Community Spotlight: Rev. Kelsey Vincent [Interview]
Recently, Matt Snyder (our Digital Marketing Manager), sat down with Rev. Kelsey Lewis Vincent (our Pastor for Youth & Families) for an informal conversation about ministry, faith, and life.
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(Matt) Okay, so people are probably silently wondering: What’s a typical day at or around the office look like for you?
(Kelsey) Every day is different. And I know that's a cliche, but it's true. I try to make a schedule of like, “this is what I do on Mondays,” but it doesn't usually work because, on any given day, I'll probably have a visit with a youth, a friend of the church, or somebody who's interested in getting to know the church. And on top of that, I'll have a number of planning meetings with other staff or lay leaders who are trying to get something going.
So a lot of times when I'm in the office, I’m trying to do clerical things like writing emails or writing devotionals for the church website. But then a lot of times, if I'm out, it doesn't mean I'm not working. It means I’m out going and visiting somewhere.
During the early parts of the pandemic, it was fun to be able to get creative to go visit people, drop candy at people's houses, and bring Karl around for a visit people.
But I don't want to get into too much of a routine because that means I'm not being creative and thinking.
Well, and you can’t really get into too much of a routine because ministry is very fluid, right?
Exactly, and youth ministry itself is very seasonal because depending on where the kids are at in their school year, if they're off, or if we're heading towards a break, I could be planning any number of events.
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So why did you decide to go into ministry? I mean, I know there’s a lot of backstory there, but why still ministry? You’re insanely talented. You could be doing anything.
Yeah, so I still believe in the purpose of the church and God's goal for the church. But I always go back to my time in Argentina, because the stories I heard there were really formative and stuck with me.
Hearing people who've been hurt by the church before, kind of outside of my own context, helped me see it within my own context, if that makes sense.
“I think that the church is the force responsible for healing the world around us, and sometimes that means even healing wounds that we caused.”
And so I think that the church is the force responsible for healing the world around us, and sometimes that means even healing wounds that we caused.
I'm passionate because I believe the church can be better, it can do better, and I haven't given up hope in it yet.
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Well said, Kelsey. Think back to your church experience growing up. Who were some of your spiritual influences and why did they have an impact on you?
I was formed by really good, strong, faithful women in my family, but also at my church. So much so, that growing up as a Southern Baptist, it didn't occur to me that women weren't an ordained or couldn't be pastors, because the reality was, they were leaders in our church whether or not they had a title.
I really looked up to both of my grandmothers who were really strong Christian women and faith leaders in their families, and then when I got to college, my campus minister was really great. I was one of those Baptist collegiate ministry kids at the the University of South Carolina.
My campus minister was a guy named Tim Stewart, who is a CBF guy working at a big church in Arkansas now, but [he] saw leadership potential in me, helped cultivate that in me, and encouraged me to pursue it.
It sounds silly, because I grew up in a pretty conservative environment, but I never realized that I had limits on me until later in life. And I'm thankful for that because I don't know if it would have changed my course if I noticed earlier in life.
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Clearly, you had some strong influences early on. Do you think that you’ve taken on some characteristics of those early influencers and are exercising some of how they led you and guided you with the youth?
I think I have in some ways, but I mean, I just do my thing. I have left behind the need to argue for my calling. I don't have the desire to fight or argue against people who don't believe that I should be a pastor or whatever. I’m just too busy.
I've got too much stuff to do and to deal with that, you know, there's fertile soil [elsewhere], so why would I spend my time busting up the the dead stuff or dry stuff when there are a whole lot more productive things I could be doing elsewhere?
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Haha, I love it. You don’t have time to deal with nonsense! Okay, so when you sit down to have devotional/spiritual/prayer time with God, what do you do? Do you read, pray, or write? Do you have a methodology?
Usually, I kind of do the “double duty” because I know I'm supposed to be teaching a lesson on whatever it is I'm working on! I like to do Lectio Divina and stuff myself before I teach it to someone else.
In seminary, our professors were pretty inspirational in helping us remember that the text has to teach us something before we can use it to teach somebody else something.
So, I will read something through several times, meditate on it, and take my own notes before I look at any commentaries, or Google what my favorite theologian had to say about it. Usually, I’ll spend a day or two meditating on things myself before I eventually do look up what the Anchor Bible Commentary has to say, you know? That’s usually how I go about it.
