Kip Rush - Holy Moments
Exploring faith journeys and inspiring ministries that embody the good news of God. This is the Cumberland Road. I'm your host, TJ Malinoski. Being vulnerable is a situation we often try hard to avoid. Those vulnerable places where we feel exposed, susceptible, and frightened. Today's guest offers an alternative view towards vulnerability. In our conversation, he shares about his own life, and tragedy, and faith, sickness, and growth, and finding holy moments in each of these. Reverend Kip Rush is a lifelong Cumberland Presbyterian and the senior minister at the Brent Haven Church in Brentwood, Tennessee. He currently serves on the board of trustees for Memphis Theological Seminary and on the board of U Kirk Nashville, a Presbyterian college ministry serving Vanderbilt and Belmont universities. Kipp shares it is in these holy moments where we take a risk at being vulnerable that deepens our relationship to God and with one another. Join with me in this episode of Cumberland Road with Reverend Kip Rush.
T.J.:Alright. Kip, Kip Rush, thank you for joining me on the podcast. This has been months in the making, literally months in the making.
Kip:Well, okay. Maybe.
T.J.:I am glad that I've been able to to corral you in and for you to be able to share your faith journey. How are you?
Kip:I'm doing well. Doing well. Just, you know, right now, breathing easy. We're in the summertime and church camping is over for me for the summer, which I've always loved, so so I'm taking it easy. And yes, it has been months, only because I just didn't figure there's anything that I needed to say that anybody wanna hear.
Kip:So, you know, for those of you listening, good luck. Turn it off now.
T.J.:So take a few minutes and tell everybody who you are and where you serve.
Kip:Alright. Kip Rush. Grew up in the Coventry Presbyterian Church from Austin, Texas. I like to tell people that I'm an orphan because my home church, the Saint Paul Church, is no more. Found that out actually while we were here in Nashville and found out accidentally when Don Taber, I was working on his computer and he goes, Do you know the St.
Kip:Paul Church? And I said, Yeah. He goes, Well, they just sold it. And I went, What? So, anyway, But grew up in Austin, Texas and had been Common Presbyterian for as long as I can remember and we are now, Jody, my wife, and our daughters, Madison and Devon, we live in the Nashville area.
Kip:Been serving in the Brentwood, Tennessee area for going on seventeen years now at the Brent Haven Cumberland Presbyterian Church or Brent Haven Church as we always say and it is a merger that was established back in 02/2003 by Nashville Presbytery between the old Brookhaven CP Church and the Brentwood CP Church. Presbytery came in and asked them if they would consider doing this. Had the pastor who was gonna be coming from one of the churches and a month before the first meeting, he left. He happened to be serving on the denomination board with me and he was telling me that they were merging these two churches and I looked at him and said, Have you lost your mind? Why would you want to do this?
Kip:Do you know how hard that's going to be? And he said, Well, it'll be good. Well, then a month before, he leaves, left the denomination and they go a year with an interim and I come in we were serving in Mississippi at the time and I came in and I had this message and it was from this congregation and I was like, Okay. I just asked him if he had lost his mind and now they're me a year later and we set up the interview to come up and meet with them and this is, you know the whole deal about signs and is God trying to change something? We were gonna fly from Birmingham up to Nashville and the flight got canceled and it was a bad storm and everything so I called them and said, Look, we can drive up but I don't know if this is gonna, we're gonna be there late.
Kip:They said, If you don't mind, drive up. So, we said, Okay. Our luggage is already on the plane. Got our luggage off the plane, put it in the car, we start driving and in Huntsville, it's actually outside Huntsville, Alabama and I think it's still there. We're driving up, it's a little dark and I look over and there's this sign.
Kip:All it is is a white question mark on a blue background and the whole way I'm going, Okay, is this, you know, the plane gets canceled, I got question marks, you know, I'm thinking there's no way this is gonna happen and so we got up there, we came up here and absolutely fell in love with the people on the session and saw the vision that they had for the church and went back and talked about it and prayed about it and I talked to a couple of friends and said, Kip, don't do it. Don't do it. You're crazy. And we did it and so we're here. So, we've been here for seventeen years and have just been blessed.
