‘Pastor Mike’ worked to serve Wichita children and families

Michael O’Donnell of Grace Baptist Church started programs to help children and heal broken families. Known as Pastor Mike when calling into local sports talk radio programming, he was also a life-long Kansas City Chiefs fan.

“He bled red and gold in more than one way,” his son Tyler O’Donnell said.

Michael O’Donnell died of natural causes Sunday while in Miami to watch the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. He was 61.

Mr. O’Donnell started at Grace Baptist Church as a youth pastor in 1982 then become senior pastor in 1985. Outside of his local church, his ministry included working with youth, prison inmates and restoring broken families by helping parents work to get their children back.

“Restoring families was probably his greatest life mission in the church and outside of it,” his other son, Michael O’Donnell II, said. “Very family-centric and bringing people to Christ. ... His goal was to integrate families. He had a father’s program at El Dorado prison that he operated for years.”

“That was all about connecting the father back with the heart of their children,” Tyler O’Donnell said.

Mr. O’Donnell was involved in the youth ministry Awana and started Bible school programs. Tyler O’Donnell said his dad won a Good Apple Award from Wichita Public Schools for his after-school program at Kelly Elementary.

Michael O’Donnell II said his father wanted to “serve the under-served” and those who were weren’t served at all.

For example, Mr. O’Donnell was the guardian of an adult man with severe developmental disabilities and no immediate family. He took the man to family holidays and on trips, including Disney World.

“He wanted to be a voice for the voiceless, the one who could speak out against the hate in the world and the brokenness,” Tyler O’Donnell said.

He grew up in south Wichita and preached in south Wichita.

“When he decided to stay in Wichita and keep Grace located where it was, when the dynamics of the neighborhood were changing, it was because he said there needs to be a place for these people right here in this part of Wichita,” his daughter, Stephanie O’Donnell Albritton, said.

“More than anything, my dad chose to stay in Wichita, serve on the south side at Grace Baptist,” Michael O’Donnell II said. “A lot of pastors and churches that he worked alongside ended up moving to the suburbs, but he just had a real calling to serve the under-served, the underprivileged.

“And one of his biggest legacies is how much he cared for the unborn. He was in leadership of the American Family Association in the 80s and early 90s, and was one of the lead organizers of the Summer of Mercy, the anti-abortion protest.”

Mr. O’Donnell had a health scare and almost died three years ago, Michael O’Donnell II said. “These last three years, he met two more grandkids, he traveled the country, he started new programs, he brought people to Christ.”

Mr. O’Donnell frequently called into sports radio shows in Wichita, where he was known as Pastor Mike.

“His calls were intelligent and witty and he was always game to mix it up with the hosts,” said Bob Lutz, co-host of The Drive. “He made our show and every show he called better.”

“He was a wonderful man who cared deeply about his community and did so much to help others. He was particularly tuned in to the plight of the homeless and the incarcerated and his work in those areas was inspiring,” Lutz said. “I was shocked when I heard the news Sunday, because he was in exactly the place he wanted to be, preparing to watch the Chiefs in a Super Bowl.

“It’s something he had dreamed of for as long as I have known him. And it’s painfully sad that he was denied that opportunity. But ‘sad’ is never an emotion I associated with Pastor Mike. He made everyone around him happy. He was a special man.”

Stephanie O’Donnell Albritton said her dad had waited 50 years for the Chiefs to return to the Super Bowl. He would tell the family that if the Chiefs ever made it to the Super Bowl, he would go.

When the Chiefs won the AFC Championship — technically, before the game ended — some of the family had already booked flights to Miami.

“I had them pulled up before the clock ran out, and we knew the Chiefs were going to win,” Tyler O’Donnell said. “So I said ‘Dad, do you want me to click buy?’ He goes, ‘Click it, we’re going.’ “

On Saturday, while in the Chiefs pep rally at the Super Bowl Live area, he met Bill Maas. Through his ministry work, the Chiefs gave Mr. O’Donnell a signed, game-worn jersey that Maas autographed.

The family took a photo with the Lombardi Trophy that day.

“You can see my dad just beaming,” Stephanie O’Donnell Albritton said. “He was so, so happy to be standing there. ... He had had literally the best day ever.”

Mr. O’Donnell posted the photo to Facebook while at dinner, predicting the Chiefs would bring it back to Kansas City.

“Little did we know that that was the last picture we take with him, the last time we talk to him at the dinner table,” Tyler O’Donnell said.

He died peacefully in his sleep the night before the Super Bowl.

“He was a part of Chiefs Kindgom and loved it so much, but the Kingdom of God was what was truly his greatest joy in life ... the eternal joy he has experienced and shared with people his entire life about the Kingdom of God far outweighs the trophy that he stood next to Saturday night before he passed away,” Stephanie O’Donnell Albritton said.

Mr. O’Donnell’s wife of 42 years, Peggy O’Donnell, said: “We were thinking about that as the Chiefs won, how happy he would have been. But he got far more that day than a Lombardi Trophy. He got ‘Well done thou good and faithful servant.’ “

The public is invited to a visitation 6-8 p.m. on Friday at Grace Baptist Church, 1414 W. Pawnee, and the funeral at 2 p.m. Saturday at Central Christian Church, 2900 N. Rock. The burial will be private.

This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 5:18 PM.