Editor’s Note: This is part of a series of Q&As getting to know members of places of worship. The series will later expand to city leaders, educators, first responders and more. A new feature will be published each Monday. Some questions and answers have been amended for clarity and brevity.
Kelly Owens and his wife Margie have shared a journey in faith, through the military and raising seven children.
Kelly was called to ministry in 1986, the same year he was officially honorably discharged from the military and married Margie, and there hasn’t been a day where he wasn’t working.
Now with 14 grandchildren and 25 years of pastoring at Bouldware Temple Church of God in Christ under his belt, Owens and his wife are looking to start a business of their own, but they wouldn’t have gotten to where they are today without the friends and members of the church behind them.
Q: Could you talk to me about when you received the call?
A: We were having a church program on Saturday night in April…. You might say it was a revival. I was praying for my mother and that’s when I got the call. (He said,) “you’re doing the work, go ahead and accept it, accept my calling.” … It was refreshing, a relief, excitement, joy. It felt like I had...a job to do, an assignment to do.. .. (I was) blessed, honored. It was a supernatural feeling, being selected. It’s a great task, responsibility, and I was eager to get into it, eager to do his work.
Q: Did you ever foresee yourself becoming a pastor?
A: Yes, yes, because even in Sunday school at a young age, I just felt like it was my duty to be there on time.. If there was something to do, I participated in a lot of church plays and speeches. … It was my duty for some reason and here I am…. I had the life, I just didn't expect the calling.
Q: Did you ever struggle with your faith?
A: No, I never struggled with my faith. I had good parents. They taught me the life and to live the life before me. They were good examples. I never struggled with my faith, even when I went different places. … You know in college you deal with everything. You go to school with people from different parts of the world.. … My trial was to please the Lord without a choice. It was like I was being called by God - I didn't expect the calling; I couldn't do certain things (like drink and smoke). ...
I always felt like I wasn’t pleasing him, I wanted to do more. Living the life, I never struggled with that as far as if this is the right thing. I always knew it was the right thing to do.
Q: It seems like you’ve always been this type of pillar for friends and members of the community.
A: I was class president junior and senior year, and (my classmates) still look to me to get the class together. This year we’re supposed to have our 37th reunion. … I had one friend he heard I was at a party and got intoxicated and it made him angry. … Somebody gave him some wrong information (because that wasn’t me). ….
Q: That sounds like a lot of pressure to have on your shoulders, to have people look to you all the time.
A: No, not (really). … .I’ve never felt like that, like it was a lot of weight.
Margie Owens (MO): This is a great Christian journey we’re experiencing.
Kelly Owens (KO): We’ve been together 35 years. ... I met her when I was working at the Sonic-drive in. ... Ever since then, that was 1980 or something like that, that started it. Of course she was always a person to let me fly. … I went to college, vocational, the army, she never tried to decourse me or make me do something else. She let me be my own man and she was her own woman. We respect one another. Even as we grow old, we continue to love each other. .. I always give her R.E.S.T.. … I take her for a ride, take her to get something to eat, take her shopping and then I talk to her and let her talk to me. Ride, eat, shop and talk. That has helped me grow to her even better.
… I’ve been doing it all our marriage. That’s what works for us. Ride, she and I don’t do any cruising, we go big time, we go to Monroe and Little Rock. … That would do it for us; We didn’t have to go to Jamaica.
MO: I don’t do the water...so we do our travels within three hours and we make fun out of that. … We try to keep the honey in the honeymoon, also — he shares that with the church. He tells us you don’t just want to be on the moon, you want to keep the honey in the honeymoon. Love on your spouse. .. We’re just trying to encourage the people we’re around, Christians, friends, how to keep their marriage together.
KO: What it takes to get them, it takes to keep them.
Bouldware Temple Church of God in Christ worships at 10:30 a.m. Sunday and hosts a Wednesday night service.
The church is located at 1521 Detroit Ave. in El Dorado.