Pastor Ken Keltner, on-island to speak at our Young Pro’s Retreat, discussed his testimony and history in ministry with Pastor Walton this week.
Download the Ken Keltner Harvest Time
Episode Transcript
Chris Harper: Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is Pastor Gary Walton, the lead pastor at Harvest Baptist Church. Every week, we spend these twenty five minutes together telling you the stories of our church by interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We’d invite you to join us at our church this week for services on Sunday, 08:45 am And 10:45 am We have Japanese and Korean translation available during the 10:45 am Service.
And that’s also when we live stream @hbcguam.org, hbcguam.org. This week, Pastor Ken Keltner will be speaking from Acts 1:1-8, His last command, Our First Concern. Let’s begin today’s Harvest Time by welcoming Pastor Gary Walton. Hi, Pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey, hafa adai, Chris. We’re really privileged to have Pastor Ken Keltner actually with us in studio. We’re going to introduce him in just a minute, but he will be preaching this Sunday. He’s here to be connected with our Young Pros Retreat, and I’m going ask him some questions about that and I’ll give you some details about that as we’re going forward. But he has a heart for evangelism, a heart to see people know and love Jesus and the Gospel to be clear.
And so we love you preaching this Sunday out of Acts 1:1-8. But Pastor Ken, first of all, welcome to Harvest Time.
Ken Keltner: Thank you for Well, being with Pastor Gary, Chris, good to be with you. And I’ve just enjoyed, my time here. Kathy and I both are here. We’ve just really been, so encouraged by the ministry here at Harvest. We’ve heard so much about it and have only passed through Guam on our way to Palau, and so this is our first time here at Harvest Ministries. And, man, thank you for asking us to be here and to be a part of your work, and we’re praying for the ministry here and excited to see it firsthand.
Gary Walton: Well, we’re thrilled to have you here. Pastor Ken is the lead pastor at Brookside Baptist Church in the Milwaukee area suburb.
Ken Keltner: Yeah, Brookfield suburb. And yeah, now we want to reach our whole area. And my one passion has been we’d love to see many, many first generation Christians, you know, that we’re able to see discipled. So that’s our passion.
Gary Walton: You’ve been there a number of years now.
Ken Keltner: Yeah, March, early March will be our eighteenth year there.
Gary Walton: Yeah. I was looking back at, you know, just some information. Was putting the math together and I thought I was 18, but I let you lead it to make sure.
Ken Keltner: No, eighteen years. And, you know, before that we were at Northland Baptist Bible College at the time, that’s what it was called, and we were there five years. But, no, really, really thankful. I think my favorite passage was my dad’s favorite passage there in 1 Timothy 1:12 where Paul was just thanking the Lord that he counted him faithful to put him in the ministry. So just love the opportunities that God gives us along the way.
Gary Walton: Brookside has had a fairly significant impact and influence in the Wisconsin area and God’s blessed that church over the years and thankful for your faithful ministry there. Your background is in ministry. I think you said that your father, had some military and then pastoral Yeah,
Ken Keltner: my dad and mom both grew up in Wichita, Kansas, and he would say they attended church on Christmas and Easter, and, you know, very moral family, but they, he married my mom, and they ended up going out to, he was Air Force, and they were stationed out in Greenville, South Carolina at Donaldson Air Force Base. And they were living next to a couple by the name of George and Nadine Sims, and they’re all with the Lord today. But George and Nadine just befriended my mom and dad, invited them into their home, had meals with them, and kept sharing the Gospel with them. And there was one evening after my mom and dad went home, they said, You know what? It’s time that we turn our life to Jesus Christ, and put his faith they both put their faith and trust in the Lord same night.
And as soon as my dad finished his stint in the Air Force, then he went back to Bob Jones University and got his Bible degree, and I think he worked on his Master’s at some point, and pastored for over just around fifty years. Two main locations: Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Colorado Springs. He did youth pastor some in Wichita and went back to his home church in Wichita. And then he did some, when he retired, he still did some ministry of filling in with churches without a pastor and would help them find a pastor. And I think he did that for about four or five years even then. So, yeah, he was a great great example of of just faithful, just steady, not up and down, just steady.