But if it's a text that's really familiar to me, or that I already know and love, then I may look up some poetry about it. I really like poetry, especially by religious folks who I know are into that too. One of my favorite poets is Khalil Gibran. I love his stuff.
Oh! That sounds interesting. What has he written?
He's written several books. One is The Prophet, and the other, Jesus The Son of Man, are both really great.
But also have some feminist poetry books that I really like too. There's one recently I can't remember the name of the author [Carol Lynn Pearson], but Finding Mother God is a book of poetry that talks about God as a maternal figure. And I really like that too. It helps you flip the way you always thought about something by helping you see the feminine side of God.
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I’ll definitely check those out. On that note, how would you say your relationship with God evolved over the last decade? I say “decade” because it’s easier to look back over a longer period of time than, say, the last six months.
It's funny, now that I’ve gotten an MDiv. and become more educated, I've found that there’s way less knowledge in our life, way less value in knowledge about God, than there is in actually interacting and experiencing God.
And so I definitely have come to hold theology and doctrinal beliefs a little more loosely than what I did before, because I found that the life of faith is less about guidelines and knowing the right thing than it is [about] experiencing it, practicing it, and seeing and allowing your experience to intersect, and maybe, even influence what you know about God.
“I found that the life of faith is less about guidelines and knowing the right thing than it is [about] experiencing it, practicing it, and seeing and allowing your experience to intersect, and maybe, even influence what you know about God.”
I think that's actually a hopeful and beautiful thing to do. And if you let your faith be reduced to knowing the “right” things, you're missing out on your ability to grow, evolve, and maybe change your mind about something, which I think is a really beautiful thing to do.
I used to feel like changing your mind was a failure, you know, saying things like, “Oh, I don't know if I believe that. God would want X, Y, or Z, or God would do X, Y, or Z.”
And now being able to say things like, “Maybe I interpreted that wrong all along,” it's really freeing to be able to do that.
I know part of finding Truth means you're trying to put it into words and define it, but holding those definitions loosely has become a big part of my belief system. And when you hold them loosely, then you can admit if you were wrong about something instead of doubling down on it.
I’m beginning to recognize that maybe faith isn't something we construct for ourselves, but something that we grow in together. My brain is still in cactus land because I wrote a devotion about cacti, but it’s the idea that your roots grow intertwined with the other roots of all the others around you. Faith is like that. It's something you grow [in] together and it makes [you] stronger to do so.
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That’s some profound insight. I love it!
Alright, let’s move on to some less “spiritually heavy” questions. What would you say is a common misconception people have about you?
Haha! Well, so when you're a pastor, I have found people feel like they need to censor themselves around you. Like, suddenly they stop using cuss words, and then sometimes you definitely get treated a certain way.
But another misconception is that [people think] I’m judging somebody or require “kid gloves” or something. I’d rather people just be authentic with me because that makes me feel like I can be authentic.
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Fair misconceptions I’m sure anybody in ministry can relate to (myself included). Okay, so what’s your favorite what to spend a day off?
I'm usually shopping for plants or house plants, or walking Karl [her dog]. And I really enjoy just going out to dinner with Rémy, taking Karl, and sitting on a patio, or taking a walk in the park nearby.
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What’s the next place on your travel bucket list?
Rémy and I are working on a 2022 trip to Switzerland because he grew up there. I've never been. The only amount of Europe I have seen is the like 1/10 of Istanbul. But… I mean.. is that technically Europe? Haha.
Yes, so Switzerland, because I want to see where Rémy grew up, the stuff he talks about all the time, and all the bazillion sandwiches he tells me about from Europe!
Every day, now, this is kind of a joke, but at least once a week Rémy tells me about some childhood memory of a sandwich that he had, and it always starts with: “You take a baguette, you cut it in halfm and you put a little bit of butter on it.”
I was like, “You told me about this sandwich already!” And he always says, “No, this is a different sandwich. That one has brie cheese.” It's always like something like that.
So at some point, we're going to go try all of these sandwiches.
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Haha! I can hear Rémy talking about this. So, what’s your favorite hobby? I think we all know the answer to this question...
I like plants.
I knew it. But you like succulents, right? How’d that happen?
