Even after all these years, I still think of Kenny as my pastor.
In reality, he's definitely still my friend.
That's not to take anything at all away from any of the other men of God who have been my pastor at different times in my life or the one who is my pastor now.
Based on comments that I see on Facebook and other social media platforms from mutual friends, Kenny is still a lot of peoples' pastor even though he's no longer in the role of pastor of a local church. He's had that kind of a lasting impact on people.
Dr. Kenneth L. Mahanes, or Kenny has he likes to be called, was born in Lexington, Kentucky. From the time I first met him in the early 1990's, I was endeared to his southern accent and his absolute charm. He is a graduate of Georgetown College with a degree in communication, and he is a natural communicator.
I was thrilled recently to discover that Kenny has started a vlog, an online video blog, called Ken's Comments. For you, the reader, I encourage you to pause and watch just one of his episodes. You'll see what I'm talking about when I say he is an effective, charming communicator. I look forward to each new episode. In a way, he's still mentoring me (and many others).
Kenny earned both his masters and PhD degrees at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and has done post-graduate studies at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio and Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. From the time I heard him I admired his intelligence. While first interactions with him might give you the impression that he's a country bumpkin, sit with him for a while and you'll soon know the well runs deep. Very deep.
For 30 years, Kenny served in the pastorate, nearly 20 of these years as Senior Pastor of the 3,500 member Far Hills Baptist Church in Dayton, Ohio. That's where I met him. I was a member of Far Hills from 1991 to 2002.
EDS, the company I worked for in 1991, was staffing down the contract to which I was assigned in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. That opened me up to transfer internally, if I could find an opening within the company, closer to my home state of Georgia. I was still under a three-year commitment to EDS so I had to look within the company for a new position. When it came to be decision time, the offers I had were a contract in Dayton, Ohio serving the financial division of General Motors called GMAC or a contract on a US Army base in northwest Chicago. I chose Dayton. It was closer to Georgia than Chicago.
Diane and I shared the news of our impending transfer to Dayton with friends at our church near Harrisburg one Sunday, and right away one of the men in the conversation told us that once we moved that we had to go to Far Hills Baptist Church. His college roommate, Kenny Mahanes, was the pastor. Small world.
We moved to Dayton in July of 1991. We got settled in to our apartment and promptly visited Far Hills. There I met Kenny.
Far Hills Baptist Church was, at that time, the largest Southern Baptist Church in Ohio. A church of 3500 members on role, we had well over 2000 in attendance each week and over 1800 in Sunday School. Kenny was well known around the state of Ohio and the Southern Baptist Convention.
I had never been in a church that big in my life. Kenny, as the pastor, was larger than life. But he was also personable and shepherded his flock well. He knew his sheep. He soon began calling Diane and I by name. As I became involved in Far Hills, Kenny invested in me. We would meet occasionally for lunch and talk about life. He loved eating at Perkins and always ordered a half 'n half...a cup of soup and half a sandwich.
I served for a while as the volunteer leader of our church parking ministry. Even though I was outside a lot of the time leading a crew of parking lot assistants, Kenny would pull me in and arrange for me to meet and spend time with guest speakers when they were at Far Hills for events such as our annual God and Country service around Independence Day. I was privileged through the years to meet such people as Elizabeth Dole (Diane and I were able to have lunch with her and some others from our church at Kenny's home that year), Lt. Col. Oliver North, Heather Whitestone (the first deaf Miss America), Art Linkletter (comedian), Donna Douglas (actress from the Beverly Hillbillies), Bobby Bowden (Florida State Football Coach), Doug Fields (Saddleback Church - Purpose Driven Youth Ministry), and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
Following my experience at the 1993 Promise Keepers conference in Boulder, Colorado, I met with Kenny (lunch @ Perkins) to discuss a Men's Ministry at our church. He not only encouraged it and enabled me to launch and lead one, he made it financially possible for our church to host a regional Promise Keepers event a couple years later that drew close to 2000 men. He joined us in 1997 as we took over 150 men from our church to the Promise Keepers Stand In The Gap event in Washington, DC.
When I say that Kenny encouraged the launch of a Men's Ministry, I need to further clarify that statement and say that Kenny encouraged me. Personally. Frequently and consistently. While I learned more each week about the Bible form Kenny's sermons and Bible studies, I learned about life and ministry and how to treat people from my personal friendship with Kenny. I aspire to be as much of an encourager as he is.
In the mid-1990's, Kenny asked me if I would be willing to serve on our church's Personnel Committee. In the Far Hills version of church polity at that time, the Personnel Committee served an HR function for the church. Through our many meetings my friendship with and respect for Kenny grew and I learned more and more about church staffing, church leadership, and church polity. We dealt with several significant church issues and a few staff changes.
Kenny is married to Evelyn. They have two sons named David and Mark. Evelyn is a hoot. Boy are there stories about her and the two of them. She can bring a smile to your face in nothing flat. As I was first getting to know her, we were talking one day about marriage and divorce. She got a stern look on her face and said "I don't believe in divorce. I do, however, believe in murder." She was the reason our annual Singing Christmas Tree was so successful each year.
Sadly, Kenny left our church and the pastorate in 1998 to move to Florida, a place he often vacationed, to become the first full-time dean of the School of Ministry at Palm Beach Atlantic University. During 2002-03, he was selected by the Board of Trustees to serve as the Interim President of Palm Beach Atlantic University. When a new president was hired in 2003, Kenny became Vice President for Religious Life. In 2007 he was appointed Special Adviser to the President, a position he held until his retirement in 2018. It has been a privilege to be able to maintain a friendship, though distant and mostly electronic, with Kenny through the years.
So...what did I learn from Kenny and my friendship with him and the years that I willingly placed myself under his authority as my pastoral shepherd that I can pass on to anyone who might be reading this and is interested in discipleship?
1. Don't overlook the role of your local church pastor as an unofficial and often distant discipler. Your pastor is your shepherd. He has to answer to the Lord for your soul. You might not have a friendship with him, but God has called him to shepherd you. Listen to him. Learn from Him. Apply what you learn.
2. Be an encourager. A word of encouragement really lifts people up.
3. Take a chance on people. Especially if you are on a church staff and a volunteer comes to you with an idea.
4. Choose ministering to people over leading programs. Do what you have to do to remember names, even if it's pausing to write them down on a little notepad that you keep in your pocket. Spend time one on one with people as much as you can.
Thanks Kenny! I know I'm only one of thousands of people that you have known and invested in during the course of your life, but your investment meant the world to me in my own spiritual journey.
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Note: Blog entries in the Heroes & Mentors Section are about, by and large, my disciplers. These are people that I look up to and have learned from in many ways during my journey. They are all truly a blessing from the Lord.
My hope and prayer in spotlighting them is in no way to put them on a pedestal...or to say that I am a wonderful person because I've been the beneficiary of their mentoring. Rather, I want to use them as examples of how people can invest in others and fulfill The Great Commission, and hopefully encourage the reader to both look for a discipler and be a discipler of others.
Remember Jesus' mandate...Make Disciples.
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