Gary Walton: Pastor Ken, we’d mentioned been at Brookside for eighteen years. Prior to that, your ministry was varied. You spent some time in Oklahoma, youth pastor music, then Colorado, and then you talked about your time at Northland as Student Life Coordinator or something like that.
Ken Keltner: Yeah, and that was a little bit of everything. I originally went to Northland from Tri City. I’d been at Tri City in Denver, Westminster for twelve years. Sam Horn and Marty Bond had talked to me about trying to set up a missions camp where kids that were in smaller churches could come for a week of training and then move out for an actual missions trip. And as far as I got with that was the brochure.
I was just, you know, they just had me going, basically traveling, speaking to teenagers, and then doing different things on campus. So it was a great opportunity to impact and be involved in the lives of college kids. And yet I knew, man, there was just something. I just wanted to be back in a local church. That was my heart.
God opened that door. When we went to visit at Brookside, Sam Horn was actually the pastor then, and I just wanted to be wherever God was at work. And we have what we call a Brookside 101 that we’ll usually have over at our home on a Saturday for a couple hours and then have lunch with the folks. That’s how I start Brookside 101 that The reason we’re at Brookside is we see God at work. And with one, you know, with one life, we want to be involved where God is at work.
Gary Walton: Your background was in, in some teen ministry, college. How’s that influenced, you know, your leadership as a senior pastor?
Ken Keltner: Well, one thing that changed a little bit is, you know, with teens, you know, if you’re preaching to teens and you’re boring, they let you know it pretty quick. I’m not saying adults don’t either, but was a
Gary Walton: Well, they do it in a different kind
Ken Keltner: of Yeah, they do. It was a little bit nicer. But, the transition, that was probably a little bit harder for me because even as a youth pastor, and that’s been part of my life for about twenty years. The last couple of years I’ve been doing youth pastor at work. Our youth pastor moved on, we’ve had nobody.
We’re still looking for someone. So I told the teens here, you know, in sharing that, that I told our teens, Hey, got a new youth pastor. I know he’s bald and he’s 65 years old, but hey, here we come. Here we go. Yeah.
But teens have really been a passion, getting them on the mission field, getting them involved in evangelism, and them reaching their own peers has been a big burden, and that still is for us even right now as we’re ministering to teens.
Gary Walton: You have a love for sports. Fact, we were just talking before we got on air that you a weekly sports and minister, sports and faith, radio show each
Ken Keltner: Yeah, it’s called Faith in the Zone. And we’ve been on two different secular stations. One was a total sports talk show, and then the other one is connected with iHeartRadio right now. But it’s all secular. We’re not on any Christian station with that. Our Church does have program on VCY, which is a premier Christian station in our area.
Gary Walton: Then just getting a little bit more of your background. You have four kids, right?
Ken Keltner: Yep, four boys and they all went to Lancaster Bible College. Our youngest still is a few credits shy of graduating, but a couple of them have got their Masters, one from Karen University and one from Baptist Bible College at Clarks Summit. And at one time we had three in the ministry. Our oldest now is in Augusta, Georgia. He started a, really it’s kind of a ministry, started by believers in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania called Soccer Shots.
He bought a franchise, so he’s there. Our second son is in Little Lake Harbor, New Jersey. He’s a youth pastor at Calvary Baptist. He’s been there about seven or eight years now. And they kind of follow the same line, being involved in the public schools.
You know, I’ve coached in the public schools, and that was, that’s a miracle how God opened up doors to be coaching in public schools and opportunities with the Gospel. But then our third son is, he’s right now in commercial real estate. He was, he’s still in the same church. He was at one time the college pastor at Grace Church in Akron. And then our youngest is military. He’s in special forces and he’s located in Colorado Springs right now.
Gary Walton: It’s amazing watching those kids grow up branch out.
Ken Keltner: Yeah, and now all the grandkids come along, and with a family of four boys, we now have seven granddaughters and three grandsons, and we have another granddaughter on the way, so that’ll give us eight. So that’s been unique for the Keltner family that had all boys.
Gary Walton: A different world with girls, right?
