Mike Kellett’s congregation ministers in various mission fi elds, from college students and youth to drug and alcohol abuse to grief and divorce recovery. But this senior pastor just can’t get them to call the Hogs.
Kellett serves as senior minister at White’s Ferry Road Church of Christ in West Monroe, La. He counts the Robertson family, focus of the hit television show “Duck Dynasty,” among his members. As many viewers know, Phil Robertson, the family patriarch, played football for Louisiana State University.
“I can’t convert them, and I can’t quite step over that LSU line,” said Kellett, a self-described “huge” Razorback fan.
Kellett speaks Sept. 29 at Southside Church of Christ in Rogers.
“We periodically have guest speakers when we have a special emphasis in Sunday school or church,” explained Jackie Chesnutt, senior minister at Southside. The church celebrates “Overflow Sunday” on Sept. 29, when a collection for the church missions is taken for the next year.
Kellett’s church organizes disaster relief eftorts for some of the poorest countries in Central America.
“Korie and Missy - and all the Robertsons - are very active with our ministry and have been on missions to the Dominican Republic,” Kellett said. “Korie is verytalented with arts and crafts, and Missy is gifted musically. And their kids are all hard workers. It’s nice for them to be somewhere they can be normal.”
The Rogers church supports local shelters and schools, campus ministries, medical and teaching missions in Central America, church plants and jail and prison ministries, among others. While the local missions might at one time or another overlap with those in Kellett’s church, missions remain individual for each congregation.
The call to fill the local pulpit came because Chesnutt and Kellett have been friends for many years, meeting and serving at various Church of Christ activities. “And everybody wants to hear the preacher who preaches to Phil Robertson,” Chesnutt said. “So it was a good fit for us. And Mike was available.”
Plus, Kellett will get to see his Razorbacks play football against the Texas A&M Aggies the day before his message.
HOME COOKING
Kellett said he grew up going to church in Pocahontas. “But goingdoesn’t mean living right,” he pointed out. A student ministry at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro set him in the right direction.
He taught at Ouachita Christian School in Monroe, La., while he undertook ministry studies at White’s Ferry Road. He served a ministry in Kaufman, Texas, then returned to the West Monroe church as youth minister for 13 years and grew to the position as senior pastor.
That youth ministry is where Kellett met the second generation of the “Duck Dynasty” family - Willie and Jase and their wives - as teenagers.
The personalities viewers see on television are real, and those traits showed up even in the youth group, he said.
“They were always competitive guys,” Kellett said of Willie and Jase. “They played on church softball and basketball teams. We had a lot of fun. They were just like any other kids.”
Now these men are reaching out, preaching and bringing in teens.
“I’ve known Phil Robertson since 1976,” Kellett said. “When I first met Phil, he was making duck calls already. Then they made hunting videos; then how-to shows on the Outdoor Channel. Willie had the vision of what they could be. I think Phil was satisfied just making enough so he could eat, fish and hunt.”
Phil Robertson and his oldest son, Alan, serve White’s Ferry Road church as elders, and Alan served the congregation as a minister for four years, until he went to work full time with his family, Kellett reported.
“Alan is the most funny and the best speaker of the Robertsons,” Kellett said. (He also shared that Alan wore something adorned with a Razorback for a local game with the University of Alabama, when the two spoke several years ago at Center Street Church of Christ. Kellett’s cousin, Jack England, is minister there.)
“And no one cooks as good or looks better than Kay. Phil is a great cook, too - things like steak and crawfi sh. And Will is a good cook.”
Each episode of “Duck Dynasty” ends with a blessing of a family meal. Kellett has enjoyed some of those.
“The leadership and church elders would meet at Phil and Kay’s house,” Kellett said. “We’d sit in their living room and dream - about missions, about things we wanted for our own church family.
“They were very hospitable, but they are not really able to do that kind of thing any more. People are pulling up and knocking on their door at all hours.” ‘SORT OF NORMAL’
While Kellett will address the local congregation with aspects of his own church’s missions, he also will talk about how the success of Duck Commander (the company the family owns) and the “Duck Dynasty” television show has aft ected the community and the church.
“Some people come and visit us just to see them, which is fine by us,” Kellett said. “We preach the gospel to whoever comes. Our main message is the story of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and how that aft ects us.
“We are keeping our great commandment: Loving God. We keep what is fi rst, fi rst.”
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he wasraised on the third day.
- 1 Corinthians, Chapter 15
As the success of the “Duck Dynasty” show grows, the Robertson family makes many extra appearances on talk shows and as speakers at schools, outdoor expos and the Walmart Home Off ce.
“It doesn’t take much to know of (the Robertsons’) Church of Christ relationship,” Chesnutt said. “Willie was at Harding (University, a Church of Christ school in Searcy) the same time my sonwas, although I don’t think he knew him.
“Their message always has been, ‘We are a family from Louisiana who makes duck calls,’” Chesnutt continued. “They struggled early on financially, but they worked hard as a family.
“So much on TV is made to look functional, but there’s nothing functional about addictions … (The Robertsons) are a breath of fresh air.
“They are sort of normal, and everybody wants to know about them.”
Religion, Pages 10 on 09/21/2013