Cumberland Road

T. J.: 00:03

You are listening to the Cumberland Road, and I'm your host, TJ Malinoski. The following is the faith journey of Reverend Emery Smith Rogers, minister at the Tusculum Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. I reached out to Emery because she is a recently ordained, and she's serving her first congregation these last 8 months. Emery can give a fresh perspective on the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, on ministry in the 21st century, and on life of being a pastor. This is also the 150th episode of Cumberland Road. Your support and comments and love that you have expressed to me has kept me going and pushed me to become a better listener, a better host, a sound engineer, and a better person. Every listener and every guest has made Cumberland Road what it is. I will continue to work hard to improve my skills and share with the world what a dynamic, loving, and beautiful people that Cumberland Presbyterian are. I thank you all. So, now, my dear friend, here is my faith conversation with Emery Smith Rogers.

T. J.: 01:47

You are 8 months into the pastorate ministry at Tusculum Cumberland Presbyterian Church. What is the greatest gift, the greatest skill you received from your seminary graduate school training that has come into play?

Emrie: 02:07

Yeah. I love that question because I love seminary. It was such a gift to be able to go. Man, I learned a lot. I think it sometimes people have trouble putting into words what they've learned because it's more like, God changes them through seminary Mhmm.

T. J.: 02:38

Mhmm.

Emrie: 02:38

And and sometimes that's a little bit less tangible, but I kind of believe that seminary, what we learn about scripture, about God, about theology, I don't think that those things need to be kept in seminary. I've always had the belief that we should be actually sharing what we learn in in our churches. And I I feel lucky enough that I'm at a church that's mature enough and ready enough to kinda handle me doing that. People who and I don't think necessarily if they were, you know, a seeking church or something that they wouldn't be. But I I sense from my congregation a hunger to hear the word in a new way.

Emrie: 03:30

Mhmm. And I feel so blessed that I have this education and this training that lets me bring new perspectives on scripture that people feel like I've heard this scripture, you know, a 100 times preached in my life, but I've never heard it that way. So I think that's probably how my congregation most feels my seminary education. The other thing is I took a class on pastoral care, that I reference all the time. You know?

Emrie: 04:10

Just the fact that, you know, you walk into a situation, you don't have answers, you don't have you can't fix anything. Your your job is to just be there. And that really rings true from what I've experienced so far of pastoral care. Just being present with people, not trying to fix things, not trying to come up with answers or explain reasons that God did X, Y, or Z. You just you just stay present with people, which I don't think is anything that you have to go on to seminary to learn.

Emrie: 04:52

But that's where I learned that, and learned it from people who have been there and done that. So I love seminary. My when I, had my last day of seminary, I was so exhausted. You know, I've been doing, hospital chaplaincy at Vanderbilt for my, like, clinical practicum and taking classes and working full time, and I was so tired. And yet still, when I turned in my last assignment and it hit me that seminary was really over, I just laid down on my bed and wept.

Emrie: 05:27

My husband's like, what's wrong? I thought you'd be happy. I'm like, it's all sinking in now. It's done. So I

T. J.: 05:36

served the a church, Concord Church, not too far, terribly far from where, you are, all through college, all through seminary. And you reminded me it'd be like, okay, you learn this in school and then I was so excited, it would inform my sermon preparation, Sunday school material, whatever it may be. And, I felt, you know, I couldn't contain, you know, this is essentially not every week, but there were periods of it was essentially like, this is what I learned this week. I'm still processing it, but here's another way to approach the text. Here's another way that allows the scriptures to speak and it may be new, but, it may be a revisit and, you know, god's blessings on those good folks who probably endured, some horrible, content and delivery.

T. J.: 06:35

But looking back on it, I I would imagine that they probably heard and saw the enthusiasm and the excitement of of approaching the scriptures and allowing the scriptures to speak anew.

Emrie: 06:51

Mhmm.

T. J.: 06:54

And that's hard to Absolutely. Yeah. It's hard to, recapture, you know, at least for me, I have to put myself in a certain mindset to actually allow the scriptures to speak instead of, oh, I have to write this or prepare this for this coming week. And so, in essence, you fall into that temptation of of, like, I need the scriptures to do this for me so that I can have a sermon this coming Sunday. What a detriment.

T. J.: 07:30

What a what a loss to the future hearers of of your upcoming sermon. You're forcing it to do something. And I and I look, I've done it. I I know that I have, but, yeah, being able to to approach the scriptures as clear headed as you possibly can, which is impossible, I know. But to be able to to really just kinda bring an openness of yourself.

Emrie: 07:58

Yeah. Absolutely. And I I love that it's part of my job now to do research. I'm always diving into the MTS archives to read, you know, a scholarly article about x, y, or z as it relates to this passage. And sometimes it ends up having an impact on the sermon and sometimes it doesn't.

Emrie: 08:21

But, I I really enjoyed that process every week of getting to actually dive in and research and study. And sometimes I just can't believe it's part of my job.

T. J.: 08:38

Well, this calling in the ministry, Anne Marie, how far back does it go?

Emrie: 08:46

It's a great question. So I grew up in well, I started as Southern Baptist. My family moved around a little bit, so it's it's hard to keep track of the history. But, started Southern Baptist in Denver, Colorado, but by 11 years old, I was living in Massachusetts, and going to a nondenominational church, which was essentially Baptist in its teachings. And I that church did not believe that women could be in ministry, ordained ministry or as elders.

Emrie: 09:29

So what I I probably sensed a call, but the way that I interpreted that call was to be a missionary because that's some that was, I mean, the best thing to be. Mhmm. And it was open to women too. So I, I did a lot of mission trips as a kid. I was lucky enough that that church, really gave me a lot of opportunity.

