Pastor Jeff McKearney

Jeff McKearney

My friend Jeff McKearney went to be with the Lord on Oct 23, 2024. I will miss my friend. Jeff and I started working together over 8 years ago. We never had a cross word with one another. We talked almost daily for six years. We ate together, a lot. We laughed together, a lot. We prayed together, a lot. We even shed a few tears together. We were a good team, combining nearly 75 years of ministry experience together. We did a few weddings together and even a few funerals.

Today I am selfish. I want another conversation about unanswerable questions. I want another laugh at each other’s expense. But I will have to wait until I join him in eternity. I have the comfort that what Jeff is experiencing is beyond comparison to the here and now. I share in the emotion of Pauls words in 2Cor 5:1-2 “We know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. But meanwhile, we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.”

Why did God allow Jeff to be taken from us? I remember Jeff always used Deut. 29:29 when doing a funeral. Jeff used this verse to answer the question we are asking. The first part of the verse says, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God.” What is an unanswerable question to us is no longer a secret to Jeff. What we can only imagine in part, Jeff now knows in whole. Even if we could have Jeff back with us, if we knew what he is experiencing we would choose for him to stay.

Jeff loved John 17. It was a chapter God used in his life to originally transform him. In John 17:24 Jesus is praying to the Father, “Father I want those you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory.” God the Father entrusted Jeff to Jesus and now Jeff is with Jesus and fully sees Jesus glory.

Losing Jeff feels so final. That is because we are looking and feeling from our temporal grid. The comfort we have is that one day Jesus will turn our temporal loss into an eternal reunion.

Left to ourselves, death disorients us, alienating us from each other. But the Cross reorients us. It assures us that the Creator is in control. One day we will live the words written to us in 1 Cor. 15:55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

Jeff had a thick skin but he had a soft heart. Never have I been around someone who was so quick to ask for someone’s forgiveness when he knew he did something to hurt their feelings. Jeff was responsible to do everything within his power to keep short accounts with people.

Jeff was also incredibly ornery. Jeff was not as the Bible describes a weaker brother. Jeff was not easily offended by other’s actions. But, he was not afraid to push the envelope when it came to being edgy. Jeff was not about to conform to some flimsy set of Christian rules that are not found in the Bible. For Jeff, wearing a good pair of boots, a choice hat (on backwards) and a hunting vest was the perfect office attire for church office hours. (Keep people guessing, was he hunting or pastoring?) He loved doing both.

Jeff was not afraid to confront me on a flaw that he witnessed first hand, and I am a better man because of it. Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”

To be around Jeff was to be around fun. He was quick witted, a great question asker and kids adored him. Jeff loved Jesus and believed that we are saved by Grace through Faith. For Jeff it was Jesus plus nothing!

Jesus tells us in John 14:1-3, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

But I still miss my friend, Dan Brenton