Yeah, it started with succulents. I bought two for my roommates for a Christmas present one year because they were popular on Pinterest. But neither of them was very interested in them. So, I kind of took the plants back to myself and thought, “Well, fine, I'll take care of them.”
And then I immediately killed them… I had no idea what I was doing.
It hurts me to be bad at something, so I thought, I'm gonna try this again. So, then I bought more plants and probably also killed those. Honestly, it took me a while, and lots of poor plant casualties, ‘til I finally realized there's definitely a science and an art to keeping them healthy. Every one of them has different and very specific needs, and to me, it makes me slow down and notice nature. It's really kind of therapeutic for me too.
So that's evolved into liking houseplants of any kind and a little bit of gardening, though I still don't like being too sweaty outside! Yard work can [still] be very satisfying sometimes, but it's the repetitive need-to-do yard work that I don’t like. We pulled weeds once, why do I have to do it again? You don't get that with house plans.
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Karl Bark, the honorary “Assistant to the Youth Pastor” at First Baptist Decatur.
What’s one thing that can make your day better?
A puppy, a dog, or getting to know somebody else’s animal really makes me happy. Mostly dogs, sometimes cats, but mostly dogs.
I did know a pastor who started a pet ministry at her church. She did dog funerals and blessing of the pets and stuff. I thought that was the sweetest thing because people love their animals so much and they want something to validate that. If the church validates that, I think it's beautiful.
It's on my bucket list to start something like that here, but it’s just one of those “on the long bucket list” items.
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What’s your favorite book or genre of book?
I'm currently in a book club right now in my neighborhood. That's been pretty fun. And while I like theology and nonfiction stuff, I've just been really enjoying being able to read fiction for fun, especially historical fiction.
Like what?
I most recently finished The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates and that was fantastic. I don't know if I could say it's my favorite, but it's my most recent one that I really like. But yeah, I'm enjoying the historical fiction genre.
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Who is, personally, the greatest musical artist of your childhood?
Backstreet Boys. I love the Backstreet Boys! They make me so happy. I had tickets to go see them in 2020. And the pandemic crushed my excitement about it. It's been pushed to 2022 and I'm hoping everything happens well, so that I can go see them again. The nostalgia of the Backstreet Boys always makes me happy.
I knew that was going to be the answer and there’s a reason I asked that question, haha!
The youth know about it, too. They’re always like, “Oh, the Backstreet Boys are Kelsey’s favorite.”
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Tell me about Karl. All the things. People need to know about the dog that has smitten your life and Twitter.
He's the best boy in the world! We got him when he had just turned two years old.
Back in 2017, Rémy and I were dating, and I was living with roommates at the time. Me, Rémy, and the roommates all went to pick him out together. And I almost didn't get him because, though I had shown up the day before and filled out my application to get him, when I came to pick him up, there was somebody else there to adopt him! I was real casual about it. I thought, well, if this one's meant to be then maybe I get a different dog. But Rémy and my roommates were wouldn’t stand for it.
His name was Jugs when we first got him – the worst shelter name ever! We promptly changed it. So we named him after Karl Barth who was one of my very favorite theologians at the time. I was like, we're gonna name him Karl Barth, but not Karl Barth, it's gonna be Karl Bark.
And so that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. He's a much happier dog since we are no longer living in an apartment. He loves having a yard and he's just very sweet, very nose driven scent hound. That's difficult to train out of him. But he's extremely plushy and soft.
So yeah, he's great. I call him (like “The Office” joke) my “Associate (to the) Youth Pastor,” but like Associate Youth Pastor because he likes to hang out, go on all the youth visits, and if we’re doing something outside, I bring him along.
The youth have dubbed him the youth group mascot.
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“That’s one of the most rewarding parts of being a pastor, especially a youth pastor; when you see kids form really deep bonds with one another and help each other grow. That’s what I want be known for.”
Love it. Okay final question. What do you want to be known for?
I have come to find that it is not accomplishments that matter when you die, it's the relationships you have. So I want to be known as somebody who cultivated good, deep relationships, but also facilitated others to form good relationships.
That's one of the most rewarding parts of being a pastor, especially a youth pastor; when you see kids form really deep bonds with one another and help each other grow. That's what I want be known for.
Rev. Kelsey Lewis Vincent is the Pastor for Youth and Families at First Baptist Church of Decatur. You can read her writings on the church website or follow her on Twitter @Kelseymloo.