Emrie: 09:55

So I did my 1st international mission trip to Armenia when I was oh, there's a phone ringing. Okay. Our our wonderful church secretary got that.

T. J.: 10:10

So mission trip to Armenia.

Emrie: 10:13

Yes. I took my first mission trip to Armenia, had my 14th birthday while I was there, and then I got to go to Ghana when I turned 16. I did a whole bunch of different things around the United States as well. I went to Mexico as a teenager as well, and I really wanted to do missions internationally. I learned Spanish.

Emrie: 10:52

I learned that in school and I became fluent just because I had great teacher. My brother is a avid language learner, and he and I would practice. And I just I just dove all the way into that, and I thought I'm gonna be a missionary in South America. Of course, in the tradition I grew up in, we didn't recognize Catholics as being authentically Christian. So the fact that most of South America is is religiously Catholic was not in at all, you know, a barrier in my mind.

Emrie: 11:31

It was like, that's, you know, uncharted territory as far as I was concerned. So going to college, I went to Gordon College, which is a small liberal Christian art school. I like to call it the Bethel of the Northeast, just for people's reference. Essentially, I think the same. I didn't go to Bethel, but I think from what I've heard, it sounds pretty similar.

T. J.: 11:58

Mhmm.

Emrie: 11:58

But I studied Christian ministries with a concentration in global Christianity because I wanted to be a missionary. And it was funny because as I was there, what I really learned was there's no such thing as a missionary. It's not really a job because you have to do something when you get there. Right? So are you a Church planter?

Emrie: 12:21

Are you a pastor? Are you a teacher? Are you, you know, doing humanitarian aid? Like, what is it that you're actually gonna do? And, I eventually I kind of felt like I was being told that I needed to do to learn something else so that I could be useful.

Emrie: 12:42

But in the end, I just never I angst did about it throughout my whole college career thinking I need to switch majors, but I just loved what I was studying. So I was like, I don't know. I don't really wanna study something I don't love, and I really am enjoying everything that I'm studying. So I just stuck with it, and I had no idea that I would ever become a pastor. In fact, the 1st week of college, they had a church fair, and I remember meeting I was shaking hands with different pastors from different churches who were there to represent and, you know, get some college kids to come to their church.

Emrie: 13:28

And I shook hands with this one lady, who said she was a pastor and had the claret collar on. And I remember thinking, how could you be a pastor if you haven't read the Bible? The Bible is very clear, you know, about women, not being pastors. And then I came to found out find out that all of my biblical studies professors, all of my Christian ministries professors believe that women could be in ministry. So I was like, well, maybe maybe there's something else, some other information, that I don't quite understand.

Emrie: 14:04

But,

T. J.: 14:06

Let me interrupt you for a moment. So in your, teenage years, you you can see women doing ministry, but not ministry as in serving a local congregation as a minister.

Emrie: 14:24

Mhmm.

T. J.: 14:26

Well, that narrowed your opportunities then in terms of of ministry. Obviously, you felt some sort of sense of call, call into the mission field. And I I think it's kind of funny that you didn't well, maybe I shouldn't think it's funny until I ask you. But as you envision yourself being a missionary, what did you anticipate? What did you dream of doing when you're in a South American country?

T. J.: 14:57

Because you had narrowed it down to that area. But wherever the mission field took you, what did you think that you were going to do?

Emrie: 15:05

Man, I don't even know. I I think it's a great question. You know, I mean, you you just see these stories that I think really, like, settled into my soul somewhere of, you know, this this person giving up everything and going to another country and adopting, you know, 30 orphans and you know? And I don't know. I just I I just wanted to do something big for God, I think.

Emrie: 15:40

And it wasn't until later, that I kind of realized that there's there's some problematic things with that. You know? It it's maybe a little bit racist to think that because I'm a white person that I'm gonna come in and just fix everything, you know? Yeah. It took it took a little there were some growing pains along the way there.

T. J.: 16:07

But, obviously, there was We shouldn't diminish. There was a sense of being sent. You were going to be sent to do something somewhere. You just didn't know where and you didn't know what. So there was an internal calling or tug that was happening in your life.

T. J.: 16:30

And, you know, again, to defend you even though I didn't know you, you know, you are a young person and you're trying to figure out where and what and how and who were you. So there's probably a lot of stuff going on at the same time. But there was that sending mechanism that was there and you just didn't know how to understand it yet. Anyway, I talked talked over you a bit. Carry on.

T. J.: 16:58

No.

Emrie: 16:58

You're fine. Yeah. I know, I appreciate it. I it's interesting to think back to, to that time. And I think that there is something very important in that young sense of possibility that feels like I don't know what it's gonna be, but I'm gonna do whatever I can for God and for, and for faith and feeling like the possibilities are endless.

Emrie: 17:32

And I think that as we age, sometimes we do kinda push those feelings under the rug and call them impractical.

T. J.: 17:48

You were being exposed for the first time in young adulthood, women in ministry. And your previous thinking was, of course, women are in ministry, but not in the pastoral ministry. So sort of walk me through that transitional time in your life because you're you're being exposed to women in leadership and you're being exposed to women in ministry. Was it a, a huge leap, or was it gradual for you?

Emrie: 18:20

For me, it was a leap. If you talk about the pendulum swinging, like, my my I probably experienced a couple of g's in the in the transition. Because for me, being in that safe space of being in a faith based college, I felt like my teachers were people I could trust. And so the change happened pretty rapidly, and it happened rapidly on a lot of subjects to the point where I kind of found myself having changed so quickly throughout college that, I think it scared my family. And and it might be helpful for somebody to know that, you know, that it's okay for somebody to to do a quick change.