Kip:It hasn't always been easy. As I told the congregation we left, I had never been this stressed in the first couple of years between building and getting to know one another and just taking two congregations who had been in existence for probably fifty years each or more and then bringing them together and then finding out that ultimately they were together before they were separate congregations years earlier and I did not realize that. I had no idea that they had actually served, they had originally came out of one of the churches in Nashville. I think it may have been First Church, I'm not positive but actually when we first came together and started meeting out here, there was a guy who wrote in the paper and he actually did a history of the church and had done the history works to find out that these two groups had actually served together in a church in Nashville and then they didn't split the first time. That was back when churches would say, Hey, we've got a group of people who live in this neighborhood and we would like to start a church over here.
Kip:And so, started a little church and it grew and that's how Brookhaven came about. And then the Brentwood Group, actually their property got taken from them. The city was building four forty and so they had to find a place to move and so they came out here and bought I love telling people this because I saw the actual deed. They bought nine acres on Franklin Road in Brentwood in 1969 and then they bought two acres behind the church they were going to build a manse and they were going do something else with and they paid a total of $71,000 That's 11 acres.
T.J.:Oh my goodness.
Kip:All right, to give you an idea, so the nine acres that I think was 52 and then they bought the other two. Dollars 70 one thousand. There is next door to the church right now someone just sold three acres and are building a house on it for $1,650,000
T.J.:Wow!
Kip:So we're sitting on a gold mine right now. The denomination could get rich if we ever sold this church. I mean, it is unbelievable what the cost of property is right now around here. But, it's been a great gift. We went through this deal of getting to know each other and then once we got in the building, we moved into the building in 02/2006 and then from there it was okay, we're here, we've gotten to know each other, now who are we as the church together in Brentwood?
Kip:And on Franklin Road, I estimate and I've never done it definitely, so this is an estimation, but if you go from Nashville to Franklin, which is a straight shot, there are about 40 churches on this road alone. Four of those churches are Presbyterian, Peace USA churches. Three of those churches are First Presbyterian churches. So you got a First Nashville, First Brentwood, and First Franklin all on Franklin Road.
T.J.:Wow.
Kip:So, you know, it's an interesting place to be to see how many churches are around here.
T.J.:It was the amalgamation of these two congregations that a few years ago, I actually wrote kind of a a guide for the denomination. And I pulled from, you know, numerous resources, but I pulled a lot from the weekly weekly newsletters from the two congregations to see how those steps went and to get the personalities of the two congregations and, you know, the excitement and the plans and the meetings and stuff like that. The newsletters were great sources of materials to watch that progression of two congregations becoming one new one. Right. So I can't I can't remember the the name of this little guidebook.
T.J.:It was like the merging of congregations or the algamation of congregations. The general assembly approved it a few year I should have looked this up before we started recording. But, anyway, it was from the work of these two congregations coming together that inspired putting that together for our church, for our denomination so that others could replicate it if they wanted to?
Kip:Well, I tell you, when I was in seminary, they had done this in Memphis with a couple of churches and that ended up becoming what is now, I think, First Church Olive Branch is now the result of that over a few different iterations of churches, but the way that Brookhaven and Brentwood went about it, it was not without emotion, it was not without struggle, but it was one of the best ways that I have ever seen two congregations come together. I can't take credit for that because those sessions worked so hard and so diligently and like I said, it wasn't without, you know, there were people who were totally against the idea, they didn't want it to happen and the interesting thing was if you were to look at the two congregations and this is not exactly the way it was but generally speaking, if you looked at the two congregations, what would happen is the people who were going to Brookhaven, a lot of those folks had moved out of that area around that church and had moved into Brentwood. So, they would drive by the Brentwood church to go to church on Sunday mornings and the people who were coming to the Brentwood church lived in Nashville.
Kip:So they're crisscrossing each other when they would go to church on Sunday mornings and it was interesting to watch bringing those two congregations together who had different styles of worship, they had different styles of ministry and yet to sit back and be a part of something to watch them, know, they had already, think they had come up before I got here, they'd come up with the name, they had come up with how they were going to how they were going to do the session where you had equal representation and it was a beautiful melding of these two congregations. Again, not without struggle but being open to where God was leading them and I got to be a part of that and you know and I get to tell people being the first pastor of the Brent Haven church, first installed pastor of the Brent Haven church is a real gift. Quite frankly, I can't believe they put up with me this long. I mean, we've been here seventeen years and they're still, you know, they hadn't said, You know, it may be time for you to find something else to do. So, appreciate that.