Ken Keltner: A world. Different world. We love it, but it’s a different world.
Gary Walton: This is your first time here on Guam. First time at Harvest, right? Which is amazing to me because your church has had connections at Harvest for a long time. What do you think about our beautiful island?
Ken Keltner: I love Guam. I love the people, the friendliness, and we’ve really loved being here seeing Harvest Ministries. And, you know, there’s been several things that have stood out to me. One, and I was talking to the high school principal, Andrew, today.
Gary Walton: Andrew Dongan.
Ken Keltner: Yeah. One thing that stood out to me is is that your faculty, your staff enjoy being around teenagers. Mhmm. You know? I was telling Andrew that there was a Christian school we pulled one of our boys out of, and the chairman of the school wanted to do an exit interview with me.
And I said, Sure, yeah. Met him at a Starbucks, I think. And he said, Why did you pull your kid out? I said, Well, the school’s been around for forty years, right? And he goes, Yeah. I go, Tell me, I’m just curious, how many young people have gone into full time ministry from your school? And he said at the time, he said, Well, can I count two of your sons? I go, Okay, there’s two. He said, My daughter married a pastor. I go, Okay, there’s three.
Well, why are you, you know, you’re putting that whole blame on on the school? I go, Absolutely not. I think that’s that’s from the home. But I said, I think the school has a big part of it that it seems to me that you have a lot of faculty here, faculty on staff that seem to hate teenagers and don’t like them. And I think I hear from teens, Man, I never would want to be a Christian school teacher.
Would never want to be in full time Christian ministry. I said, That’s what I’ve seen, and that’s kind of why we pulled out. But I’ve seen here just you have a lot of good connectors with your young people. And then, you know, Pastor Gary, one thing I noticed is as you were giving us a tour, all the kids coming up giving you a hug, and Kathy and I have talked about that and I said, Man, that says a whole lot. That says that Pastor Gary has a great love, not only for the adults, but for the children, no matter what their age. And spoke volumes to me watching that. That’s powerful.
Gary Walton: Well, thank you for that. But man, I’m so thankful that you see, the caliber of our faculty and, to be here just a couple days and identify that, because I would tell you, you are right on. Yeah. Our our staff love these kids and, and I think our kids know that. Mhmm.
They know that they’re loved. We try to tell them that as often as we can, that they’re loved and this is the place where, you know, they can find God, they can hear about Him, they can know Him, and following God is the best thing in the world, you know. And so I’m really thankful for the faculty that are just faithful, that loving
Ken Keltner: tha stands out. I mean, you know, people that are connectors are impactors. And that’s what I’ve seen.
Gary Walton: Pastor Ken and Kathy are here for the primary reason to be part of a retreat that’s happening, well, depending on when you’re listening to this, this weekend, Friday and Saturday, we have a group at Harvest called our Young Professionals. It’s singles in their 20s and 30s, some faculty, some teachers around the island, some military, some professionals. That’s why we call it young pros. Pastor Jake Schnoor, who you know well, Jake did an internship at your church at Brookside, and we’re just so thankful for him and Brittany and their heart, primarily for that group. It’s just a great group.
But annually, about this time now for a few years, they’ve been doing this retreat, and I think Jake told me they’ve got 55 or 60 young pros that are going to be there. And we’ve invited you to come and just share God’s Word and share your heart with them. So actually, wanted to let you know, if you’re listening to this, particularly Friday night, you can call into the church and still find out about this retreat. You can connect. They’ll be at a beach spot here on Saturday morning, and man, we’d love to invite you to that. But Pastor Gant, tell me a little bit just about your burden for that, what you’d like to communicate to that group.
Ken Keltner: I think especially burdened for that group right now because you see less and less of that age group in our churches. You see more older congregations and you see more churches having to go into some sort of bring someone in for some revitalization or they actually just merge or they close down.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Ken Keltner: And I don’t know if it was Pew Research lately that I saw that 80% of Pastors today are 65 and older. And think it really hit me in 1987. I graduated in 1980. Actually, no, ’83 is when it hit me. 1983, I was working with teens there at a church in in Tulsa, kind of an inner city church, and someone had a Bob Jones yearbook, and they and I said, Well, me look at it.
