Don Wilson, shown during his participation in his daughter Alyson’s ordination at the Gilbertville Presbyterian Church, is retiring as general presbyter of the Presbytery of Kiskiminetas after eight years in the position.
When Don Wilson was deployed as a military chaplain for the United States Air Force in Afghanistan in 2007, he journaled his thoughts daily in a notebook. One day, he scribbled down that his second job after the Air Force would be the most important call of his life.
“I was praying and reading scripture first thing in the morning before anything was going on around the base, and I was just writing in my journal, and I wrote it down,” Don recalled. “I was like, ‘That’s a stupid statement to write.’
“I had no clue what that meant. That’s odd; it’s not the next job when I leave the Air Force, but the second job after the Air Force. Looking back, it was God saying, ‘I’ve got you. Don’t worry about the future. Wherever we go, we’re going to go together.’”
His first employment opportunity following the Air Force was working with the Presbyterian Council on Chaplaincy and Military Personnel (PCCMP) for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The PCCMP is a joint endorsing agency for the Korean Presbyterian Church Abroad, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America and the PCUSA. Its mission is to support our ministers working in federal chaplaincies, much like the presbytery supports local pastors.
“I thought that was one of the greatest jobs in the world,” Don said. “And it was. It was fantastic. I loved it. But the Presbyterian Mission Agency, which funds the work, couldn’t support two full-time ministers to care for the 200-plus Presbyterian ministers serving in federal chaplaincies.”
Don volunteered to go part-time. The Presbytery of Kiskiminetas offered him a three-quarter time position as general presbyter, which would allow him to keep his chaplaincy training work. After starting in Kiski in May 2016, he soon found out that the time commitment of leading a mid-council no longer allowed him to keep the training job, so he resigned from the PCCMP and eventually became the full-time GP in Kiski.
Fast-forward eight-plus years, and Don has completed another mission, so to speak, as he is retiring from his general presbyter role at the end of September. It’s a call that’s been filled with highs and lows and one that he will undoubtedly look back fondly upon.
“I’ll miss the impact that I’ve had with several of the churches that have seen themselves marginalized that feel like they’re not marginalized now,” he said.
“The presbytery back in the 1960s rapidly closed and merged churches without much input from the congregations. This established a belief that the presbytery was coming in and going to close your church down. It has been the underlying fear since I arrived. Getting the churches to understand that it’s not our function; we don’t shut churches down. Rather, we are trying to help nurture and grow them has been the most difficult task of my work. But this work becomes fun when you get them to understand it is about helping them.
“It comes back to my Air Force training: how do we do ministry in the military in a way that makes a difference?” he continued. “You don’t have to be in a worship service to have ministry. You can do it in many different places and many other ways. It doesn’t have to be Sunday morning worship at 10 or 11 a.m. That’s not church. The church is what we do outside of that. Sometimes, we are the church just by putting a food box outside the church.
“The food distribution process that our churches have been involved with have all been trying to get focused on their communities and doing things outside of the 11 o’clock Sunday morning hour.”
The presbytery is also going in a new direction upon Don’s retirement. A Hope Team has been working with consultant Graham Standish for two years, seeking ways to restructure the presbytery as it looks to the future.
Don Wilson, right, visits with Rep. Glenn Thompson, who represents the 15th District in Pennsylvania, and staff members from Bread for The World to talk about school nutrition programs and how the Presbytery of Kiskiminetas supports food programs in the 15 District. The key point was to highlight the food lockers that the presbytery’s churches have put out in front of their buildings so people can drive by and pick up food staples.
“They’re trying to visualize something that doesn’t exist, with Graham coming in, being kind of an outsider, to lead us,” Don said. “There are many different ways that we can move forward. My hope for this presbytery is that it will think outside of the box and think about how can we do ministry differently.
“The idea here is to get more creative and to do some great things in this presbytery. Unfortunately, a bad habit we have is to keep going back to the past as if, somehow, if we repeat the past, everything else will be OK again. The presbytery has reached a point where they need to move on with more creative people, younger people, people who want to see the church really take off, not just survive.
“We’ve gotten to a place where we are in survival mode in most of our churches. It’s not attractive. It doesn’t bring people in. So, we have got to change. Even at the presbytery level, we have to change what we’re doing to invigorate our congregations, to reach out into our communities and to be reaching out to people who don’t traditionally come to church.”
Don is happy to step aside as a new leadership model is created and installed in Kiski. Going forward, Kiski’s format is a two-presbyter system, like Shenango and Carlisle presbyteries, getting away from the traditional one-presbyter-does-it-all format. According to Don, it will help provide the future-thinking ways needed in this region.
Under this realignment, one presbyter will be an “organization presbyter” who will have stated clerk functions while overseeing administrative things like finances, property issues and planning for the future. The other will fill a “formational presbyter” role and focus on spiritual growth, education, training and pastoral care. It is unlikely that the new presbyters will be in place before 2025.
Current stated clerk Erin Kobs, who will transition out of her position once the presbyters are hired, will be the point person in Kiski until a temporary presbyter is hired.
Don is excited to see what the new leadership model brings when completed. He advises whoever takes the leadership reins in Kiski to “Do whatever the Spirit leads you to do. Focus your creativity and imagination on the future. Be willing to try and fail. Go in a direction and go with gusto because who knows what will happen.
“I wish I knew there was a magic formula to use, but there isn’t. It’s trial and error like everything’s ever been. I think that’s what the Gospel is about. We’ve got to focus on where the energy is, and we’ll utilize that energy to accomplish the task of building the kingdom of God.”
As for Don, he and his wife, Becky, plan to stay in Indiana, where they have made a home and are nicely situated within driving distance of their four daughters. An avid distance runner, Don is two marathons shy of completing 50 for his career, something he hopes to accomplish by the end of next year. He also plans to work with the many food banks in the area to help them grow their ministries and programs he enjoyed connecting with during his time in Kiski.
Don is not leaving behind his work and time in the Presbytery of Kiskiminetas, a place and call that God knew he was preparing him for, as Don wrote in his journal one morning in Afghanistan.
“This was the most important job,” Don said. “I have said that many, many times. The second job was the most important job. This has been an enjoyment of doing what God wanted me to do.”
Don Wilson, left, poses with a Rwandan leadership team during his visit with partner churches in Rwanda.