We’re celebrating the release of All Things New by Kelly Minter this week and wanted to kick things off with a profile from HomeLife Magazine. Enjoy getting to know our resident Renaissance woman!
Whether she’s cooking, gardening, traveling, singing, writing, teaching the Bible or enjoying her nieces and nephews, Kelly Minter loves being a part of the community of God.
Kelly Minter is a Bible teacher. She also writes, gardens, cooks, sings, travels, and plays guitar. She’s a modern-day Renaissance woman who’s passionate about the local church, community, home, and Scripture.
Kelly was born in northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. months after her parents decided to start Reston Bible Church. Her dad went from working at a golf club to being a pastor after starting a Bible study that grew into a church. Kelly likes to say she was “literally born into the church,” since she came along just a few months later.
The oldest of four, Kelly was a serious child, driven and curious. She attended Bible studies with her dad, played sports, picked up a guitar every now and then. Always thinking and questioning, when asked if she wanted to make a declaration to follow Christ, Kelly said, “Not until I understand the whole Bible.” She can look back now and see that even at a young age, she believed. She was and is being sanctified.
Growing up in the church wasn’t always easy. Kelly struggled for a while with trying to live up to a standard she considered the Christian pinnacle. In junior high, she began to realize she couldn’t live up to that impossible standard. She still writes to that girl — “You’ll see in a lot of my writing and a lot of my work, I’m always trying to push people to holiness, but not in an avenue that’s through legalism.” Now, she says, her entire family tends to be more grace-focused.
Kelly also wrestled with depression and anxiety, starting when she was young. Her parents didn’t always know how to help, so it was something she fought on her own. Through those battles, though, she was driven to Scripture. She says it was that struggle that helped give her a love for the Word because she didn’t have any other fallbacks.
Serving: Missions and Music
Through it all, Kelly is thankful for her church-filled upbringing. She says, “Now at this age, I’m so passionate about the church because when I look back, I realize I’m so glad that wasn’t optional for me. And [it seems] it’s [become] so optional now.” Awana groups, youth lock-ins, and retreats all gave her a foundation and a love for the Lord that has grown throughout the years. The early start in church has also made the local church very important to Kelly. She’s been a part of the local church for 12 years in Nashville and loves being grounded in a group of believers who meet every week to worship and learn together.
Another thing Kelly carried from her upbringing in church was a passion for missions. The church she was a part of while growing up gave 40 percent of everything to foreign missions, so Kelly and her siblings were exposed early on to God’s work around the world.
This exposure gained ground when she became part of Justice & Mercy International as an adult. She goes to both Moldova and the Amazon jungle each year, supporting JMI’s mission to help both tangible and spiritual needs. It’s this dual purpose in mission work that drew Kelly in from the start.
Jesus says, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me” (John 4:34). Kelly continues, “Mission work is our food. It’s our sustenance. I’m always so filled after these trips with JMI.” She loves the eternal work of pointing people to the One who can fulfill all their needs.
Kelly travels around the world from Nashville, Tennessee, her home and ministry base. She moved to Nashville for music, as so many do. She signed a few record deals in her first few years in Music City. Music has always been a part of Kelly’s life. She has sung and played guitar from a young age. She was drawn to it, she says, because “it was a way to express myself that was different even than writing words. Playing music is just moving.”
Now Kelly gets to lead worship and play music at all of her events, alongside Bethany Bordeaux, a violinist and friend. She still writes songs, but turns often back to the old hymns, keeping their melodies, but making them her own. Music is a part of her life. She loves seeing women connect through music as she leads worship, disappearing into the background of others’ moments with God.
Writing: A Favorite Part of Ministry
Kelly also connects to women through her words. She has always loved writing, but began writing professionally over a decade ago. She’s written four Bible studies with Lifeway Christian Resources and last year published her book about the Amazon, Wherever the River Runs. She prefers writing for communication because it often feels like “the most thoughtful and controlled and purposeful way to express something.” When she’s challenging and encouraging people of faith in their walk with Christ and exploration of theology, she likes to craft
her sentences.
Through writing, she communicates and connects with people’s hearts and experiences. She says, “When I can put a piece of myself down and I know that someone’s going to pick that up and internalize that, that to me is the greatest occupation.” Kelly often says writing is her favorite part of ministry.
However, her ministry as an aunt definitely takes top place. Kelly has three nieces and two nephews, and two of them live right down the street from Aunt Kelly’s house. She loves playing the aunt role. “You really do have a special place that’s unique.” She takes her role seriously and looks for ways to nurture her nieces and nephews in the faith, but also knows that being an aunt means she gets to be the fun one and hopes her house is always seen as a safe, fun place for them to go.
In addition to her nieces and nephews, Kelly looks for ways to invest in the younger generation. She encourages others to play the aunt role, even for kids who aren’t flesh-and-blood. “We can have really special relationships with people who are going to grow up, and we can be a part of their lives forever.”
Setting: The Table
One of the ways Kelly invests in the lives of those around her is through cooking. Cooking, for her, is community focused. She remembers growing up in a house where her mom made dinner every night for the family and whomever happened to be over that night. They sat down and talked about their days together while they ate. It didn’t have to be fancy. She says, “It’s just about putting something out on your table and inviting people into your home.” We’ve let this go in our busyness or sacrificed it for our desire for perfection and Pinterest-worthy tables. “Don’t put that pressure on yourself. Just have people over to your home and put something down on the table and welcome them in. It’s amazing how powerful that can be.”
Kelly prefers to cook for her friends and family when they come over. She says, “I’m passionate about it because of what it does for the people around that table.” As she chops tomatoes or grates cheese, she thinks about how everything she is touching is going to physically nourish someone else. It’s spiritual to her. That’s why she also started a garden. There’s a process she gets to follow and God has set it up so that she is able to be a part of cultivating a plant from seed to table.
That’s why Kelly’s Bible studies have recipes in them. The table is a community piece. We see Jesus sitting down with His disciples and unbelievers for a meal. The table is an important aspect of our lives together.
Cooking is also an anchoring thing for Kelly. Because she has struggled with anxiety in the past, she has learned that there’s something about cooking and having people over that centers her. Her home does that, as well. She wants her home to be a warm, inviting, peaceful place. Kelly’s home is a special place, perhaps because she travels so much. She wants to keep it sacred. It isn’t perfect — fights happen, disagreements, sadness — but she is very deliberate about what comes into her home. She wants it to remain safe and accessible to those who need a warm, comfortable place.
Whether she is cooking, gardening, traveling, playing with nieces and nephews, singing, or writing, Kelly loves being a part of the community of God. The Renaissance woman brings home with her, inviting others along as she falls more deeply in love with God and His Word.
This article was written by Elizabeth Hyndman and originally appeared in HomeLife Magazine.
Elizabeth Hyndman reads, writes, and tweets. Officially, she’s a Content Editor. She managed to find a job where she uses both her English undergraduate and her seminary graduate degrees every day. Elizabeth grew up in Nashville, sips chai lattes every chance she can get, and believes everyone should have a “funny picture” pose at the ready. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.
