a longform-ish take on the facebook worship thread


maybe sarah is right.

maybe i am just done with worship.

that was one of her takes on the terrific facebook thread that happened yesterday between humc current and ex-members on my status that read: "can't remember the last time i was in a sanctuary on sunday morning. june, work, and the falcons are the main reasons. i am not sure i've had such a stretch in the last 10 plus years. it feels weird, but does weird mean "i miss it" or just that i am out of my routine?"

facebook (and any social media) can be a nasty beast. all it takes is one outlier to take offense or throw a personal barb into the mix and the whole conversation goes to hell. fortunately, yesterday, that didn't happen.

i think some contributors took offense in a reasonable and healthy way. and i think others were defensive of their church or ex-church in a reasonable and healthy way. some did both. it was fantastic!

in my opinion, it is threads like yesterday that is what facebook does best. gather friends and family and acquaintances from around your church, city, state, country or globe and let them all talk to each other about something that may have been a spur of the moment idea or a long-festering pet peeve. for me, yesterday's original comment probably fell in the latter category.

i can be more direct here, because i was afraid if i were to be too blunt yesterday, it wouldn't have started a conversation as easily as it merely may have hurt feelings. hurting feelings was never my intention (i'm pretty sure i can claim that i have NEVER intended to hurt feelings on facebook, even though if i have, i will own it 100 percent and say that i am sorry.). rather than risk hurting feelings, i wanted to talk it out. thanks to those that participated and thanks to those that may have followed the conversation here.

over the last several weeks, i haven't missed worship.

to be clear, that's not to say that i haven't missed the people of huffman. i have. that's not to say that i haven't missed hanging out afterwards with whatever familiar faces are present to shoot the breeze and/or catch up. i have. that's not to say that i haven't missed lee garden or neighborhood or o'charley's or ruby tuesday or wherever we head after service to lunch. i have.

it's just that i haven't missed the worship service. and to be honest, i haven't looked forward to it in a long, long time.

i don't believe this is an indictment on the body of christ. i don't believe this is an indictment on our current set of worship leaders. i don't believe that my blase' attitude toward worship is an indictment on anything other than myself. me. ME. kevin michael o'kelley.

humc has had the same worship service for as long as i can remember. for many, the routine and tradition of the elements that we recite and repeat week after week are cherished and held dear. for me, the repetition of it all has grown tiresome. predictable. boring at times.

don't get me wrong. there are exceptions, of course. if hannah is participating in something, i'm all over it. occasionally we'll sing a hymn i love. during those, you'll catch me singing loud and singing proud. if every sunday was vbs sunday, it would make my year. then again, if every sunday was vbs sunday, there would be some in our (and every) congregation that would withhold their tithe as ransom to make it stop.

unfortunately for me (just me, ME, kevin michael o'kelley!!!), that's kind of the list.

outside of those exceptions, there isn't really a part of our worship service that i can't get somewhere else in a more fulfilling way.

people that know me know that i am a big "journey" guy. i am about the road we take, the path we forge, the foundation we lay as we question and attempt to understand "that which is greater than ourselves." insomuch as what we can accomplish in the span of an hour or so in humc's sanctuary, the directive has to be much more narrow. we are a christian community of faith. that is a fact. i am not trying to push back against what has been established. i understand the establishment. i understand our structure. i pledge to support it in many, many ways. it's just not, how do i say this..., fun. to me. ME. kevin michael o'kelley.

maybe fun's the wrong word. engaging? relevant? creative? interesting? fluid? dynamic? flexible?

yeah, yeah. all of those.

in our worship service, the journey has found its destination. that destination is jesus. the theme then concerns how can we be more like jesus. or how do our worship leaders and message-deliverers best see fit to interpret our role in the great commission. it's been settled. tradition-ed. established. and that is fine for many of our members. i just don't know if it's fine with me. ME. kevin michael o'kelley.

here is where my personality causes tension in others i presume. and i only presume it due to the defensive way i or some of the things i have opined have been received over the last however many years. i respect brother harris. i respected reverend denson. reverend lee. reverend owen. reverend rutland. all of them. i do. or did. but, in my opinion (me. ME. kevin michael o'kelley), they are only men. just like me. just like you. hearing "the word proclaimed" makes me cringe. i find myself wishing every statement delivered from the pulpit be issued underneath neon lights that loudly qualify "THIS IS ONLY WHAT I THINK. I ACTUALLY HAVE ZERO IDEA HOW ACCURATE ANY OF MY DIRECTION IS."