Emrie: 19:14

And sometimes you kinda come back a little bit once you've had some more time to parse out some of the details. But for me, probably by the time I was going home for Christmas, my freshman year, I'd probably changed my mind on a ton of things. And my family's like, who are you?

T. J.: 19:38

Well, a lot changed except your major. You hung in there with the major.

Emrie: 19:45

That's true. I did through all the all the years. I did. The other a couple other things happened in college that were pretty noteworthy. So on my journey, I kind of decided, okay.

Emrie: 20:02

Well, if you are gonna be a missionary, there's kind of a right way to do it. This sense of, you know, if you go to another place and you're there to learn and to help support the vision of the place you're going to, then you can really help communities develop and thrive in a way that's sustainable from their end because you're not coming in with your own agenda. And so I kinda caught on to that, and I thought, yeah, that's if you're gonna do it, that's the right way to do it. So a group came to my college advertising for something called the Global Urban Track, which is through InterVarsity Campus Fellowship. And, basically, you go to a, place of urban poverty in another country for 6 to 8 weeks, and you live with a family.

Emrie: 20:59

So you're actually living with a family experiencing poverty, so you're having kind of a firsthand experience. And you're there as a learner, and the whole point of the trip is to discern, am I called to do this long term? And you also help out with a community development organization in in the area. So you can learn what does it look like for people who are actually here doing this work. So I signed up for that, and I went to Mexico City.

Emrie: 21:31

And I lived with a family in kind of the slums outside of Mexico City, for a couple of months. And, it was a pretty intense experience, to say the least.

T. J.: 21:50

You

Emrie: 21:50

know, they didn't have running water. They didn't have, you know, septic systems, or anything like that. They had basically a concrete slab that they had, and and one concrete wall, and then the rest was built together using, like, tin and tarps and big sheets of plastic. And their occupation was, the dad and the brothers did concrete pouring, and then the mom and the sisters would go to the dump, and they would pick for recyclables. Mhmm.

Emrie: 22:33

And so

T. J.: 22:35

I

Emrie: 22:35

fell in love with this family. There were 14 of us, including my team. There are 14 of us staying in 3 rooms.

T. J.: 22:44

Wow.

Emrie: 22:44

And there was 11 in the family, so that wasn't that different from their normal. But I fell in love with them. I just I saw so much good, especially in the little girls that I got to meet. And I also felt so deeply their hardship because they weren't strangers anymore. And so the fact that they were not consistently able to go to school or that, you know, if something went wrong, there was no health care to be found.

Emrie: 23:21

Were things that hit me differently at that point.

T. J.: 23:26

How did this trip compare to the mission trips that you took when you were younger? What were the distinctions between those? Why does this one stand out more?

Emrie: 23:40

Yeah. I think because of the closeness to people, the relationships. I mean, that's what makes any mission trip, you know, worth it, I guess. But, to put some contrast, the trip that we did to Ghana, we went to several villages to share the gospel. We'd show a movie and do a gospel presentation and call people up.

Emrie: 24:09

And we, in that trip, I believe, counted a total of 11,000 people that we presented to.

T. J.: 24:20

Wow.

Emrie: 24:22

And I was really proud of that at the time, you know, when I was 16. And then, but we didn't get to know anybody, really. The local missionaries that we were partnering with, we got to know to an extent, but they were also people coming into these villages as strangers. You know, we all kinda were. But I think that even that experience, I remember, we were at a school and I was we were talking about HIV, and, we would also do just a simple explanation of what HIV and AIDS is.

Emrie: 25:05

So people understood, like, you know, how to prevent it. You know? And I remember, like, all of the kids having all of these really terrified questions. You know? Am I gonna get AIDS if I wore the same shoes as somebody who has AIDS?

Emrie: 25:25

You know? And and then I looked at this girl and I just saw so much pain in her eyes, and it just kind of really hit me. Like, that's another person. That's probably as our brains develop, we kind of develop empathy. That's for me kind of that touch point where that happened in my life, that I happened to be in Ghana and be looking at this this girl who I can still picture her face and say, she's got a whole life.

Emrie: 25:50

She's got a whole story. You know? But still, I never learned her name. You know? I didn't know her family.

Emrie: 25:59

And in Mexico City, I I knew their names. I knew their families. I knew their problems. I knew, very personal things because I I lived with them and I, experienced the ways that poverty kind of exacerbates the the human condition, that it kind of has a compounding effect. So, anyways, I I didn't really know how to process all of that, and I came home and really couldn't stand the college campus anymore.

Emrie: 26:44

I hated the fact that they had flowers hanging, you know, on the sides of buildings. I was like, who's paying for those flowers? You're, you know, you just stuff like that would get to me. The amount that food cost got to me. I didn't I just didn't I didn't like what I saw when I came back and saw, you know, kind of how frivolous I felt like everybody could be

T. J.: 27:12

Were you

Emrie: 27:12

when I knew

T. J.: 27:14

Yeah. Were you difficult to live with for a period of time?

Emrie: 27:19

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, my my my parents took us out on, like, a little vacation to Yellowstone. And I was I was miserable the whole time. And I made everybody miserable because we would go someplace to eat and I'd be like, you know, this meal that you wanna buy me is cost 4 times more than this family makes altogether in a day.

