THE AVERAGE AMERICAN - The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen by KEVIN O'KEEFE

“I am having a lot of fun reading this book… It’s genius, really, because we get to hear the stories of a lot of interesting people in the process… As the book progresses, it becomes more of a spiritual journey for O’Keefe. He has spent so much of his life trying to be above average … When I started reading this book, I kind of had the same idea that Kevin O’Keefe did, that being average is not something to aspire to… I have reversed my position (O’Keefe did as well). I now think that average is just fine.”

- Jaime Dodge, Two Books A Week (sociologist, Florida)

"Kevin O'Keefe's The Average American presents an interesting cross-sectional study of what it means to be normal in America, showing just how relative that term actually is. He begins his quest (and book research) with a fascination of 'average' statistics and his confessions of growing up wanting to buck convention as much as he possibly could. These subjective starting points keep the personal passion O'Keefe's invested into his project near the surface throughout the journey, which keeps the narrative on a chummy level... The book's organization is key in giving its narrative structure - that's true for all books, but especially one about an entire country's population. O'Keefe does a skillful job of combining a certain census trait with a city in which he hopes to find a person or people that fit it... Every reader will enjoy the mounds of American culture he digs up along the way. His personal journey widens to embrace all of America and back again. Was the book worth the money? For multiple reads, yes."
- Melanie Griffin, examiner.com (print journalism student, University of South Carolina)

"What is it about average or ordinary that makes us either want to avoid it or compare ourselves to it - thus the O'Keefe study?... How would you feel if you had been selected, knowing that in this society, average just doesn't seem like what we want to become?"

- Brad Beeman, Sunday sermon

(reverend, Santa Monica First United Methodist Church - Santa Monica, California)

"From now until November, we will be bombarded by political messages and promises. We'll be told be each particular candidate that he or she wants to go to Washington, D.C., to represent average Americans... They will go on to tell us why they represent the average Amerircan better than their opponent. Actually, we do know who the average American is. According to Kevin O'Keefe, author of 'The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen,' the average American is... a real peson... Generally, when there is a crowd around Jesus, they are the everyday people, the people who have their share of sins, those who are on the outside looking in... He speaks not only to the average Galilean, but also the average American. What can we say about his feelings and actions for ordinary, everyday people like [the Average American]?... One of the complaints about the church that we often hear today is that it doesn't have a message for real people. But it does because Jesus does... There is nothing at all wrong with being average or ordinary."

- Scott Carmer, Sunday sermon (pastor, Calvery United Methodist Church - Fort Wayne, Indiana)

“The Lord does love ordinary people. Today’s gospel text has just told us as much. That is where we are headed this morning… Funny thing, we see Jesus’ gutsy compassion less for the elite, lofty shakers and the movers. We see it more for the average Galilean, the typical person. It is like Lincoln said, the Lord God has a thing for the average, ordinary, common person A guy named Kevin O’Keefe compiled a study to profile the average American. Who is this person? He usually goes to bed before midnight. He recycles stuff, at least now and then. He has nine friends. He drinks the milk in the bowl after the cereal is gone. He attends church… So where does all of this leave us? Let us take stock. We live in a celebrity-mad, glamour obsessed society where being average is a curse. If you are merely like most people, you are unworthy and unlovable. Your life is not worth celebrating. Can you think of a more malicious dig than, ‘you are so average’? And so the people who work the fast-food window, or who clean our shopping malls, or who change the oil in our cars are seen as less than human. The line between the luminaries who slink along the red carpet and the people snapping photographs on the side might as well be the demarcation between salvation and perdition. What is most odd, it’s not like the stars on the red carpet are anything like happy. So we know that it’s an illusion but still get swept up living in thrall to lies anyway. The upshot is that we imagine that we must do something singular to find our worth and justify our existence. So we eat 53 Nathan’s hot dogs in five minutes on July 4^th. Or we skip college so we can slam dunk to NBA oohs and ahhs. We envision ourselves as size three and imagine them gasping as we promenade in. Where do these considerations take us this morning?"

- Dale Rosenberger, Sunday sermon

(senior minister, Dennis Union Church - Dennis, Massachusetts)

"Kevin O’Keefe [searched for] the single most average person out of today’s 280 million Americans. O’Keefe devoted two years to crunching numbers and developing average criteria…. Surprises [are reported] by O’Keefe in a book called The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation’s Most Ordinary Citizen. It is certainly significant that [the Average American] believes in God... And it’s worth noting that church attendance remains important, at least a dozen times a year. This sends the message that the average American is turning to Jesus in the 21st century with the same level of need and desire that was felt in the first century. And in both of these eras, Jesus shows a level of concern that is way above average.”