but it's not. that's not how our (and most) christian worship services are structured. our pastors are our appointed "experts", called by god to deliver direction and advice on christian living to his/her fold. the rest of the service, in theory, reinforces the message in different but the same ways every week. se-cond verse, same as the first. i'm henry the viiith i am, henry the viiith i am, i am...

that structure. that construct. those routines. they are not relevant to me. ME. kevin michael o'kelley.

but herein lies the crux. i could argue (i won't today) that it is not just kevin michael o'kelley that feels this way. our numbers, while not the most credible indicator or spiritual health, continue to drop, drop, drop. we are losing members faster than we are gaining new.

is this because one lonely, little man has, on occasion, been critical of his church and her leaders and that one lonely, little man's "bad" attitude has infected his church like a virus that we can't recover from?

or is there something more to it?

is something...missing.

truth be told, those "left behind", like myself, are probably not the ones to ask. as evidenced on the facebook thread yesterday, the "left behind" are now dug deep into our foxhole. we aren't coming out. we are going to see this through to the end, even if the end doesn't paint itself as very attractive, painless, or completely within our control.

no, i wish we could talk, in an honest and cooperative way, to those that are no longer there. to all of those that were there in the pews celebrating the tradition of huffman on our 140th birthday and then weren't there the next week. it would be a fascinating picture into what might have been, wouldn't it, if we would have been able to talk to them before they left, answering their personal and unique questions of "how do you justify leaving your church home that you pledged to support with your prayers, presence, your gifts and your service? what is missing?" before it was too late?

it's too late to do that now. but it speaks to what i've been struggling with for years now.

if the worship service is the driving force of your congregation (make no mistake, in most churches, it is), and i am not attracted to the service, itself, what then?

it was rightly pointed out yesterday that, as humans, we condone and support our friends and family getting out and away from hurtful personal relationships. we support our loved ones when their current job has run its course and they look for a fresh start.

consider walking away from a church home, though? baby, we attack!

"you just aren't trying hard enough!"

"where is your loyalty, man?"

"remember that time you got up in front of the congregation and said 'i will' to all those questions? well, what's wrong with you??? do it! you pledged you would!"

"oh, they were just looking for a way out anyway. forget them."

nice, right? we can be pretty awesome at being "christian" sometimes.

and so, then, what now for me? ME? kevin michael o'kelley?

i don't know, dude. i am one of the ones in the foxhole. as long as i get my limbo fix and find my way around my friends every now and again, i'll be fine. at the same time, i am still not jazzed about the next time i'll be in the sanctuary for worship.

like i said, i think that's an indictment only on me. ME. kevin michael o'kelley.

i think.

hannah and caroline and june and me
(part one)
((the story of june's name))


have you ever seen the movie from dusk 'til dawn? if you haven't, there's a good chance your life is better for it. it's pretty crappy. crappy, but fun. the imdb synopsis is as follows: "two criminals and their hostages unknowingly seek refuge in an establishment populated by vampires, with chaotic results (naturally)." directed by robert rodriguez, the only reason this terrible movie gets made is that quentin tarantino wanted it to be made. on the heels of pulp fiction, quentin could make whatever he wanted to. in 1996, when this movie hit, there was no such thing as twilight or vampire diaries or true blood or my babysitter's a vampire. vampire movies were still b class, but quentin wanted to make it with his buddy, rodriguez, so it got made.

i remember watching the movie, starring george clooney (then of er fame), and being mildly entertained. clooney was still skating by on his good looks and still doing that er thing where he would look at a woman and then shyly look down with a grin. this was his go-to move. he does this, like, ten times in from dusk 'til dawn, which seems like a pretty feminine response to fighting off vampires. it was pretty silly, but, at the same time, in the movie he also was (pretend) inked with a massively awesome tattoo. his character's name was seth gecko. at some point during the movie, i fell in love with george clooney, his lovely eyes, his tic where he looked down shyly with the grin, his pretend tattoo, and his character's name, seth.

i was in my first post-high school serious relationship at the time. we were nowhere close to thinking about children, but i decided then and there, were i to have a boy, his name would be seth. seth gecko michael o'kelley.

fast forward to 2003. i've now married sarah. sarah is pregnant with child. we find out the child is a girl. sarah's female name equivalent of seth is hannah. hannah marie. our first child would be hannah marie o'kelley.

fast forward to 2007. i am still married to sarah. sarah is pregnant with child. we find out the child is a girl. the name, caroline, occurs to sarah, more than likely during one of her trips to or from tuscaloosa. caroline's middle name would be a sarah's side of the family name, lilla. our second child would be caroline lilla o'kelley.

