Gangel family feels at home in Custer

Kyle Gangel had never even visited South Dakota before he and his young family came to Custer as a pastoral candidate over this past Labor Day weekend. 

“I had never met anybody from South Dakota,” said Gangel, but now, after just over two months as pastor at Southern Hills Bible Church (SHBC), he says the community definitely feels like home. 

Although he grew up in a military family which moved every couple of years, Gangel claims Canon City, Colo., where both his parents grew up, as his hometown. Whether the family was living in Washington, South Carolina, West Point, N.Y., or Germany, following Gangel’s father who was a military physical therapist, he says they always spent their summers in Canon City and eventually moved back there when his father retired. 

His family was not religious, but after becoming a Christian at the age of 16 Gangel decided to attend Bible college and settled on Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo. As it turned out, he would spend the next decade of his life studying and working there. 

After completing his undergraduate work in 2008, Gangel studied at the seminary which is attached to the Bible college, graduating with his master’s of divinity degree in 2012. 

Springfield is also where he met his wife, Liz, the daughter of missionaries to Burkina Faso in west Africa, and it’s where their three sons were born. 

While going to school, Gangel attended and joined Springfield’s Graceway Baptist Church where he served as a student ministries pastor for eight years. The last two years he has been the discipleship pastor. He says the mentoring by senior pastor Bob Stephenson has been invaluable to him, especially since he did not grow up in a Christian home. 

As part of his ministerial studies, Gangel studied biblical counseling under author and pastor Dr. Kevin Carson and is certified by the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC). He says that training was an important component of his becoming a candidate to be pastor at SHBC. 

Gangel says over the past year he had begun considering a move back west and was focusing on Colorado and possibly even going back to work at his home church in Canon City. 

Then, he says, he saw an ad last spring which mentioned the pastoral opening in Custer. The opening was created by the resignation in 2019 of former pastor J.O. Oesterling who was moving to Kentucky. 

Gangel says he was shocked that what the church said it was looking for in a pastor described him perfectly—beliefs, experience, training—right down to the ACBC certification. 

So he sent out his resume in June and the family made their inaugural trip to South Dakota at the beginning of September. Within a few days the church members voted unanimously to call Gangel as their pastor—a call which he eagerly accepted. 

Liz has a master’s degree in education and is a certified teacher, but had not expected to work as a teacher for a while at least after moving to Custer. However, Providence had other plans. 

On the couple’s last Sunday at Graceway, Oct. 22, Liz received a text from SHBC church member and Custer kindergarten teacher Amanda Keller reporting that the second grade teacher was resigning as of October 31. 

“It seemed providential,” said Gangel, so Liz applied for the job and went to work teaching second grade at Custer Elementary on Nov. 11, only about a week after the family arrived in town. 

“She loves it,” said Gangel of his wife’s work at the school, adding that she enjoys her fellow teachers, Principal Barb Paulson and the four-day school week. He says coming from one of the largest districts in Missouri there is “such a different feel here.”

And that different feel seems to apply to more than just Liz’s work at the school.   

“Here it seems like we have so much more time together,” said Gangel. “Life is moving at a much more manageable pace.”  

Gangel says even his sons—8-year-old Brennan, 5-year-old Harrison and Calvin who will soon be 2—have quickly adapted to life here and are feeling at home.

He says on the candidating weekend, the two older boys “disappeared” when they arrived at the church and spent their time happily playing with the other children. 

Gangel says he knew the family had found a home here recently when they were driving back into town at night. He says in the misty air the lights of Custer were glowing and could be seen from several miles out.  

“It was just cool to hear Brennan say, ‘Oh look, there’s the glow of our city,’” said Gangel. “Really quickly Custer kind of became our city.” 

Gangel says the congregation at SHBC has also played a big part in making his family feel at home. 

After living in an apartment for several weeks, the Gangels purchased a house recently, but the home was a mess in need of deep cleaning, paint and new carpets before the family could move in. Church members told him to leave the house unlocked, saying they would come by and work on it when they had time.

“I would get to the house at 8 a.m.,” said Gangel, “and there would be three or four people there already painting and cleaning. It was just amazing.” 

Gangel says in no time the house was spruced up and ready for them to move into. 

Moreover, the Gangel family is getting to know more about its new home than just the church and the town. On Sunday afternoon after worship they took advantage of the above freezing temperatures to go exploring in Custer State Park and posted photos of the family, frozen lakes and scenery on social media.