Contact Livingston Daily reporter Jennifer Timar at jtimar@livingstondaily.com. Follow her on Twitter @jennifer_timar.
January 07, 2022
Men’s ministry DoorKeepers seeks to transform lives through charity, mentorship
Jennifer Timar – Livingston Daily Kevin McKenna of men's ministry DoorKeepers volunteers at Grace Centers of Hope in Pontiac. Men's ministry co-founder Kevin
Jennifer Timar – Livingston Daily
Kevin McKenna of men’s ministry DoorKeepers volunteers at Grace Centers of Hope in Pontiac.
Men’s ministry co-founder Kevin McKenna said his calling is to lift men up so they can be good husbands, fathers and sons.
“When you serve someone who is rebuilding their life, it’s a blessing you can’t explain,” said McKenna, 68, a retired church pastor who lives in Fowlerville.
He devotes his energy to DoorKeepers, a men’s ministry that encourages men who are struggling in their lives to connect with one another and participate in volunteer projects in the community.
He is also on the board of Grace Centers of Hope, a faith-based Pontiac homeless shelter and residential life-skills program, where he has volunteered for more than a decade and reached men who have experienced homelessness, addiction and other struggles.
He said one of the most powerful things someone can do to transform themselves is to do charitable acts to help others.
“We provide what I call kinesthetic Christianity, opportunities for people to serve in the real world,” McKenna said.
Once a month, volunteers with DoorKeepers deliver furniture to people in need through local organization LOVE Inc. of the Livingston County Area.
“We’ll take guys out to deliver furniture and they will walk away and cry,” McKenna said.
On one occasion, they delivered free furniture to a young woman with a small child and another on the way who had been kicked out of her family home.
“They left crying and asking what can we do for that woman?”
He said those moments are transformative.
“Without those kinesthetic opportunities, without opening our eyes, we can’t see God in other people,” McKenna said.
Jager Carmos worked his way up and recently got promoted to a volunteer coordinator position at Grace Centers of Hope. Several years ago, Carmos got his life on track with help from a one-year life skills program at the Pontiac rescue mission.
Several years ago, Jager Carmos said he didn’t really know what volunteers do. Now he is devoting his life to it.
In 2015, Carmos, 25, was struggling in his life and entered a one-year life skills program during which he resided at Grace Centers of Hope.
This fall he was promoted to the center’s new volunteer coordinator position after working there as a food services coordinator for a couple years.
Carmos said when he was in the one-year program, McKenna came in one day to volunteer and offer mentorship. It was the first time in his life he had seen someone volunteering and he did not understand at the time why people would do it.
“I asked Mr. McKenna why he was coming here and he told me because he wants to give back,” Carmos said. “With my lifestyle in the past, I never thought about helping other people. When I saw that, it planted a seed. Throughout my life I want to help other people.”
He said McKenna provided him mentorship and friendship.
“He consistently came. It was always kindness. I could talk to him about stuff, personal troubles. He was an ear,” Carmos said. “For me personally, what it meant was that people care and that I wasn’t an outcast.”
DoorKeepers serves meals at Grace Centers of Hope’s men’s center and donates kitchen supplies.
McKenna said it provides him opportunities to connect with men he mentors who are staying there and reach out to anyone who could use a “non-judgmental” ear.
“We’ll sit with the clients at the table, sit and talk,” he said. “We meet them where they are at. For the most part, the gentlemen are responsive and happy to have someone there.”
DoorKeepers has supported Grace Centers of Hope and other charitable organizations in a number of ways over the years, including fundraisers. They also donate and serve meals at Mission:City in Detroit.
The ministry has helped support Little Grace Village, a neighborhood of about 50 homes Grace Centers of Hope has rehabilitated in Pontiac. Graduates of their one-year life skills program rent the homes.
“After two years of them doing basic requirements, paying rent and going to church, they can buy the home,” Carmos said.
McKenna said about 200 men are active in DoorKeepers.
Chapters have opened in Missouri, Texas and Florida.
Door Keepers holds face-to-face and online study groups for any men, regardless of religious affiliation.
McKenna, who retired as pastor from NorthRidge Church in Plymouth earlier this year, said he leads by Christian principles but the group is not about arguing the finer points of theology.
“We encourage men to pursue a personal faith to be good husbands and fathers or if they are not married they can be a good man for a woman.”
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