Kelly Fryer

Kelly Fryer (M.Div., MTh) is a story-teller and inspirational speaker whose books and resources are being used to renew organizations across the U.S. and Canada. She brings her experience as an entrepreneur and redevelopment pastor to the work of helping people engage work & world with purpose & passion. Kelly teaches leadership and organization in the Nonprofit Management Graduate Program at Spertus College and on the faculty of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Chicago. She is a member of The National Speaker's Association and has been part of the A.R.E. team since 2004.

A graduate of Valparaiso University's honor college, where she studied economics, Kelly has worked as a high school Spanish teacher, group home parent, environmental activist, telemarketer, bank teller, and muffin-baking entrepreneur. She has visited nearly every state in the U.S. and traveled in more than a dozen countries; and she has lived in rural, urban, suburban, and exurban communities. Her background has helped Kelly learn to take context seriously but it has also convinced her that people everywhere want their lives at work and in this world to make a difference.

Kelly's passion for helping people make a difference led her to the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia, where she earned a masters of divinity degree. She has served as pastor of two congregations including, for over a decade, a congregation in the Chicago exurbs. When she arrived in 1992, this congregation was on the verge of closing. By 2002, the membership had grown by 500% and the congregation was operating in the black; they had purchased a fifteen-acre site and built a new 11,000 square foot community center. They had also started up three successful nonprofit operations including a bookstore, a preschool, and a counseling center. Along the way, Kelly earned a second masters degree in theology from the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.

"Much of what I've learned about leadership has come from mistakes I've made," Kelly admits. "Everything else has come from the people I've worked with. And one of the things I've learned is that it doesn't matter if you're the CEO of a Fortune 100 company, a school principle, a rabbi, or the manager of a fast food restaurant: Great leaders leverage the power of purpose, participation, place, play, productivity, and possibility."

Email Kelly at: kfryer@arenewalenterprise.com