Emrie: 27:44

You know? And which is true, but it's my family my family kinda had to put up with me for a little bit. But not knowing how to process all of that, I think, was one of the big reasons that I actually decided to go back. So this the next summer, I became staff for the track, and I went back and I led a team and I stayed with the same family. And that experience, it was even more kind of traumatic than the first time.

T. J.: 28:26

Oh, no.

Emrie: 28:29

So I don't I think I'm still processing. I'll probably be processing that whole thing my whole life. But after the first time I went, I was like, yes, this is what I want to do with my life. And after the second time I went, I felt so broken that I was like, I don't know that I want to do ministry at all. I just had seen so much darkness and pain in that place that I was like, I just I don't even know what I think about God anymore.

Emrie: 29:03

So, which in intervarsity, they kind of have a joke that the trick is where people go to get broken.

T. J.: 29:13

Okay. So so it's kind of a known known thing.

Emrie: 29:18

Yeah. And, you know, I wasn't part of InterVarsity. They didn't have InterVarsity at my Christian school. So I was kinda going into it, not just based on the sales pitch, not based on anybody who'd had experience. But in my own experience, I just I didn't know how to how to deal with the fact that reality is so hard for some people, and that these were people that I'd come to really care about.

T. J.: 29:45

Mhmm. Do you keep in touch with them now? Are you able to?

Emrie: 29:51

Not too much. I I'm still in touch with the, the director of the community development organization, which is called the MEXTRA, and they do really wonderful work. And so I'm still in touch with him. For a while, I was doing phone calls with him to help some folks practice English and stuff, and that was fun. But the the family, the only person who has Facebook is one of the young men in the family, and it it just wasn't that wasn't the friendship that was enduring for me.

T. J.: 30:34

Yeah. Yeah.

Emrie: 30:35

So, on occasion, I would just kinda check and say, is everybody okay? And you'd be like, yep. Okay. I know they're okay. Sometimes I'd see a picture, I'd be like, okay.

Emrie: 30:47

I can see they're okay.

T. J.: 30:50

Anne Marie, how did you get out of this broken and dark place?

Emrie: 30:56

That's a great question. Well, just to compound the the brokenness, there's one more event that happened in college, which is I've been helping at a at a church with the youth group. And it's a pretty conservative church, but I really love the church. You know? When you build relationships with people, you know, the the ideology wasn't as important to me at the time.

Emrie: 31:29

It was just the fact that they, they invited me in so wholeheartedly. And so, I had started helping out with the youth group, which was great for me to kinda stretch some of those ministry muscles, and that was probably sophomore year that I started that. My junior year, the youth pastor decided to move on to do a church plant. And so he left us. He kind of delegated different things, solid volunteers.

Emrie: 32:02

And I was one of the teaching, volunteers because I was the only volunteer that was actually in school for the Bible and ministry and stuff. So that kinda made sense. But there was somebody who was pretty conservative that was kind of decided to take lead on a lot of things. Mhmm. And he was a little older.

Emrie: 32:29

He had a daughter that was in the youth group, and she would get so excited whenever I would teach. You know, she would and I I I saw this happen, like, in slow motion. Her running up to me and being like, you're teaching tonight. I'm so excited. And then I kinda, like, saw his ears, like, perk up.

Emrie: 32:47

Like, he heard it happen. And maybe that's only in hindsight that that, you know, that moment slows down in my mind. But what ended up happening is I decided to become a member of that church. And on the same day I became a member, we had a youth leader meeting, and they told me, you know, we're really not setting a good example by allowing women to teach. And so they said, we're we're not gonna let women teach in the youth group anymore because we wanna set a good example.

Emrie: 33:21

Mhmm. We wanna be role models for these girls. So I didn't really know what to say. I just kind of was like, well, I just joined your church.

T. J.: 33:33

I like the welcome committee.

Emrie: 33:37

Yeah. Nope. Now that you got me, I guess. But I I was like, well, I I wanna be respectful of authority. And if that's the decision, you know, I don't agree with it, but that's your decision.

Emrie: 33:54

So, I stuck around for a few more months, but I started to see how it affected the girls. And it did. It did set an example, but it wasn't wasn't an example that I was happy to set, you know, is is girls saying, Well, what does this mean for me? You know? And so eventually, I left that church, but it was the combination of everything I'd experienced in Mexico and this kind of negative experience at this church that kinda made me say, I don't think I wanna be in ministry.

T. J.: 34:33

Yeah. That's a dark place to be.

Emrie: 34:36

Yeah. It is pretty dark. And, yeah, I I was pretty mad at the whole world at that point. So my senior year, I kind of decided that I wanted a job that didn't have anything to do with people or their feelings. So, but but I didn't wanna make a lot of money either because I really didn't trust money anymore.

Emrie: 35:13

Okay. And so

T. J.: 35:14

I'm excited to I'm excited to hear what what job you found.

Emrie: 35:20

Well, I decided I was going to be a custodian.

T. J.: 35:25

Okay. Wise choice.

Emrie: 35:27

Yeah. Well, and actually, my mentor throughout college was one of the college custodians. So it makes a lot of sense that that's where my brain went to, but I was like, there's a lot of dignity in that work. You know, I've watched I've I've built this relationship with this woman who helps take care of our campus and takes a lot of pride in it. And, you know, she's poured into my life.

Emrie: 35:49

And, also, you get to just put some headphones on and, you know, just clean and not, you know

T. J.: 35:59

Did you do have to deal

Emrie: 36:00

with people.

T. J.: 36:01

Did you do day shift or night shift?