fast forward to 2011. i am still married to sarah. sarah is pregnant with child. this was going to be my seth. sarah said for weeks "this one feels different". as much i had romanticized and fantasized over the idea of having a boy for fifteen years, i was stoked. because of my reconnection with my brother brian (patrick o'kelley), my boy name had evolved. our third child would be called seth patrick o'kelley.

that is, until we find out our third child would be a girl.

much to my surprise, sarah was pretty taken aback and (a little) disappointed in the revelation, herself. i had not given much thought or time to that concept, because i was too wrapped up in what i wanted. that being said, it took a while before we gave any serious thoughts to naming our now third girl.

when we got down to it, these are the names that came up most often:

eva (sarah)
scarlett (sarah)
sloane (me)
beatrix (me)
bree (me, it's the female version of brian)
amelia
many, many others

my names above never really made it past the cut line. i, on the other hand, immediately cut eva (and the many, many others i suppose). scarlett, i didn't shoot down immediately. i didn't dislike it at all, and scarlett was the leader in our clubhouse for many, many weeks.

dateline: sunday morning worship about a month or so before june arrived. for different reasons, i started to feel conflicted about scarlett. again, i didn't have anything against the name, but it just didn't feel connected to me. it didn't feel like mine, as selfish as that probably sounds.

so, we re-opened the negotiations and sarah throws out the name amelia. she doesn't like her middle name, elizabeth, attached to amelia, so she proposed june as amelia's middle name.

i like it.

for a couple weeks, amelia june joins scarlett elizabeth on the leaderboard.

i couldn't get june out of my head, and the reasons for that are plenty. every time i thought of june, i naturally thought of june hearin which, in turn, made me think of gerry hearin.

gerry deserves his own blog and will get it one day, so i won't wax poetic about him for long here, but i will say this. having given it serious thought, gerry is one of three adult men in my life that i have ever held in high enough regard to consider them a mentor or a role model. while on staff with gerry, i learned to love him and soak up everything that i could from him in my limited time around him (he was only part time). gerry had my back and was willing to give advice whenever i needed it. he was a champion and defender of huffman united methodist church and it was through him and his wisdom that i channeled my own passion as an adult for the church that saw me through part of my childhood. gerry was everything that i thought a pastor should be. kind, eloquent, smart, sincere, and honest. the time i spent with him and around him during that period of my life was absolutely and totally beyond value. his positive influence and his engaging spirit towards me and every one of his congregations, i am sure, are what i want to be for my family and for my friends. i miss gerry.

his wife, june, is no less beautiful. every bit as supportive of me and sarah and my ministry while i was on staff, june, to me, felt and continues to feel like huffman united methodist church's matriarch. a passionate supporter and cheerleader, always involved in every outreach, ever willing to share a smile and a hug with a long time member or first time visitor, she's our spoonful of sugar. our silent defender. my friend, donald, has said many times that if june ever asked him to crack some skulls, he wouldn't even think twice before responding with force. she's our mary poppins and our batman all rolled into one. most importantly, when i think of god, i don't picture "jesus laughing" or zeus or some faceless, abstract entity. i think of june hearin, her patient and grace-filled smile that always suggests (to me) she knows what's happening behind the curtain.

i couldn't get june out of my head. and so, i asked sarah what she thought of us dropping amelia and going with june. we'd reattach elizabeth as the middle name. it sounded perfect.

and maybe it was.

it took a little time for sarah to completely adjust. she would finally say that she had been leaning scarlett for a long time, and she needed some space to let the idea of going in another direction sink in.

the clock was working against us, though. fast forward to a week before june arrives and i am sending sarah emails asking her if we can nail down a name. i don't care what the name is (of course, i really did), but i didn't want us to show up not knowing.

sarah decided that we'd play it this way. we would wait 'til the baby was born. if she looked like caroline, we'd go with scarlett. if she looked like hannah, we would go with june.

fast forward to october 18th. the baby, baby, baby girl was born. she favored caroline.

so, scarlett, right?

well, not so fast. after june was born, she asked me what i thought.

"you know what i think."

shortly after, june opens her eyes, her dark blue eyes.

"we can call her june."

"yeah?"

"yeah."

and so it was. three weeks old today, june feels like the only name we should've considered even if it wasn't. she looks like a june. she feels like a june. she is.

june.

at some point when she's older, she'll read this post or hear from her mommy and daddy of the legacy that her name carries. we'll help her fully understand all of the incredible images merely saying her name brings to life inside of both her daddy and her mommy.

welcome to the world, princess june elizabeth.

and welcome to the blog.