Keith Drury & family

My readers sometimes are interested in personal matters—who I am and what my family is like. In case you are, here goes

I wrote the Tuesday Column as “practice.” Like a concert pianist I had to practice for the real concert—my books. When your read a Tuesday Column you are peeking into my practice room which is why you sometimes see me hit a wrong note. The Tuesday Columns were written for 17 years (1995-2012) for fun. But some were more serious than fun—knowing which was which is important .

As for who I am, my father was a pastor but I intended on becoming a forest ranger until I was called into the ministry as a college freshman. I graduated from United Wesleyan College, a now-defunct Bible school in Allentown, Pennsylvania where I met my wife and proposed to her on our first date (she said yes). By some crazy stoke of luck (the Presbyterians at PTS would say “destiny”) I got into Princeton Seminary out of an unaccredited Bible School and by even crazier luck or destiny I did well. I worked for the Salvation Army running camps then took a year off with my wife to wander around the nation in a VW (as hippies of sorts) before settling down in Indiana in 1972 serving The Wesleyan Church denomination in various Christian Education roles including children, youth, Executive Editor of curriculum and the CE department responsible for discipleship. Having taught as an adjunct professor for Indiana Wesleyan University since 1974 I joined the faculty in 1988 and for several years teaching youth and CE. After returning for six years to my denominational headquarters to lead Christian education I returned to IWU for my “final job in life” --teaching CE, leadership and other practical courses to 475 religion students who will become the next generation of pastors. I retired from full time teaching in 2012, though I occasionally teach a course still for IWU or for Wesley Seminary.

I love the outdoors and before my knees gave out I backpacked over 10,000 miles including the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, the Colorado Trail along with a few European trails and parts of the Continental Divide Trail. I also canoed the entire Missouri river (& wrote a canoeing guide for this river) but returned to backpacking until my knees gave out. In my 60’s I turned to bicycling and have logged something like 5000 miles on a bike, half with my wife Sharon. Cycling is easier on the knees. The www.DruryWriting.com pages get just under a thousand visitors a day, mostly from Google searches. I don’t expect to be always taken seriously all the time in my columns—though people often don’t get that and take me too seriously. However, I expect to be taken seriously in my books, of which there are about 15 now in English.

As for my family:

My wife, Sharon teaches Organizational Leadership in the doctoral program here at IWU. She is about 20 years younger than I am ;-). She was a college dropout (when I proposed to her she dropped out—women did that then) but went back to school after she had small children and finished her Bachelor’s degree. Later when those kids were in college she did her Master’s degree and once the kids flew the coop she got her PhD in leadership. She backpacked three months with me and did a 1000 hike on the Appalachian Trail in 1972 but then laid down the law—“three week’s maximum trekking from now on.”(later revised to one week ;-). Before entering higher education she founded Yokemates. She is one of the rare authors who has taken technical leadership theory and applied it to pastors in her book on Leadership Theory for Pastors. Sharon is now the eighth edition of herself… to see these earlier editions of my wife read my article “My Eight Wives.”

My son, David felt a call into the ministry when he was 3 years old, and had significant confirmations of the call at the ages of 19 and 23. Prior to planting two new churches in Indiana & Illinois he served as the “Connections pastor” for Spring Lake Wesleyan Church before becoming the executive pastor of College Wesleyan Church in Marion, Indiana. In 2012 he became the Chief of Staff for the General Superintendent of The Wesleyan Church, Dr. Joanne Lyon. He has three kids, though the oldest is now a teenager, not a little type as pictured here. He graduated from IWU and studied theology at several schools in Boston, completing a thesis and a master’s degree at Gordon Conwell Theological seminary. He has worked on three book manuscripts over the years, one of which is The Fruitful Life and another is Being Dad—Thoughts on fatherhood learned being a son. David and Kathy were married in 1996 and have three children, Maxim (2000), Karina (2003) and Lauren (2005). David is a prolific writer and is funnier than I am. You can find his blogging here: http://www.daviddrury.com/

My other son, John received his PhD in Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary and is married to Amanda, who served several years as a youth pastor at Doylestown United Methodist Church (while John pastored in the neighboring state—but they still lived together), then Amanda received her PhD from Princeton also. They are both graduates of Indiana Wesleyan University. John is a professor at Wesley Seminary and Amanda is a professor in youth ministries and practical theology at Indiana Wesleyan University. They have two kids, Sam and Clara, but I don’t have a recent picture here to show you.