Kip:I appreciate that. Especially since I wasn't going to be a senior pastor anyway. Was never my intent in ministry. So
T.J.:Really? Okay. Well, we'll get in we'll get into that a little deeper. I wanted to ask you. I like opening up with this question with each of the guests is, share with me a meaningful experience with god and that can be something that happened earlier today or something recently or something years ago but a meaningful experience with god that has shaped your faith.
Kip:There was a time where and this was back when I was in high school, actually there was a time where I always wondered what I wanted to do or what I was supposed to do and I always wanted be a lawyer. I wanted to make lots of money, be a lawyer, do those kind of things and I remember being at the Cumber Prison Youth Conference, CPYC, is at that time we were meeting at Camp Macomie and I refer to Macomie as Holy Ground and the reason I do that was something that happened there one evening after worship. I don't remember if it was the I'm pretty sure it was the last year that I was a youth and could go and it was at one of the worship services and remember walking during our quiet time, as we always did, I remember walking out and to this day, I remember the tree. It's still there. It's a lot bigger than it was because I'm a lot older than it was but the tree is still there and I remember walking under that tree and I have never been one who's ever heard the audible voice of God so this is not about that, but it was the complete and utter emotion of someone was trying to tell me something and I couldn't figure out what it was and I remember standing under that tree full of emotion, tears streaming down saying, God, I don't know what it is you want me to do, but I'm listening.
Kip:And that was probably the first time that I ever felt like maybe I wasn't supposed to be a lawyer and that was a hard thing. I love my family dearly but in my family, mom taught Sunday school when we were children but then once we got in teenage years, mom didn't really go, dad hardly ever went. He was there probably Easter and maybe one or two other times and that was about the extent of it. So for me to feel called into ministry was like, I mean, I'm not a preacher's kid. I'm far from a preacher's kid.
Kip:I'm a car salesman and policeman kid and to know and to feel this, I was like, okay, I don't understand. As I reflected on it after that event happened and I came back, as I reflected on it, I remember when I was a sophomore in high school was when I had had an experience with a teacher who did a bible study and who saw something in me and I started reflecting back on the people that I was working with. So, I made a point to see if this was real or not by asking the leader of Old South Texas Presbytery if I could work with the youth, be her assistant and work with the youth of the presbytery because if this was really something I needed to know and it ended up becoming that but it was a I just that moment got it was as if and, again, I didn't hear a voice but it was just like the spirit just it just moved over me and there was all this emotion and I was just like, okay, God, look, I don't understand this. And it was just a powerful moment for me.
T.J.:And isn't it nice to be able to test and experiment to confirm that call and to have adults or to have other individuals allow us to figure that out, to figure out what this relationship is and where it may lead? Oh. I can I mean, I can think of situations where we've had these missed opportunities, but you're an example of a not a missed opportunity? You were given opportunity to be able to explore your faith and see what this this calling may look like. Mhmm.
T.J.:And and I'm a benefit I have benefited from that as well, those opportunities that that other people have given me to exercise that relationship and and that call. So, Kip, you being a minister, it's always hard for us to kind of separate our faith journey from our vocation. So let's just lean into it. And so tell me more about your calling in the ministry.
Kip:Well, so this teacher, okay, so church camp has always been a major part. Matter of fact, I talked about it yesterday in the sermon. Church camp has always been a major aspect of my life. In fact, last summer was the first time and I think if my math is right, it's about forty eight years that I did not attend some form of church camp because I started when I was about eight years old and I was at a church camp every year, even when I was graduating from high school and not supposed to go, I went and worked a couple of camps. So there was a church camp involved all those years, CBYC being the epicenter of a lot of that but I remember, okay, so in the tenth grade, I got to skip biology, never had a biology class in my life and I got to go to this chemistry class.
Kip:Chemistry teacher was a man by the name of Steve Frayner. Steve was a United Methodist pastor's son and he, long story short, he invited me to come work with him on the weekends as he did with other students building a house. So, we're building a house, come to find out it's a house for the assistant principal. Good thing I like the assistant principal and so I learned how to build a house. Well, in the midst of building the house, he just comes up to me one of those days I'm working and says, look, we have a bible study every Tuesday night at the house, you're welcome to come if you want to.
