Longtime Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission co-workers Ross and Gloria Kinsler were recently remembered with a service at Monte Vista Grove Homes in Pasadena, California, where they spent their final years. The hourlong service can be seen here.
The Rev. Dr. Ross Kinsler, who helped develop the concept of Theological Education by Extension and taught it in seminaries around the world, died on Dec. 8, 2020, at age 85. Gloria Kinsler, who was known for facilitating visits of church delegations to Central American countries, died on Feb. 14, 2025, at age 89. The Kinslers had three children, Elizabeth, John and Paul. John died in 1997. Ten grandchildren complete the family.
The Rev. Matt Colwell, pastor of Knox Presbyterian Church in Pasadena, is living at Monte Vista Grove Homes after his family lost their home in the Eaton fire. “My introduction to Monte Vista Grove Homes was Bible study and an oatmeal breakfast at the Kinsler apartment, a wonderful introduction to an extraordinary community,” Colwell said. He prayed that God would grant those who have been blessed by the Kinslers “comfort and a yearning for your liberating reign to be known in our time.”
Grace Gyori, a friend of Gloria Kinsler, sent a taped tribute of her longtime friend. “I’ve been honored to have been in almost every house they lived in,” Gyori said.
Once the Kinslers “retired” and moved to Southern California, Gloria became deeply involved in the sanctuary movement, Gyori said. “Churches were being challenged to offer asylum to undocumented refugees from Central America, and Gloria was particularly qualified to advocate for this initiative,” Gyori said. She called sharing her life with Gloria Kinsler “a deeply rewarding experience for me for so many years. I already miss her keenly.”
Ched Myers and Elaine Enns, of Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries, offered meditations on their late friends. “It is our prayer that they are dancing together on the other side surrounded by beloveds, just as we have gathered here today to honor them,” Enns said. “When we gather to remember those who have joined the cloud of witnesses, we acknowledge a genealogy of our faith, passed on hand to hand, heart to heart, song to song. Gloria and Ross were important elders and friends for us in the vocation of faith and justice.”
“This is super emotional for us,” Myers said. “We are so grateful to be together in person to do our loving duty to these ancestors.”
Using Isaiah 61:1–2a as a text, Myers noted the verses “rehabilitate and recontextualize the Levitical texts about Jubilee and release … in order to restore equity to a fractured community as befits a people brought out of enslavement by their God.”
Myers, a noted New Testament scholar, said that Jesus “famously cites” these verses “at his coming out performance at a Nazareth synagogue” in Luke’s gospel, “announcing this old Jubilee vision was being resuscitated again in his ministry.” After a “pregnant pause,” Jesus delivers “history’s shortest homily,” according to Myers. “‘Today,’ he says, ‘this Scripture comes to life again.’”
“In their context of oppression in Central America, Gloria and Ross carried on this genealogy of Jubilee, through action, proclamation, and, as you can see from the back table, lots of publications,” Myers said. “We’re deeply grateful for their work and witness, which is why in 2014 we named our Bartimaeus Institute after them, the Bartimaeus Kinsler Institute. That’s a genealogy of faith.”
“The Kinslers pursued heir vocation of gospel solidarity with tenacity, which we acknowledge was often hard on their own family,” Myers said. “But they did so with humility, such that when they passed, respectively, there were achingly few obituaries or public tributes. This gathering, gratefully, corrects that.”
“So, friends, let us carry on that genealogy, especially in this new dark age of plutocracy and autocracy,” Myers said. “Let us continue to labor for the day when the Creator will transfigure our wounded history into a Jubilee for all peoples, and all of Creation.”
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Jose Santana, Product Manager – Academic Books, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Lilliam Santiago, Housekeeper, Stony Point Center, Interim Unified Agency
Let us pray:
God, thank you for those who work tirelessly for the self-development of others. Bless their work. In Christ’s name. Amen.
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