- Henry Brinton, Sunday sermon

(pastor, Fairfax Presbyterian Church - Fairfax, Virginia)

"I picked up a book to read this week that's just about to hit the bestseller list. It's a new book from an author named Kevin O'Keefe titled 'The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen.' In this book the author sets out on the remarkable task of finding the single most average man, or woman, out of today's 280 million Americans [and it presents] revealing findings... You may be wondering why someone would go to so much trouble to find the most 'average' person in America. O'Keefe explains in his book that he suddenly realized one day that he had spent much of his adult life avoiding being average. O'Keefe didn't own a house. He hadn't moved to the suburbs, and didn't own a grill. He'd only recently married and didn't have any children. He says in the book the more he thought about what it meant to be ordinary, the more he began to wonder what he'd missed... It fascinates me."

- Dr. Steve Jackson, Sunday sermon

(pastor, NewSong Community Church - Cumming, Georgia)

“Kevin O’Keefe wrote a book entitled ‘The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation’s Most Ordinary Citizen.’ He spent two years researching the book, determining the criteria that would determine how ordinary one could be, and then setting out across the country to find that person. In the process he learned a great deal about being ordinary in this country; things that help to define all of us within the context of contemporary culture. Last October he was interviewed by Newsweek magazine concerning his research and his book. Many of the questions posed to O’Keefe examined some of the notions we carry about centrism –whether they are true or not.”

- Charles Exley, Sunday sermon

(pastor, St. Luke Lutheran Church - Albuquerque, New Mexico)

"I want to start his morning with some questions, which I'll ask three at a time. If any of them apply to you, simply raise your hand. Okay? Are the instructions clear? First, three questions. Do you recycle, at least occasionally? Can you think of 9 friends? Do you drink the milk in your bowl after you've eaten the cereal? Second three questions. Do you usually go to bed before midnight? Do you eat 25 pounds of candy a year, though not generally in a single setting? Do you believe gambling is an acceptable entertainment option? Third set of three questions. Do you live within a 20 minute drive to a Wal-Mart? Do you take a shower for approximately 10.4 minutes per day? Do you seldom if ever sing in the shower? One final question. Raise your hand if you can name all the Three Stooges. Well, if you raised your hand and answered yes to a a good share of the questions, you are, whether you know it or not, an average Joe or Jill American. Just ask Kevin O'Keefe. O'Keefe, a former magazine writer, devoted two years of his life to taking surveys and crunching numbers... When so often it seems like morals and ethics are based on the 'me first' principle... according to O'Keefe, the average American is in church at least a dozen time a year. Interesting, isn't it? And more to the point, are you feeling average today?... There's a lot to be said for being average. Now with all this talk of being average swirling around in your brain, let's jump with both feet into today's gospel story, a story about a large group, a crowd if you will... Today's gospel reminds us of two salient facts. First, the ordinary are extraordinary in Jesus' eyes. And second, what Jesus expects from us are miracles. What he expects from us is to give it all that we have, whether [your] name happens to be Larry, Curly or Moe."

- Brad Mather, Sunday sermon

(lead pastor, Bethany United Methodist Church - Madison, Wisconsin)

"Kevin O’Keefe began research on his book The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation’s Most Ordinary Citizen, in part, to discover what America thinks of averageness... O’Keefe experiences a deep and profound appreciation... for ordinary life in all its glory... The book raises issues that are precious to me. I have found that the greatest experiences, the most profound joys, the deepest peace, and the warmest satisfactions are found in ordinary, average, everyday, common existence. Even more, I have found that it is in the ordinary movements of life that the transcendent is most clearly encountered: a simple piece of bread, a normal cup of wine, a basin full of water, a meal with family and friends, a chance encounter in a grocery store, a short discussion over coffee, the smile of a passing stranger, the embrace of a child, a cool breeze upon my cheek, the calm of a hot bath. The list could go on indefinitely. Ordinary life provides an endless supply of sacramental moments."

- Rick Vincent, theocentric.com (pastor, Immanuel Church - West Bend, Wisconsin)

“Kevin O’Keefe [is the] author of The Average American… O’Keefe [may be] on to something... When Jesus was confronted by a ton of people… he saw a lot of plain, ordinary, hard-working folks who scratched out a decent living from day to day… And when he saw them, he felt something, the Bible says.”

