King of Kings Lutheran Church in Willoughby gets new pastor
Jan. 30—King of Kings Lutheran Church in Willoughby has been in its location for more than 40 years, but in the most recent three, it has been without a pastor.
After some research, the church's national church body, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod-WELS, approved funding for a pastor and possible future development.
The new pastor, Jeff Duquaine, and his family arrived from California in March and now reside in the church's adjacent parsonage on Lost Nation Road. Since his arrival, Duquaine not only has been preaching and teaching, but getting involved in the community and becoming a member of the Willoughby Western Lake County Chamber of Commerce.
"There's a lot of opportunity, natural beauty and amenities," Duquaine said, noting that the Willoughby church, located at 2815 Lost Nation Road, is his fifth church. "I never thought I would move around as much as I have because every time you receive a call from another church, you don't have to take it. I've felt like every place I've been, I did what I thought I could do for them."
Duquaine and his family are in Willoughby indefinitely. Even though the church body has an extensive system of preschools, grade schools and high schools, Duquaine went to none of them.
"I've been a member of our church from birth, but I don't have any pastors or relatives who are either a church worker or teacher at one of those schools," he said. "I took general classes and then I went for a year and a half to be a respiratory therapist."
After learning that there's not a certain mold that goes into the ministry, Duquaine decided to take a different career path.
"You can be who you are and still do that," he said. "I started when I was 28."
One of Duquaine's goals is to help teach how to be welcoming toward guests.
"I think people are still leery of churches," he said. "It's scary for people to come the first time. One of the biggest things is to help make a cultural shift to be a church that's not just here for the community, but to be a church that's in the community. I've been looking for opportunities to take our people and get out, and do things that are actively positive for the community."
King of Kings is also considered a mission restart.
"Rather than starting a new church somewhere, we take a church that's been around that has a facility and things like that," Duquaine said. "Our church body funds a big hunk of the ministry so they can get a pastor full time and we can try to get into the community, and see if we can reach out more effectively so we can grow and become self supporting again."
When there is a need for a new pastor, the church body's district presidents take time to get to know people and proceed to put a list together based on what the need is, and what their abilities are, Duquaine said.
"I received a call from here last December, so we usually take a month and a half to think about it," he said. "I could have stayed where I was, but I decided the opportunity they were offering here — I thought I could help them."
The end of March was Duquaine's beginning. Much of what he has to do is get to know the community, looking at what the church already has and possible updates that could be made to it.
"They haven't had a pastor for three years, but they stayed open, which is great," he said. "So, getting worship things together, updating our brochure and connect cards. We're more active on Facebook. We did a digital outreach for Christmas. We're going to do one for Easter."
Duquaine is also working with Grant Elementary to implement tutoring in the church.
"In the Cleveland metro area, we only have but one other church from our body and that's in Strongsville," he said. "The goal for us would be to grow enough where we can support ourselves and if we have that many people, we would build a new facility."
Going forward, Duquaine plans to continue to grow as a leader and continue to become a better pastor.
"I want to keep learning," he said. "You always want to get better at what you're doing."