Emrie: 36:04

I didn't do any shift because what happened was God intervened before I could get there. So my my my senior fall or senior spring as I'm preparing my grand plan if I'm gonna graduate and become a custodian. I started going to a different church, and and the pastor said for lent, instead of giving something up, what I want you to do is I want you to pray for whatever it is you want every single day for 40 days. And either God will affirm that and give that to you or God will shift your desires and shift what you want.

T. J.: 36:48

And

Emrie: 36:48

I thought, well, that's kind of cool. The problem is I had no idea what I wanted. So for 40 days, I asked God, what do I want? And at the end, the word that I got was purpose. And I kind of realized that there's nothing wrong with being a custodian, but it was something I was doing to escape, not because it was what I was actually called to do.

Emrie: 37:13

Mhmm. And there was something that had a purpose that was more in line with with my particular skills and talents that I needed to pay attention to. So I applied to work at the Martha O'Brien Center in Nashville, which is kinda how

T. J.: 37:34

And what was that? Yeah. Explain that.

Emrie: 37:36

Yeah. Yeah. It's, the Martha O'Brien Center. It's an antipoverty, nonprofit organization that works in the public housing community in East Nashville. And so they have a lot of social supports.

Emrie: 37:51

They have after school programming. They have a couple of charter schools, actually. They have, an early learning center for, you know, pre k kids. They have social workers. They have different parenting classes and stuff.

Emrie: 38:12

But the what I applied to was adult education, which was helping people get their GED. And so I but I applied as an AmeriCorps. I don't know if you know what that is.

T. J.: 38:25

Heard of it.

Emrie: 38:26

Okay. Most people don't. But the easiest way to explain it is it's the Peace Corps, but in America, you do a service year, and you live on a very small stipend. It's not very lucrative, but it's, the idea is that you're just serving a community.

T. J.: 38:47

Alright. This is checking all your boxes so far.

Emrie: 38:50

Exactly. I'm, like, not making a lot of money, purpose, you know, community development. It was all there. So

T. J.: 39:01

And a different culture because you

Emrie: 39:03

in a different culture.

T. J.: 39:04

Because you were still in the northeast. Right? And so you're relocating to the mid south.

Emrie: 39:09

The mid south. Yeah. And in a community that is 95% African American and, that has experienced generational poverty. So, yeah, that's a very different context. So the summer before I was about to start, I, it started to settle in that you do need a certain amount of money to live, especially in Nashville.

Emrie: 39:40

And it came. It started to become clear that I did need to to have a second job. So naturally, I started looking for housekeeping jobs to go along with my initial thought. And then I, ironically enough, was cleaning my parents house where I was living for that summer. And I threw out my back in a super major way.

Emrie: 40:06

I could I was walking with a cane. It was that bad.

T. J.: 40:11

So And

Emrie: 40:12

so how's

T. J.: 40:13

Your early twenties, mid twenties, and and you have a cane.

Emrie: 40:17

And I got a cane. So so I I was like, I can't be a housekeeper. That's not gonna work. And I finally just kinda let the Holy Spirit tap on my shoulder and say, you remember what you went to school for? It's like, yeah.

Emrie: 40:40

With ministry, you know, it's like, yeah. So I pulled up the computer, and I just googled youth ministry jobs Nashville. And the first one that came up was Jenkins Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

T. J.: 40:55

Okay. I don't know this story, so this is great.

Emrie: 40:58

Yeah. And I was like, okay. Presbyterians. I don't know anything about Presbyterians, but, I'll apply. So I applied, and I went on their website.

Emrie: 41:09

I listened to a few sermons. It kinda seemed like it was generally fine. No. It was great. It was great.

Emrie: 41:22

And I decided to go for the interview. Still was not really able to sit upright for long distances. At this point, my parents lived in Kentucky. And so my brother actually drove me to the interview at Jenkins, with me laying down in the back of the car, and then I walked in with my cane to interview for the youth pastor position.

T. J.: 41:46

Okay.

Emrie: 41:48

Yeah. And Jason Michael was, had been pastor there, I think, for a year or 2. And, I'm just so grateful that I stumbled into the right office. And God brought me to the right place, because he immediately saw things about me that I didn't see. He saw a calling and he saw the purpose and the, the gifts.

Emrie: 42:18

And so he hired me even though I was walking with a cane.

T. J.: 42:24

Right. To

Emrie: 42:24

work with youth. Yeah. To you to work with the youth. I did go to physical therapy, and I I was better. I was able to to play around with them.

Emrie: 42:34

But then what happened? So we're still in the summer right before I'm starting the job in August and about a week before I'm supposed to move from my parents house in Kentucky, where I've been staying to Nashville, the roommates I found on Craigslist backed out on me.

T. J.: 42:56

Okay.

Emrie: 42:57

So I'm no longer able to afford to live in Nashville at all.

T. J.: 43:01

Mhmm.

Emrie: 43:01

And my housing plans have fallen through. And I don't I don't even know if I mentioned it to Jason or if he just asked, but he just said, do you need help with housing or anything like that? And I said, actually, yeah. My plans fell through. And he said, well, we manage this property that's connected with the history of Nolensville, the Nolan House.

Emrie: 43:26

It was, originally founded there in 17/97 or something. He said, we're we're renting it out as an Airbnb, but there's an apartment that's less finished on the top part that you could stay in for free. And I was like, deal.

T. J.: 43:45

This still fit into your parameters of living economically and still holding to your principles and beliefs?

Emrie: 43:55

Yes.

T. J.: 43:56

Yeah. Did I word that okay? I mean, I really had to think that one out.

Emrie: 44:00

No. That's okay. That's great. Yep. So I was I managed to get there.

