Methodist Church in Pasadena, CA; and LaCanada United Methodist Church in LaCanada-Flintridge, CA.
I have served on a number of Conference boards in the California-Pacific Annual Conference: Council on Finance and Administration, Conference Board of Trustees, Board of Ordained Ministry, Conference Board of Pensions and Health Benefits where I was vice-chair.
I earned my Doctor of Ministry degree in 1977 from San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, California. My dissertation was on “Pastoral Calling in a New Age.”
I have been married to Nancy (Mortensen) for 60 years. Together we have led more than 30 groups of tours to destinations all over the world. We have four children and seven grandchildren.
My hobbies are genealogy and collecting walking sticks.