The Reverend Kelli Braggs was recently appointed by the bishop to The Gathering’s ministerial team as associate pastor.
“I’m appointed here for a year as a learning opportunity to do a church plant in the near future,” Braggs said.
Braggs was born and raised in the St. Louis community. She completed her undergraduate degree at Liberty University and is now working on a dual degree: Masters of Divinity from Eden Seminary and Masters of Social Work from Washington University.
Braggs owned and operated a fitness center called V Fit and sold her business last summer. She was also a senior pastor at the church she attended for two years prior to The Gathering.
“By trade I’m a personal trainer,” Braggs said. “I’ve owned and operated a personal training gym here in south city for the last 11 years. By ministry I’m a pastor so I’ve also been pastoring, and this is going into year three now.”
Braggs says that her purpose is to help people and drive them to be excellent in mind, body, and spirit.
“People are made up of three different aspects, and when they are functioning properly you have a holistic well-being,” Braggs said.
In 2006, The Gathering was founded by Matt Miofsky, out of a belief that church could be different and based on a deep desire to make a significant impact on the St. Louis community.
“I’m just going to bring my authentic self to the table,” Braggs said. “I will bring something unique just because of the experience that I’ve had. This is a predominantly white church, a very white church, which is not a bad thing.”
The Gathering is looking to diversify its following and become more inclusive for all members to enjoy.
“They are looking to bring diversity in their membership and often times, in order to diversify the membership, you have to begin to diversify your leadership. To be a black woman in a white church, it means something to me,” Braggs said.
“Being diverse is a more accurate representation of what we believe to be the kingdom of God. If your church is only all-black, or all-white, or all-Hispanic, that’s really not a representation of the kingdom. There should be a little bit of everything ethnic-wise, socioeconomic-wise – we should have a plethora of different people at the table.”
Braggs said that the Gathering has welcomed her with open arms as a new member of the pastoral team.
“They began praying for me the moment they found out that I was coming, which was three or four months prior to my arrival,” Braggs said. “The reaching out on social media, cards, it has been very warm, very receptive.”
The biggest outreach the church has going on right now is its partnership with St. Louis Public Schools on a literacy program.
“We have volunteers who work in the schools every week who are mentoring and tutoring students who are either below reading level or just learning to read,” Braggs said. “We found out one of the key factors on whether or not kids really graduate from high school or whether they go to college is based on how well they are able to read before second grade.”
For more information on The Gathering, visit https://gatheringnow.org/, email info@gatheringnow.org, or call 314-646-7172.