Emrie: 44:06

I was living in Nashville. I was being a youth pastor, and working for this community organization and helping folks get their GED. And so, yeah, I think I think in a big way, I felt like, okay, I've arrived. I arrived to something after all that.

T. J.: 44:32

Well, my goodness. You had, you know, setback after setback. You were in a not so great place in terms of, you know, like young adulthood and career and, you know, little by little. Mhmm. You know, you just got these little affirmations that, you do have something to offer or to use your word earlier, you know, you were discovering your purpose.

Emrie: 45:01

Mhmm. Yeah. And the Michael family had a big part in that journey as well because they took me to MTS. Jason said, you you gotta go to MTS. You you just need to go to seminary.

Emrie: 45:25

And so then I walked on to MTS's campus, and I was like, yeah. This is it.

T. J.: 45:34

Why Memphis Theological Seminary? Why seminary at all? I mean, you had a college degree in ministry. You were serving you were living out of ministry by serving young people. Why continue that educational path?

Emrie: 45:53

It's a great question. Because, truly, I I still did not think I was gonna be a pastor. Jason would probably tell you that he saw that coming, but I I didn't. I but I I think that my love of learning and maybe I think a few things happened when I went to visit Memphis. One is that, the person in the admin office said something that just so profoundly rang true for me that I thought this must be God.

Emrie: 46:43

Because throughout my college career, as I've kind of been wandering over and over, should I change my major to be something more useful? I I actually, at one point, fasted for a period of time in search of that question. You know? And what am I gonna do with my life? And what I felt like God showed me in that time was an image of just my feet and everything else is dark.

Emrie: 47:23

And God's saying, you only get enough light for the next step. You know, you don't get to see the whole path. And then as I was sitting in that office at Memphis, the admin officer basically told me that same thing word for word. I mean, she described it the same way. She said, you know, sometimes we don't get to see the whole path.

Emrie: 47:46

We just see just enough for us to take the next step. And I I was like, you've been reading my diary. But MTS, it also I could tell from, sitting in on doctor Miner's class that it was some of the best scholars in the world were gonna be there, And yet it was so not pretentious. And I still can't I I was still a little judgmental. I wanted to go to a place that didn't look like we're pouring all of our money into trying to look, you know, a certain way.

Emrie: 48:38

I wanted it to be. We're here because we want to do we have a mission, and we wanna do better for the world. And so I thought that MTS fit the bill.

T. J.: 48:55

The expectations that you have, Emery, are really high for, the people and your surroundings. I hope we can, hope we can live up to them. Or you can lower your expectations a bit.

Emrie: 49:10

You know, I I think my expectations have lowered quite a bit.

T. J.: 49:13

Okay. Alright. Then we'll make great friends because if you can lower your expectations for me, we'll get along just great.

Emrie: 49:24

No. You you exceed expectations.

T. J.: 49:28

So your relationship with God, you know, being a Christian and you have these ebbs and flows of distance and closeness and certainly a veiled, like, outlook into the future, you know, if it's one step at a time, if all that you can see, what does that do for your relationship with Christ? I mean, it I would think I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but there had to be moments of frustration. You know, give me a lighted, clear path where I can see the bends in front of me or trouble spots. And then facing the realities of, golly, the giftedness that we have of shelter, food, medical care, and which is not available to all all across the world. What kept you from walking away from the Christian faith completely?

Emrie: 50:34

Yeah. That's a great question. I think through all of it, I had a sense that God was with me. I I think that even now, I guess, I don't necessarily experience God in dramatic ways, but I just have this sense that there's just a little inner guidance that's always there. And as I look back at my life and the really unique experiences I got to have as a young person, I think that, wow, I'm really privileged.

Emrie: 51:24

I'm really privileged to have gotten to to see and experience so much at a young age, And that only feeds more into the sense of, yeah, there's got to be a purpose for all this. Yeah. No. I I guess it's all just God's continuing to show up when I needed God to be there even when Christianity itself or the rest of the world seemed hostile.

T. J.: 52:05

Let's talk about the moment in your graduate school where you were beginning to shift away from the life of a custodian and or potential custodian. No. On a more serious note, how how was because you're in pastoral ministry now, so kinda walk me through what that was like in terms of that shift of focus or maybe the blossoming of what your purpose in ministry might be?

Emrie: 52:37

That's an interesting question because looking back on it, it's so much clearer than it was at the time. If I were to tell you the moment that I realized I was gonna be a pastor, it was probably about this time last year.

T. J.: 52:54

Okay.

Emrie: 52:56

It it took me all the way to the end of seminary to figure that out. Despite the the many folks who had, you know, told me throughout my life that I had that gift, I because I was working at Martha O'Brien while I was in seminary. So much of what seminary did was inform my work there because it was my ministry. Mhmm. And, of course, youth pastoring was also my ministry, and I and I loved that, because I had a really, really cool group of kids.

Emrie: 53:29

But what really kind of aligned with, you know, like you said, checking all the boxes was my work at Martha O'Brien and working with adults who, were trying to get out of generational poverty. And we're working really hard to create an education for themselves and people of all ages and people whose faith really outpaced my own, which I think is probably the biggest factor in my own healing was not the church that I went to, but the church I experienced at Martha O'Brien with the clients that I had, people who continue to trust God despite just horrific things that I've never been through. You know, losing children to street violence. You know? Just not knowing where food's gonna come from day to day.

Emrie: 54:38

And once again, it was my relationships with those people that became so pivotal in, in actually my healing from all the stuff that I had experienced because they also loved and accepted me back even though I was, you know, struggling so much with myself. So and I I worked there for 6 years. I started as an AmeriCorps for a service year, but I ended up becoming a part time teacher and then eventually full time teacher and then director of the program.

