KEYSTONE CHURCH WELCOMES NEW LEADER

By STEPHEN HAMMILL

While November marked the beginning of Rev. Jim Warfel’s tenure as pastor of Keystone Presbyterian Church on Van ##### Road, he has already noticed a need for his presence.

“I feel to some degree they have been left as sheep without a shepherd,” he said. “They’re interested in making the church the presence of Christ in the area.”

Keystone Presbyterian’s congregation is made up of about 75 members, yet attendance at services typically numbers in the forties. According to Warfel, such modest support has a deeper meaning.
“Either we grow in three years,” he said. “Or, we close the doors.”

But don’t get him wrong, Warfel’s demeanor is anything but pessimistic.
“The pursuit of God – that’s what religion is about,” he explained. “The essence of a minister is not the sermons. They (the congregation) won’t remember them in a week. They’ll remember when they hurt if I’m there or if I’m not there.”

When asked whom the church most wants to reach, he had an answer for that, too.
“The church is a place where people who are hurting are supposed to get better,” he said. “We don’t need a whole lot of righteousness.”
Warfel admits to an almost selfish reason for the life he has chosen.

“To bring them into a relationship with God – it gets me closer to Him,” he confessed. “I can’t imagine someone attempting to be a minister who didn’t love people. You can’t love God if you don’t love people. And, you can’t do it for the pay.”

Warfel grew up in Sanford, where his father worked as a railroader and his mother served on the school board.
He attended Seminole High School, and then went on to receive his degree in chemistry from the University of South Florida. With the Vietnam War looming, Warfel remained in academia, teaching physics and math. But when his number was called, Warfel decided to enlist in Air Force officer training school.
“I thought, there’s something better than being drafted in the Army,” he said.

Not long after, he was flying airborne combat missions over Laos and Cambodia. He logged 59 missions in all.
When asked about what impact his military background has on his ministerial methods, Warfel paused and gave an all-encompassing answer.
“There is no aspect of life that doesn’t affect the way you minister,” he said.

In 1989, he and his first wife divorced.
“I floundered around for a few years and finally realized what I was to do,” explained Warfel. “I always said God makes you a minister when there’s nothing left to do. You can’t run from God.”

“I tell people, I’m not good, I’m forgiven,” he continued. “I’m a sinner, saved by grace – that’s the bottom line.”

Warfel remarried in 1995. His new wife was a former classmate. That same year, he was also ordained in the Reformed Episcopal Church in St. Petersburg. He has four daughters, all grown, and “scattered to the four winds.”

Warfel is adamant about the teaching nature of his position, and of Christianity itself.
“Your parents’ religion means nothing until it is your own,” he said.

The congregation elected its Pastoral Nominating Committee in March of this year. A month later they started meeting and the months-long search for a new pastor began. Warfel started out being the number-one candidate and remained that way.
Nominating committee member Muriel Rosas explained the process.

“We had a survey of the membership to try and find what they were looking for,” he said. “He had experience with small churches, and he came across as a very caring person. We were looking for someone who could nurture the congregation and also reach out to the community.”
According to Rosas, it looks like they got what they went shopping for.

“He’s only been here a few weeks but I feel really strongly he is what we need,” Rosas said. “He is a very loving person, and that’s very important.”
Warfel keenly senses the challenge of his new position as a pastor of his time, a call to inspire people who are left wanting for a meaningful message in their hurried and distracted lives.

“We’re trying to be faithful to the teachings of the church, while making it relevant to the 21st century,” explained Warfel. In a time when mega-churches are sprouting across the country, Keystone harks back to a simpler mode of worship, where the pastor knew his followers by name, and those people gather in a house of God.

Services run weekly on Sunday mornings at 11 a.m.. Keystone Presbetyrian Church is located on 7509 Van ##### Road, Odessa.
The church can be reached at (813) 902-5180.