And I opened up to the ministerial section, and I was like, Man, is this just a freshman, you know, guy studying for ministry? And they said, No, that’s all of them. And I counted them, four fifty. Well, in 1980 I graduated and we had 1,500. I called my dad, who graduated in, I think, 1958, And I said, Just kind of look at your yearbook.
And he said, About 1,600. I thought, Man, alive. In three years, what in the world? And then in 1987, I followed up on that, and there was a ministry called Lamp International that that in ’83 to ’87, they showed a 33% drop of missionaries, those that were either coming off the field or whatever. And and I don’t think that has trended upward.
I think it’s continued to trend downward. And, you know, there’s a great concern for this age group. And Satan would love to get ahold of this age group, even as believers, you know, he can’t take away our salvation, but he can sure, discourage us from really saying, God, You have my whole life. I’ll do whatever You want me to do. And see that, unfortunately, taking place in the lives of a lot of young families and even young singles. And so, man, I hope we’re a great encouragement and challenge to them this weekend.
Gary Walton: Yeah. I really appreciate that. We are thankful for a vibrant group in that area. I know some of it’s connected with, you know, we have some young staff and we do have the connections with the military, but God is doing a work in our young pros. It’s really powerful and it’s an encouragement to our whole church family. But to have that definition of the impact and the influence that, you know, their lives can have
Ken Keltner: Oh, absolutely.
Gary Walton: Know, just invest and give it up Mhmm. You know, for him. So excited to see what God’s gonna do this weekend. You know you know, when I look at my life, I’m I’m a little bit younger than you, but not a lot.
I can look back on some, you know, some seasons, of life, sort of some different ways that God works. For you, Pastor Ken, are there some seasons of life? Can you look back on sort of some challenges and then maybe some really rewarding? What would you say as you sort of look back at, you know, this ministry port that God’s given you so far?
Ken Keltner: Yeah. I’ve been in ministry forty three years. Okay. And so I started off in a Christian school and also part time youth pastoring in our Bible church that I grew up in on the West Side Of Tulsa. And I just, I look back on those days and mean Kathy and I threw our whole life into those young people.
You know, I think we had twenty minutes for lunch. We lived six blocks from the church. We would run home, eat lunch, come back. I remember I had a seventh grade Bible class after lunch, and as I got ready to teach, I said, Now, I don’t know who is eating salsa right now, or picante sauce, in my class, but I got a sensitive nose, and I will track you down. And one little boy nervously raised his hand and he goes, Mr. Ken, I think the sauce is all down your tie. I said, No wonder I smell it. Thank you. Throwing yourself in with teens, those were just great times. Challenging times of God saying, What are you willing to do for me?
And we went from that ministry across town to a Baptist Bible fellowship church, and our church that we grew up in said, We want you to go. You know, they wanted us for youth and music. And I remember my dad said, Now, you’re going to be honest with how much you know about music, right? I go, Absolutely. And Kathy was nervous when we went over on the interview, and I told him, I said, Hey, if you want me to sing a solo, I could probably do that, but anything outside of that, I’m probably going to struggle, but whatever you want. And so the church, brought me on and they had a pretty big choir and they did a lot of, canned music. So man, you mess up leading. It’s not like
Gary Walton: You can’t catch up
Ken Keltner: No, Pianist can you go back no. And I drove the sound guy crazy. He was, he’s always on me about my mistakes. But I, you know, I did that and I was, you know, I loved it. We put on some huge programs. They wanted big programs and kind of a speech background that I minored in helped me with some of that. I thought, Father, You directed me right down the right path. And then we we would have these teen retreats, and a fellow by the name of Matt Olson, who was pastoring out Denver, we had come in for a teen, teen, or it might have been a college retreat.
And he came and he asked me about an opportunity there at Tri City. Chuck Phelps had also been at a retreat with us, and he’d said, Hey, I’m gonna go take a church in New Hampshire. Would you come and take the youth? And I said, Man, no, I love Tulsa. I love what I’m doing here.
