My name is Chad Andrew Herring, and Kairosblog is my personal blog
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, to native Kansas Citians, I grew up in the midwest: Villisca and Atlantic, Iowa, and University City, Missouri. I am the middle son of loving, giving, serving parents–a special-education teacher and a Presbyterian Pastor–and I grew up in caring communities that stressed amazing grace, truth telling and justice seeking, and care for family and neighbor.
Grinnell College was a natural fit for me, where I studied Religious Studies. From there, the University of Chicago Divinity School, where I earned a Master of Divinity degree and almost completed a Doctor of Philosophy program in Theological Ethics (all but dissertation, true, but life and ministry and kids meant it was not quite to be).
Today, I find myself surrounded by wonderful things. I’m married to my college love, have two beautiful (twin) daughters, and after serving as the Associate Pastor of Southminster Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kansas, I was honored to be the pastor of the The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, for nine wonderful years.
I’m convinced that the message of God’s immeasurable love that we find in Jesus Christ is a vital message for our time, and that even in the midst of mind-boggling cultural, institutional, and church-y change, God is not done with the community of people who are inspired to follow God on the way of Jesus. We just don’t quite know what God is going to do with us yet.
So, the idea of Kairos might be timely. In Christian thought, Kairos refers to a special kind of time, God’s time, or the fullness of time, where unlike Chronos (the ever progressive, unstoppable, unbreakable tick-tock of moments), Kairos suggests the opportune time, the right time, the moment where things are auspicious and God is working a new thing. I’ve always liked that, and have adopted the name as I seek out what God is doing right now, in God’s time enveloping our time, even as the chrono-clock keeps marching on.
There are others out there who have made note of this distinction and have used it either for their own use or for their ministries. I know little about them, and have no connection (official or unofficial) with anyone else using this moniker.
Everything on Kairosblog is is simply and only an expression of my personal opinion (and sometimes my musings, and not even my opinion). It does not in any way represent the views of the church I might serve, which themslves are diverse communities that has many views, from liberal to conservative. Nor does it represent the denomination that has granted me ordination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), or Heartland Presbytery, that grants me membership, or my colleagues in ministry. I know that there are many who will find agreement in what I write, and some who might find offense. I apologize for the latter. But this blog represents nothing but my own thought, which by the Grace of God will be useful in some measure to this broader enterprise we’re engaged in. I take complete responsibility for anything posted here under my pen name, kairos.
More about me can be found at chadaherring.com.