Kip:So, we get involved. Junior year and so because of that, my faith was more than just on Sundays which it had always been just, know, it was a Sunday deal. Our youth group wasn't huge and that kind of stuff and during the summers was usually where we would do it. Well, junior year Christmas break, I was in my second year with Steve. By this time, I'm having some leadership with this bible study.
Kip:Steve gets killed in a bike accident and it just shook my world. I mean, just, here was someone that I had counted on who was key in my, who was helping me to understand who God was and now he'd been ripped from my, you know, he's been ripped from our life. Chronically enough, he's riding bikes with a member of the youth group of my home church and he actually gets hit by someone I graduated with in high school. It's all this weird conglomeration of things and, I mean, it was obvious at that funeral the thousands of teenagers and young adults whose lives he had touched in the short ten years of teaching he had been teaching and I began to, that was when I started going, okay God, you give me this person and now you just rip this person and now what am I supposed to do? The other person that was key during that time was the youth leader, Nancy Kauser, who was the youth leader.
Kip:She was in Houston, she was working with South Texas Presbytery and that was who I would talk to. We didn't have a consistent youth leader at St. Paul and so I would talk to her and then we would come together for retreats and then camp and then other things and I began to listen to things differently and to understand and then at the Cumming Presbyterian Youth Conference at CPYC, I just, I mean, that was when I fell in love with the CP Church, to be honest with you. It was there that I have friendships made there that to this day, I can go back and pick up the phone and call folks. Mean, and this was, look, I'm old.
Kip:I'm 56 years old. So, this was back in 1980s. I was a youth advisory delegate at the age of 15 in Evansville, Indiana and I got to sit in the room with E. K. Reagan and Doctor Pepper and all these people.
Kip:I didn't know who they were back then. I do now. So, I fell in love with this denomination and yet while I was feeling called to ministry, I was not feeling called to pastor. That just wasn't it, man. So, I went in and talked to my session at St.
Kip:Paul and explained to them after I'd gone through a year at the University of Texas and realized that, no, I really felt, I mean, I was beginning to really feel this push, this call and I needed to get out of Austin and go to Bethel. I needed to just because, well, there were a number of reasons, but I needed to go to Bethel and so I told the session that where I was feeling called was to work with teenagers and their first question was why do you need to be ordained for that? And I said, well, I have grown up going to camp here in South Texas Presbytery and Hugh Parsons and Joe Snyder and Jim Canty, they all take time to come down but then on Sundays, they have to leave and go back to their churches and preach and we want to do communion on some of those deals and there's no one there to serve us communion because they have to leave. And I said, if I was ordained and was working with youth, then I could be there to do those things and not have to be away, then the church would know that's where I was gonna be and I wouldn't be pastoring the church, I would be working with the youth there in the church and the session said, We love the idea, so we'll suggest it to presbytery.
Kip:Go to presbytery, I get the same question, If you're gonna work with youth, why do you need to be ordained? And I told him again, I don't know if I was the first person, I really think Rusty Rusty Haven was the first person, but I was probably one of the first people who said, I don't want to pastor a church, I want to be ordained so I can work with teenagers and serve them as a pastor would serve throughout a whole event and the presbytery said, okay, sounds great and that's what I did. I mean, I went to seminary with the whole goal to work with teenagers. I worked with teenagers in West Tennessee Presbytery while I was at Bethel and while I was in Memphis. Worked as associate, well not associate, as youth director at Colonial.
Kip:I mean, that was what I was gonna do. Got ready to leave and wanted to go to work in Marshall. Roy Blaber couldn't wait for me because we had some stuff we needed to do and so, went to work for Paul Cook at Elmira Chapel and worked there as associate working with teenagers and in 1991, life changed. It's interesting that we're actually talking about this today because on July nineteenth of nineteen ninety one, '30 years ago, this is the thirtieth anniversary of a van accident in which Jody and I were in and it took the lives of six teenagers coming back from CPYC of all places and in that moment, I don't know, it was almost as if God said, Okay, it's time for you to start doing something else, and we stayed for a little while longer there at Elmira Chapel and then from then on, I have been pastoring churches and I tell people a lot of times that God and I are still arguing over this, that I'm really not supposed to be doing this on Sunday mornings, and that eventually I'm gonna win this argument. I just don't know when that argument's gonna but I'm gonna win it.