T. J.: 55:21

Oh, wow.

Emrie: 55:23

Yeah. And so I just I really felt like my own soul and spirit were so taken care of In that place, it was very stressful as well. It was the organization was sometimes kinda stressful to work for, but it was probably Martin Luther King Junior Day last January that, we we held a party. And one of the students that had been there since I'd started, who I'd helped learn to read, he read the Martin Luther King Junior speech and just I mean, I was like a a fountain. I was crying so much.

Emrie: 56:19

But I also I had this sense, which I believe is the Holy Spirit saying, you know, this, you know, this place was here to heal you, but I've got somebody else prepared to come into and fill your shoes here. And, sure enough, the the current director is phenomenal. And God really provided for them somebody who could take the program to places I couldn't and had some real expertise in education in the field of education, which I didn't have. But, yeah, I that whole experience, I think, alongside seminary was important to my formation. I don't think it was until I was asked by Tusculum Church, do you want to be our pastor That I started really considering.

Emrie: 57:41

Do I wanna be a pastor?

T. J.: 57:44

Really? So it was a fresh question 8 months well, more than 8 months ago.

Emrie: 57:51

Yeah. They they had asked me probably about 2 years ago, and I said I really need to finish seminary. I don't know that I wanna do that.

T. J.: 58:06

And Now did you have, did you have a prior relationship with the Tusculum because of the proximity of the 2 churches? Well, please describe that for, well, me and for folks who may not know.

Emrie: 58:20

Yeah. Well, I, I was no longer working at Jenkins, and COVID hit really, like, a couple months after I stopped working at Jenkins, which was weird timing. But then in that in that time, I met my husband.

T. J.: 58:40

Yeah. You met your husband during COVID?

Emrie: 58:43

I did. Actually, our first date, we tried to social distance. We sat in separate cars with the windows rolled down, and we ate takeout. And

T. J.: 58:52

Okay. Alright. You can you can learn a lot about somebody through 2 different cars and their driving habits and and what a great escape if necessary.

Emrie: 59:07

Exactly. You

T. J.: 59:07

could peel off if you felt in danger.

Emrie: 59:11

Oh, this is terrible. I'm just gonna drive away. Yeah. So after Matt and I got married, we got married, like, a year 4 months after we started dating. So it was pretty quick.

Emrie: 59:30

I said, you know, the world's starting to open back up, and I really want to go to a Cumberland Presbyterian Church because that I've I've been on the ordination track. I I don't know what it's for yet, but I'm pretty pretty tied into this denomination. So it's important to me that I actually go to a CP church. So we went to a few different churches and, something about Tusculum just stuck. It just felt like the right fit.

Emrie: 01:00:05

And so we've been attending there for several months before they first asked whether I'd be interested

T. J.: 01:00:11

Okay. Alright.

Emrie: 01:00:13

In being a pastor.

T. J.: 01:00:17

So And so you've been at Tusculum as their minister for 8 months.

Emrie: 01:00:22

Mhmm.

T. J.: 01:00:23

What have you learned about the love of people by serving a church in this capacity, because this is your first congregation outside of youth ministry. But there's something unique, maybe even undescribable of experiencing the love of the community of faith that actually gathers in one place to worship, to fellowship, to study? What is what is that newness like? Because you're still kind of in that newness. I'm sure you've had ups and downs by now.

T. J.: 01:00:59

But, yeah, describe that for for folks who haven't experienced it.

Emrie: 01:01:06

Yeah. I think I think I'm pretty lucky. Tusculum is a church that really does love one another, And they've been through some hard times, but, I wasn't there for those. You know? And so I love to just tell them, you know, I didn't see you when you think you were at your best.

Emrie: 01:01:32

I see you now, and I think that you are wonderful. You know, I think that there's so many people in this church that just really care about each other. And, actually, the the gift that they gave me for ordination was was a stole that's made out of pieces of prayer blankets that they made for other people throughout the years. They saved little scraps. Wow.

Emrie: 01:02:03

And and I got to and then they made the scraps together into a stole, which they gave to me, which is just so symbolic of everything you want the church to be. So, yeah, I feel really lucky to be where I am. Mhmm.

T. J.: 01:02:25

Your relationship with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, what do you think as a denomination were doing really well? And and what input do you have for the areas of weakness that we do have as a denomination?

Emrie: 01:02:40

Mhmm. One of the things that drew me in right away was the fact that there's ideological diversity. I think that churches that don't have that can get really toxic. And just the fact that there's balance, you know, I was stunned at Jenkins to to find out there were liberal and conservative people. Because in our world, we kinda think that those two things are like oil and water.

Emrie: 01:03:11

Like, they can't mix. They can't be in the same place. And and the same with Tusculum, like, we have people who have different understandings, different who will vote differently, who will you know? And and to me, I think that's a strength. I think that we're standing as a witness, maybe even a prophetic witness to a culture that is so polarized that we can actually be in community with one another.

T. J.: 01:03:44

Yeah. Love is a funny love is a funny thing. You know, love is a funny thing. It's it's greater than ideologies. It's greater than the differences that you can find.

T. J.: 01:03:59

You know, it it supersedes that. It's larger than that. Mhmm. Can bring people together in ways that nothing else can.

Emrie: 01:04:12

Yeah. I think well, I think that's pretty much the the CP way is oftentimes very middle of the road, but I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. And I think about the stories of people in my church, and I realize how many of them have come to the CP church because of the the hurt that they experienced in other traditions where they weren't allowed to be fully accepted for things about themselves that they maybe couldn't change.