- Timothy Merrill, tmerril.blogs.com

(minister of preaching and worship, Henderson Community Church - Colorado)

"Have any of you heard of… Kevin O’Keefe, the author? How about Adolphe Jacques Quetelet?... No? Strangers to you? Kevin O’Keefe is the author of the book, The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation’s Most Ordinary Citizen. In this book, he has compiled over 1,000 facts about the Average American. He gathered his data by taking a tour of America in search of the sublimely ordinary, the man or woman who was the definitive representative of the most average U.S. citizen. In his book, he reports how he talked business and pleasure with shop owners, attended church functions, and visited the polls on election day. Incidentally, he bypassed both Peoria and Normal, Illinois because neither city, he explains in the book, are normal. O’Keefe’s stimulus for this work originated with his reading of the 19th century work of Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, a man who… virtually invented the field of social statistics. It is he who first showed that human actions could be plotted onto a bell shaped curve, with the most average in the group in the middle of the curve…. Quetelet also set out to define the demographically average person, because the average person, Quetelet believed, would possess all that which is ‘great, good or beautiful’ in any given society. Now this is a little different than how we think today; the average person in our society is the person in the middle of the curve who gets a ‘C,’ whereas the ‘great, good or beautiful’ are the above average people at the far right of the curve who get the ‘A’s.’… Following Quetelet’s pattern, O’Keefe set out to determine the characteristics of the average citizen. But O’Keefe went one step further. O’Keefe actually found that person… the most average citizen. To be the perfectly average American is harder than it might seem… Church attendance remains important; Joe and Jill Average go to church 12 times a year… As you remember, in this section of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has been dashing immediately from one place to another healing, teaching, and preaching. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus suggests that since he and the disciples have been on the road for a while, it is time to withdraw and recharge the spiritual batteries. So they took a boat to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to get away and rest. But a crowd of average Joe and Jill Galileans saw them leave, and took the long way around on land to meet them on the other side. I can imagine the crowd, probably relatively small at first, growing in number as more townspeople, villagers, and shepherds joined the throng to see what all the fuss is about. When Jesus and the disciples moored the boat, they were mobbed. Jesus was greeted like a rock star, surrounded by the mob. Jesus was moved by their needs and he ‘had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd’; Jesus was not like Kevin O’Keefe or Adolphe Jacques Quetelet compiling a list of wants and needs of these people. Instead, he registered their needs deep in the core of his being. He was moved by his godly sense of compassion; he felt for them. And Mark tells us that he responded by ‘teaching them many things.’ Jesus’ compassion was for the average person in that crowd: Joe or Jill Galilean. In all of the accounts of Jesus in all of the Gospels - and the epistles as well - Jesus had special compassion for the average person. Jesus did not have compassionate feelings only for the top 10%, the elite, the political leaders of the time, or the rich. In fact, Jesus’ reaction to the upper crust was often critical, because he wanted the upper echelon to actually see and care for the poor and the lowly - in other words - the average citizen. In a way, Jesus was like Quetelet who saw the average person as the ideal in a society. Quetelet once wrote, ‘If an individual at any given epoch of society possessed all the qualities of the average man, he would represent all that is’… Jesus has compassion for us; Jesus teaches us; Jesus heals us. All of that tells me that Jesus loves us, Joe and Jill Average Person. It is not hard to admire and recognize the extraordinary and above average. But it takes something more to value the overlooked; the underappreciated, the unrecognized. But that’s exactly what Jesus did, and continues to do.”

- Dr. Bill Stroop, Sunday sermon

(rector, St. George’s Episcopal Church - Roseburg, Oregon)

"Who are today's ordinary Joes?.. Kevin O'Keefe, author of The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen... had devoted two years of crunching numbers and compiling data... Jesus had a thing for ordinary people, normal people, typical people. He seemed less interested in the elite... the upper crust. It was not that he rejected them but that the nature of his teaching and ministry evoked rejection by them. His message is just too radical, too liberal, for folks who are too set and too self-satisfied... The world may adore the superstar, the super cool, the seemingly self-sufficient, but who notices us average folk... who long for someone to know, to understand, to care?... To those who are 'sheep without a shepherd,' Jesus sees you... all you ordinary people. Jesus thinks to himself, 'God, I love these people!' Such compassion!... Our faith does not allow us to live in a way that is self-centered and self-indulgent... None of us ordinary people... is anything less than extraordinary for we are the beloved creatures of this extraordinary Christ. Amen."

- Dr. J. Lawrence Cuthill, Sunday sermon

(senior pastor, Winter Park Presbyterian Church - Winter Park, Florida)

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