Remembering Bishop Gilkey: ‘Keep your heart right, and God will help you with the rest’

As young boys growing up in Wichita, Mark Gilkey and Roderick Houston both knew they one day wanted to be pastors, but Houston said his friend already seemed to be living his mission.

“He always had an idea about how he wanted to live,” said Houston, who today is pastor of Greater Harvest Tabernacle Christian Fellowship.

“He’s always had a heart to help people. That was just who he was.”

Bishop Mark L. Gilkey, who was jurisdictional prelate of the Kansas Southwest Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of the Church of God in Christ and senior pastor at St. Mark Cathedral Church of God in Christ, died Tuesday at 66. After entering the hospital in January, his health complications only grew.

However, parishioners, friends and family remember him as a vibrant person who radiated life and love in a way that drew people to him.

“He was a man who was full of life,” said Natalie Rolfe, who was both a parishioner of Gilkey’s and a former administrator for him. “I always watched him lead with love.”

Rolfe described him as an enthusiastic servant who did not get caught up in his title.

Once, when an evangelist announced plans to take to a street corner to proselytize with signs, she said, “Bishop said, ‘I’m comin’, too.’ ”

Gilkey was a minister while having a two-decade career at Intrust Bank until he committed to full-time ministry.

“He was anointed for sure,” said LaShonda Anderson, another former assistant who today is CFO for St. Mark’s. “I mean that the spirit of God was on him. . . . It displayed through his actions.”

Though spirited in every sense, Anderson said Gilkey also was a measured man.

“He was not a person to respond immediately. He always consulted God.”

Say cheese

If there’s one thing for which Gilkey was known — besides being the giving, spiritual and jovial man that everyone described him to be — it was for photographs.

He loved to take them, and he loved to share them as a way of connecting people, which is why “he loved his social media,” Rolfe said.

She said Gilkey even took pictures from the pulpit if he especially liked how someone was singing or speaking.

“It was so funny.”

His family often found it less humorous.

Rev. Cameron Martin, Gilkey’s son-in-law, who is interim pastor at St. Mark’s, said Gilkey often would snap away, not thinking through what he was taking photos of, such as capturing Martin singing with his mouth wide open, veins popping in his neck.

“He would get the worst shots,” Martin said.

And they would go straight to Facebook.

“We would say, ‘Bishop, take that down.’ We would have to text him late at night.”

Martin said his father-in-law liked to creative narratives.

“He was almost like a game show host. . . . Like, ‘What’s behind door number onnnnnnnnne!’ He was jovial like that.”

Houston said he and Gilkey spent many years traveling the country as ministers of music. Gilkey was a choir director who had an ability to get the most from singers.

“Bishop had a way of getting the sound out of people,” Anderson said, with “his level of energy, his excitement and his ability just to draw people and pull people in.”

That was both in music and out of it.

Houston said his friend taught him to “always see the good in people regardless of what they’re doing.”

“Your kindness just might be the thing that helps them through the day.”

Martin said Gilkey “saw no wrong in anyone.”

Bishop Herman Hicks said Gilkey loved people and showed it daily. Once, he said, he watched Hicks in a large crowd of people, taking time to visit with children and truly converse with adults.

“He could remember their relatives,” Hicks said. “He’s probably one of the kindest people you’ll ever meet.”

When she was in her 20s, Anderson said, she was going through something that had her particularly down.

Following a service, she said she was standing in a crowded lobby, and Gilkey “saw me and made a point to come through the crowd . . . and hug me.”

“You could leave his presence feeling like you can conquer anything,” Anderson said. “He did that for anyone.”

Open-door policy

In addition to being a leader in his own church, Gilkey was president of the Greater Wichita Ministerial League to help unite all denominations in the city.

Anderson said there were no boundaries for who, where or when Gilkey would offer his help.

She said she would try to have a schedule for him and adhere to it because she knew how busy he was, but some people still simply popped by to see Gilkey.

“He always had an open-door policy. He never turned people away,” Anderson said. “You can see it on Facebook. He made everyone feel like he was their friend.”

When he could, Gilkey enjoyed cooking. Particularly during the pandemic, it became a favorite pastime, including setting elaborate tables.

Martin said Gilkey was a better baker than cook, and his family did not always appreciate his efforts to create foodie-type meals and photos to match, particularly on holidays.

“The food would be cold by the time we ate it,” Martin said.

Also, he said, “These were dishes that our taste buds had not acquired.”

There was the sacrilege of putting slivered almonds in the green beans one Thanksgiving.

“We were immediately irritated — the whole family,” Martin said. “This is not how we eat . . . and don’t experiment with the food on Thanksgiving.”

Usually things just rolled off Gilkey’s back, his son-in-law said, though this is one case where the criticism hurt.

Martin said it usually was Gilkey counseling him about being positive.

Even when Rolfe knew there was some kind of troubling situation at the church, she said Gilkey never showed it.

She said he regularly advised that “you have to keep your heart right.”

“Keep your heart right, and God will help you with the rest.”

In life, Rolfe said there are people who are good leaders, and there are others — like Gilkey — who are extraordinary ones.

“We are going to miss his presence in this community.”

Funeral services are pending. Check the Facebook pages for St. Mark’s or Kansas Southwest for updates.