T. J.: 01:04:50

Well, no denomination is perfect. So from your perspective, what areas of improvement do we have?

Emrie: 01:05:02

Well

T. J.: 01:05:03

As a denomination, we're a work in progress.

Emrie: 01:05:06

Absolutely. I think that we're we're at risk of of losing that same thing that makes us special, that ideological diversity. I think that when we kind of draw lines in the sand and say, if you cross this line, you can't be a part of us. That's when we start getting into trouble. And I've I've seen that happening recently, and it does concern me.

T. J.: 01:05:44

How do we how do we back out of corners that we sometimes paint ourselves in, metaphorically speaking. You know, we found ourselves in a situation that we've we've like, oh, no. Well, maybe this isn't exactly the area that I wanna be in. How do we, take a step back together in a sense, you know, maybe we need to go down this other path instead of this path? Yeah.

T. J.: 01:06:15

I don't have an answer to my own question. I'm just raising it with you.

Emrie: 01:06:19

That's a great question. I think relationships are powerful. Continuing to get to know one another, listening to one another is important. Also, I think just refocusing on the things that really matter. Like, what is our mission?

Emrie: 01:06:40

Let's focus on that. Let's not waste time on some of this other stuff. Let's ask the question, you know, who do we wanna be in the world? And then, you know, when you're with when you're working as a team towards a goal, you don't really have a lot of time to worry about, you know, what somebody else on your team is wearing or whatever superficial things exist. You're just focused on, you know, doing the work.

Emrie: 01:07:13

So I think I think that there's work to do. I'd love to see us focusing on it.

T. J.: 01:07:22

Yeah. Yeah. Collectively. To be able to do that as a community. My goodness.

T. J.: 01:07:27

More feet and hands and voices and hearts. You talk about true transformation and impacting this world that we're a part of. Cumberland Presbyterians have been doing it, and we can do it really well, when we collaborate together. Mhmm. Well, as someone who loves to study and enjoyed graduate school, seminary, your college experience.

T. J.: 01:07:59

And you were asking me before we were recording about some of the books behind me. Emery, what are our 2 or 3 books that you highly recommend to those who are listening to Cumberland Road?

Emrie: 01:08:13

Oh, boy. Man. Let's let's see. I even knew that you were gonna ask this question, and I'm still not prepared.

T. J.: 01:08:26

Well, is it easier to ask you about a movie or maybe even some music? We can always come back to a book.

Emrie: 01:08:35

I think I think I I have at least one book that always jumps to mind, which is, The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone, which he's an African American theologian that talks about kind of the parallels between lynching in the South and Roman execution and, in parallels in in the faith with Jesus and identifying on the part of people who are experiencing oppression and are vulnerable. And for me, it's not so much even what he says in the book, but that that whole idea completely reframes the face from being from the top to being from the bottom. And I think that's something that if I could hope for Christianity to get in in our minds, it's that that's what true Christianity looks like. It looks like the cross. And so even at this time when we're kind of all panicking with the church declining and having less influence in culture and all of that.

Emrie: 01:10:06

Just kind of look and I say, maybe maybe we're going back to where we're supposed to be. We're not supposed to be ruling the world in that sense. You know? So and there's probably a lot more books on that that say it even more concisely or better than I could. But

T. J.: 01:10:30

And a lot more books by James Cone as well.

Emrie: 01:10:34

Yeah. Honestly, I haven't read any more of his books, which is I need to. I do really enjoy studying theologies from what are in America minority communities. I think those are really informative. I think they're they're an important corrective.

Emrie: 01:11:00

There are a lot of things that I think we got we already have right, but I think that they those voices pose really important questions for us.

T. J.: 01:11:11

Alright. On a much more lighter note, unless you wanted to be theological, I did ask about movies, music. Is there Mhmm. Or is there a movie that is a guilty pleasure or just something that you plainly enjoy, or music?

Emrie: 01:11:26

Yeah. Well, the Lord of the Rings. I think every theology nerd is also a Lord of the Rings fan, and I am. So that's definitely my favorite movie. Music.

Emrie: 01:11:47

My parents are actually musicians. And they play a lot of rock music, a lot of classic rock from sixties through eighties. So I grew up with the classic rock sound, and I still usually come back to that as, yeah, that's probably the best music. There's some other good stuff. I like some of the more modern stuff, but I that stuff comes on, and I it strikes a chord with me.

Emrie: 01:12:20

So

T. J.: 01:12:24

Anne Marie, thank you so much for giving me, a couple hours of your day.

Emrie: 01:12:29

Yeah. My pleasure.

T. J.: 01:12:31

I've enjoyed hearing your faith journey and, more importantly, being able to share it so that others can be inspired by you, by the Christian faith, and kinda to know that it's not always flowers and and roses and, you know, sunshine. You know? Life takes you into dark places. However, there are wonderful people out there that will love us through, and god loves us through those moments as well. I really like your metaphor, your vision of seeing your feet and just enough space for the next step.

T. J.: 01:13:22

I I could visualize that.

Emrie: 01:13:24

Yeah. Thank you. This was such a pleasure.

T. J.: 01:13:29

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Cumberland Road. In closing, wanna read from Henry Nowen's book, In the Name of Jesus, Reflection on Christian Leadership. He writes, we keep forgetting that we are being sent out 2 by 2. We cannot bring good news on our own. We are called to proclaim the gospel together in community. There is a divine wisdom here. For where 2 or 3 meet in my name, I am there among them.