We’re on the inner city. That’s kind of where the I’d been coaching in the Christian School before that, but we had a big public school right across middle school, about 700 kids. And, you know, I asked our our office staff, I go, what have we done to get into that school? And they go, well, we take flyers and hand hand them out on the sidewalk. I go, I’m not a I’m not a sidewalk flyer handout guy.
I wanna be in there. And I prayed, and for two years, nothing really materialized, and then boom, long story how it worked out. But eventually, we were running all their athletic programs. The administrator was usually calling me going, Hey, we got a problem here with some kids at school. Would you come over?
Yeah. And we got in really close with that. And so I Chuck and Matt, I said, No, I’m not interested at all. But they kept on me and kept on me, and I said, Well, if you want me to come out, I said, I’ll come out, but I’m not interested. And we went out, and the first question I asked them was, Where are you all in missions? And they go, we don’t have a clue what we’re doing. And right then I knew, oh, boy. God, you’re moving me. And I wept like crazy leaving Tulsa. We went.
We just had a had our second son. Boom. We’re in the U Haul heading out to Colorado and that was a whole new ministry opportunity. Totally away from our surroundings. Saw God work and I think there was a lot of growing up in my own life there with what God wanted to teach me and do in my life.
Then were in the public schools, things were just booming. We brought in a youth pastor. I was doing a lot of different things in evangelism there at the church, and then Marty Vaughan comes out and says, Hey, we want you to come to Northland. I’m like, God, send us to Northland. And what it was, and I’ve heard Doc O on your broadcast, and I love Doc O.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Ken Keltner: I heard Doc O, he Doc O talked to me quite, you know, when I was there visiting Northland, but he gave a message when I was there. I thought, did he get that for me or what? And the message was entitled, are you comfortable or are you committed? We had just bought a beautiful house, had property, had a barn. I mean, the boys had a lawn business.
I mean, things were just booming. I thought, yeah, I’m pretty comfortable. And, man, God started working in my life with my own commitment, and we basically gave that up. Headed out now with a couple of U Hauls and spent five years at Northland and traveling for Northland. That was I mean, going in cold turkey with teenagers was like I’m like, woah.
And I always wanted one of my boys with me. You know, I usually, you know, paid their way to be with me on those kind of trips, but met so many different guys that really have a great love for teens and ministry, and so God was shaping me with that. And then moving me to Brookside, and I never really sought the position of a lead pastor or anything like that. In fact, when I was the interim, when our pastor moved on to a seminary, I was out trying to find a pastor. And they go, What about you Ken?
I go, Oh, I mean, guys know, I’ve been here six years, you know where all my warts are, and here we go. But hey, if God wants me in that position and you guys are 100 on board and the Church, you know, so I’ve I’ve candidated twice at Brookside. So that’s been a that’s been a growing experience.
Gary Walton: If they want you twice, then that’s a pretty good thing.
Ken Keltner: Yeah, well, some. Enough for me to know this is where God wants me.
Gary Walton: Yeah, absolutely. It’s pretty amazing looking back, you know, on the path that God brings us. Yeah. Different parts of it, different things He’s taught us and the ways He’s used us in different ways. It’s really fun kinda hearing that part of it.
Pastor Ken, I’m so glad that you’re here. I’m already, God’s used you in the life of our academy, our Bible college. I’m super excited about this weekend, both for the young pros and then at the church on Sunday. If you’re listening, we’d invite you to come and just hear the heart and the scriptures as we talk on Sunday Morning.
Chris will tell you the details of that in just a second. But I know that God’s called you here for this time. We’ve been praying for that. And I’m hoping in the same time, you know, God will use here as a refreshment and a challenge and encouragement to yourself.
Ken Keltner: Oh, it has been. And thank you, Pastor Gary, for the opportunity to be here, and Chris, for all you do with radio here and getting the word out on the island. Appreciate it.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. Of course, at this point in the program, we always wanna personally invite you again to services at Harvest Baptist Church. Two services Sunday, 08:45AM, 10:45AM. The Japanese and Korean translation is offered at the 10:45AM service. We also livestream at that time.
Hbcguam.org. Hbcguam.org. We hope to see you this Sunday. Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.