Conversations with Kyle Joachim

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kyle Joachim.

Hi Kyle, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’m a third generation Presbyterian pastor, which I used to think was pretty lame and unambitious. I didn’t want to become a pastor. I wanted to be an actor and I wanted to help people. But after getting a BFA in Acting at a state university in Ohio, I had a reality check; this acting thing isn’t going to happen for me because it seems hard, and also I’m not a good actor. So I moved to Germany and got busy drinking alcohol and helping Middle Eastern refugees. I like to help people, but I also like to drink alcohol. This kind of work was thrilling and sad and kind of a blur (alcohol) and also hard (refugees), so I moved to Pasadena to study theology at Fuller Seminary and get a bigger dose of religion and knowledge so I could help people in a different way. And also drink more alcohol. And it’s California, so I became a pot-smoking theology student. But I also got plugged in at a great church in Hollywood that showed me church doesn’t have to be as lame and unambitious as I feared. I decided to be a Presbyterian pastor because I could help people and have fun and still drink and smoke. But then it wasn’t as fun…the drinking or the pastoring. And then I got married, and my wife didn’t think my smoking was all that fun either. Plus, I didn’t really feel like I was helping anyone. So I quit that job. Then I felt about as lame and unambitious as a newly married, unemployed, alcoholic, 35-year-old pothead pastor can feel. And I didn’t really want to help people anymore, either.

Then I started going to 12 Step meetings and got sober. Then I got honest about how I wound up being so lame and unambitious. I also got honest about why I wanted to help people, which was mostly just to help myself feel better. Just as I was having all these revelations, a Presbyterian church asked if I could help them out for a while. I didn’t have anything better going on so I said yes because sober people say yes to helping people. Then it turned out my new church was a huge center for 12 Step meetings, which felt fortuitous. Then it turned out there were a lot of homeless people in the neighborhood who needed help, which also felt doubly fortuitous. Then it turned out my wife and I really loved this church, and they loved us, which felt triply or even quadruply fortuitous. Then they asked me to be the permanent pastor and I said yes and now it’s been five years, and we have helped a lot of people.

Silverlake Community Church exists to serve the community, create community, and help people in the community get healthy. The church hosts 16 12-Step meetings each week, and we are passionate about seeing people recover from all the compulsions, addictions, and abusive cycles that suppress our humanity, squander our potential and ruin our lives. We also run a weekly food pantry, that went from serving 35 families a week before the pandemic to now serving over 100 families each Wednesday evening. The food pantry also gave birth to the neighborhood’s first regular homeless drop-in program. In its first year, we saw hundreds of unhoused neighbors walk away with new clothes, hot meals, fresh DMV ID’s, birth certificates, food stamps and smiles. The church also hosts larger organizations and collaborative events like SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition’s amazing community work, Council District Four’s Silver Lake Community Support Day, and LAHSA’s Homeless Count.

The best part of all these service activities, though, is the volunteers. Many dozens of regular volunteers commit untold hours to helping make this corner of the world a little better, and the result is they get to know each other and become friends and care for and support each other, and this is the definition of “create community.” People from the church, the neighborhood and the streets working together, laughing, eating, crying, sweating, and fighting together against a tide of cynicism and poverty and addiction and despair. It’s beautiful.

And of course, the end result is that as people serve others, they think less about themselves. The secret sauce of self-help is that when you stop trying to help yourself and start trying to help others, you finally start to grow. Yes, Silverlake Community Church has some great spiritual growth opportunities, a delightfully and confusingly diverse congregation, and a renowned “come-as-you-are” Sunday morning church experience, but that’s not where the growth happens. Everybody only actually starts to get healthy when they shed their ego, roll up their sleeves and help someone else. Then you can actually help somebody. And you feel a whole lot less lame and unambitious.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
My favorite childhood memory was driving to the beach in Virginia when I was nine. My father was a pastor in rural Pennsylvania, and his church was challenging, so his first days of vacation were euphoric. Everyone was in a good mood, I was playing with a new G.I. Joe, the Fraggle Rock cassette was playing in our Chevy Astro van, and my dad put the windows down just in time to catch the first scent of beach air. The whole week lay ahead: ice cream, sand castles, late-night movies, and all the breakfast cereal we weren’t allowed to eat at home. It is my earliest memory of bliss.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.silverlakechurch.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slakechurch/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/silverlakechurch/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6hOi7OPerDGnbbQZe6foeg
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/silverlake-community-church-los-angeles