About Me
Hello, friend. Thank you for stopping by! I’m Chris McKinney, the founder of Called Writers Christian Publishing. I thought it would be helpful to explain a little more about my background. Even though I had written all throughout my life, and even professionally for years, I didn’t discover that writing, editing, and publishing was God’s primary calling on my life until I was basically middle-aged. I would love to have discovered this much earlier.
Instead, I traveled down a unique path that saw me obtain Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Finance, a CFA Charter, and a thriving investment management career before becoming a writer, editor, author, and publisher. It was a long and winding path, but I’ll do my best to explain it briefly.
After graduating college, I worked as an Equity Trader, a Research Analyst, and finally as a Sr. Research Analyst for the Wealth Management Group of a top-30 US bank. Later, I was hired as a Sr. Investment Risk Analyst for a Fortune 150 insurance company. During that time my writing got some attention. I didn’t think it was significant back then, but I wrote a lot of research reports and got a lot of great feedback from executives and other professionals. I was sometimes asked to edit other people’s reports, and some of my writing even ended up in annual company reports.
Through a series of divine interventions, God led me out of my corporate career and into an entrepreneurial role. Using a pseudonym designed to promote a business I was running, I wrote quite a few finance-related articles starting in 2013. Many of those were published and syndicated by top investing websites like Nasdaq.com and Seeking Alpha. I also wrote faith-based material that was published by sites like FaithDrivenBusiness.com and Crosswalk.com. When I look back now, I can see how God always had His hand on me, guiding me to where I am today.
I’ve now written and edited for a few different ministries, including the Foundry Ministries and Church of the Highlands. Back in 2013, I started a newsletter for the Foundry, writing for it and serving as its editor. In the more recent past, I wrote discussion guides for Church of the Highlands that were published on the church website. Later I served as the team leader in that area, editing the discussion guides for other writers before passing them on to Small Groups and Creative Team Directors.
I have written and continue to write for various Christian magazines and publications, such as CBN and Engage Magazine (a division of AFA). Formerly, I served as the Executive Editor for GODSPEED Magazine, where I worked under David Aikman, a legendary Christian journalist and bestselling author. I also wrote many articles for them, and that role was a huge blessing in my life. But ultimately, my wife and I had a God-given dream to build a publishing company and help Christian authors bring their books to market successfully.
I’m wildly passionate about writing, editing, and publishing. Those things are a ministry and a calling for me, but they are also a business. My goal is always to maximize the impact of any writing I’m involved with. That means I have to get the writing in front of the people who can benefit from it. And that means producing and presenting it with excellence so that it will be commercially successful. So, I do everything possible to pursue excellence, and I ask for God’s blessing and anointing on everything I touch.
I am married to the most amazing woman in the world, and we have three awesome boys! I go to a wonderful, life-giving church: Church of the Highlands. I recently graduated a ministry training program there. I lead small groups, serve on various teams, and try my best not to mess anything up. Feel free to contact me if there’s anything else you would like to know!
You can also find me on Twitter: @ChrisMcKinney45