Serving God and Arizona Southern Baptists for 45 years

Kathy Keller surrendered to Christian ministry about a year before she answered a job listing in the Baptist Beacon for a secretary position serving Arizona Southern Baptists.

She took that job about 45 years ago. And in December, Keller retired from her position as business administrator for the Arizona Mission Network.

At November’s annual meeting, David Johnson, executive director of the Arizona Mission Network, presented Keller a lifetime achievement award. Keller is the first woman to receive the award.

“I never had to worry about her work ethic or the level of excellence in her work,” Johnson writes in an email. “I never had to wait for financial information or reports. She was always ready with whatever was needed. She was steady, reliable and there whenever needed.”

As business administrator, Keller kept all of the network’s financial records, contributions and payroll and related reports, while also helping churches with their own financial questions.

When she started at the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention in 1979, she remembers answering the phone and typing letters using carbon paper for copies, among other tasks. In 1995, she was promoted to business administrator.

“After some time, I came to realize that working for the Arizona Mission Network was the area of ministry I was called to,” she writes in an email.

AZMN administrative assistants (from left) Jessica Barker, Jessica Parrow and Alma Cruz present a quilt to Kathy Keller at a retirement party hosted by the AZMN last November.

That call has seen her through 45 years, four executive directors and “several crises that rocked the convention, notably the Baptist Foundation of Arizona bankruptcy” in 1999, says Johnson.

“She was a consistent and stabilizing factor through all the transitions over the years,” says Johnson, who has known Keller for 30 years, including a decade at the convention and a decade as her pastor at First Southern Baptist Church, Phoenix.

Steve Bass, Johnson’s predecessor, worked with Keller for about 14 years and recalls her heart of service.

“When you have someone in an accounting position for years and years, sometimes they start thinking it’s their money … and they start saying, ‘We can’t do that.’ But Kathy never said that,” Bass says. “She realized in all of her years of service that this money belongs to Arizona Southern Baptists, and I am a steward to help implement strategy.”

Elizabeth Young, communications director for the network, has worked with Keller for more than 44 years and attended church with her for much of that time. They are not just coworkers but also longtime friends.

“She takes a lot of institutional knowledge with her as she leaves,” Young says. “She has been one of the go-to people when there are questions about things that have happened in the past.”

The Keller family members — Kathy and husband John, sister Karen Paetz, daughters Crystal Gonzales and Brianna Munster and their husbands, and Kathy and John’s seven grandchildren — were all on hand for a retirement party hosted by the AZMN last November.

Keller has managed this despite five cancer diagnoses in 25 years, mostly in her head and neck, and the subsequent surgeries and rounds of radiation. When her tongue and voice box were removed, she lost her voice, so she learned sign language and used text-to-speech apps and a computer program that enabled her to continue working.

In June 2022, the cancer returned.

“I was told that without treatment, I probably had three months and with treatment maybe two to three years …” Keller says. “It was only in the last couple of years that I began thinking of retirement.”

Current PET scans show no signs of cancer.

“The doctors have been amazed at how well my body reacted to treatment. Of course, we know that it was only by God’s grace and mercy,” she says.

And ultimately, it is that faith in Christ that has motivated Keller these 45 years as she has served Arizona Southern Baptists in the midst of her own challenges.

“I have always tried to do my job as if I was doing it for Christ,” Keller says. “Being able to help others was a blessing to me.”

Johanna Willett, a freelance writer living in Tucson, is a member of Mountain View Baptist Church, Tucson.