Meet Christina
Christina Miller
Both of my grandfathers were farmers, and I’ve always been glad to be a country girl. The two family farms are within walking distance, nearly intersecting. My mother’s farm has been in our family since the 1840s, when my third-great-grandfather received an eighty-acre land grant from the United States government.We live in the home my grandparents built after the Great Depression, and every time I sit down to write, I can see the farmhouse my grandfather grew up in.
The view from my desk
During college, I gave my life to the Lord and received a call to ministry. Then my cousin tricked me into meeting a guy named Jan (some people call him Jay) in early December and immediately began helping him in his ministry as youth leader. We got engaged on Christmas Eve, married in May, and left southern Indiana for Minneapolis to attend Bible college together in January. We wanted to spend our lives on the foreign mission field, but after we received our degrees in theology and missiology, the Lord directed us to come home, serve in the local church, and be missions senders. Since then, we’ve served as youth pastors, assistant pastors, church planters, prison ministers, and lead pastors. I’m currently the church secretary, worship leader, and youth leader. We support ourselves and help support the church through Jan’s construction business and my writing and editing.
Listening to live jazz on a date night in 2023
We wanted a large family, but the Lord had other plans. We took fertility testing and treatments as far as we felt Him leading us. But eventually, I realized I needed to find something other than children to fill the empty space in my heart. Of course, I had other children in my life, but I needed something of my own. I’ve loved books and reading all my life, from comic books to old Trixie Belden books to the Savannah quartet by my favorite author, Eugenia Price. At that time, a young traveling evangelist lived with us when he was not on the road, and he was writing a novel. I thought, Surely I can do that too! Little did I know how long it would take me to become a published author. I can’t say writing has completely taken the place of having children of my own. But I do believe I’m in God’s perfect will. I try to be the older childless woman whose example can show younger childless women that, with Jesus, they will be okay, even if they never have a child.
The Sugar-dog loved to read too.
We love serving the Lord in the little rural church we have pastored since 2010. Our congregation is small but mighty. They give the money, time, and love to provide meal bags for 24 local middle-school children who receive free school breakfasts and lunches but are food-insecure on weekends. Our members also give away over a hundred backpacks filled with school supplies each fall and help to support 12 missionary families, both overseas and in Indiana and Illinois college campuses. Our congregation is always on the lookout for new ways to serve our community and bring the lost to the Lord. Best of all, they know and follow the Word and love and worship Jesus with all their hearts.
Our little church.
A few friends and I rode through the streets of our town to invite people to Cowboy Church.
Fun facts about Christina!
- A recurring minor character in my Armstrong Family books (Love Inspired) is named after my favorite author, Eugenia Price
- I once worked as a nurse in a remote Honduran medical clinic, treating villagers and Sandinista-Contra War soldiers
- We live in my grandparents’ southern Indiana farmhouse, and it’s filled with family relics and Early American furnishings
- I will always choose caramel over chocolate
- My husband and I once pioneered a church in Doolittle Mills, Indiana, a backwoods area so isolated that the church used an outhouse
- I love to creek-hike
- As a student at Bethany College of Missions (now Bethany Global University), I cleaned house for Carol Johnson, the former Bethany House Publishers editor for whom the ACFW Carol Award is named