Kip:But I've never lost the passion and the love for teenagers. I have always felt that, you know, that this is where, you know, if I can talk to teenagers and encourage them in their faith, then that's what I want to do. And, I know I'm getting older, I'm bald, I'm gray, I don't move as fast, but if it wasn't for people like Frank Ward who allowed me to work at, you know, I told them Sunday, I said, You know, I always thought Frank Ward always looked at me as just a loudmouth kid and yet he brought me back on staff to work at CPYC and I have been doing that now for well over thirty years and he saw something within me. If it wasn't for people who saw things within me and encouraged me, I don't know where I'd be at this time. I've always been Cumberland Presbyterian, I love the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and I've always appreciated the people who have supported me through that.
T.J.:Yeah, I wanted to ask you, for someone who has experienced obstacles along the way, not really involved in the church as a teenager. You have these people placed in your life, and then there's death. And then all the Kip, there is so much stacked up against you for you to just be able to walk away from the faith and go, look. I'm I'm gonna find something else. What was it inside of you that persistence that just kept you seeking about this relationship with God and then this call to ministry because you had every reason to just kind of fade away and become that lawyer.
Kip:Yeah. No, you're right. I mean, the things that and I wish that there was this pat answer that I could give for that statement. You know, as I was thinking about today, was thinking about all the key events that have happened in mine and Jody's lives together, his husband and wife, beginning with that van accident. Only two years later, we're getting ready to go to general assembly and we have to wait.
Kip:Mean, all of sudden, I go home and I'm looking for her and I can't find her. She's being taken to the hospital in Atlanta because our oldest daughter wanting to come a little earlier than she's supposed to and ends up being born premature ten weeks early and we're getting phone calls from general assembly going, Tell us what's going on. We want to pray for her. And then most recently, this past April, Jody was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer and we're hearing from the church all over. Know, people are going, Hey, what's going on?
Kip:Can we put her on the prayer list? Heck yeah, put her on the prayer list. There is this connection among the church that has become so important that I don't know that I could live without that, if that makes sense. And I say that God gave us that connection and it's all these tentacles that go out in all the different ways. Frankly, I don't understand how people go through life without a church family.
Kip:It's just difficult for me to understand that and I've said that over and over again and I've had people tell me that too, they don't understand it, but when you're the pastor of a church or when you're in leadership in the church, your church family is more than those who are local there in the congregation. It's the people who you work with and who are part of your life for a week in the summer or you do a workshop with at a leadership thing or who you go to a preaching conference with and cut up and just have fun and so that is what continues. In all of those instances, I've just felt the warmth of God's presence in the people known as Cumberland Presbyterian. And look, I don't agree with all these people that I love, trust me, but yet you feel the love and the sincerity as they say, We're praying for you, or How are things going? Or you know, we're here.
Kip:I remember way back in 'ninety one, you know, I'm having to call the pastors of three churches to tell them that they have lost children in there and they need to call the parents. I remember Jack Ferguson walking into the hospital. Jack was over in Jackson. He didn't have any reason to be in there but he knew that this group of Cumberland Presbyterians had just suffered one of the most devastating things they could suffer and he's coming in. I get a phone call from Jim Ratliff who I had worked with at Colonial and tears streaming down going, Jim, they didn't teach me this in seminary.
Kip:And he said, No, they didn't. He said, Just know we're here. I mean, it was just those kind of things. My parents, on that particular incident, my parents were out. I had people in my home church that tracked them down, pulled them out of an event so that they could know what was going on.
Kip:I don't know, man. That to me is the church at work, that's a big deal, and to feel the church enveloping you that way is a beautiful thing.
T.J.:What words would you have for somebody who isn't connected to a congregation or to a church but is seeking the things that you are just describing? There's so much that's discouraging out there. So what advice would you give give me or give give an individual who wants what you have, Kip, in terms of the relationships found within church?
Kip:I think one of the things is that the church, you get from the church what you bring to the church, and I think one of the things that happens is we are so, we're in such a consumer society that we come in looking what can the church give me? Well, you want, you know, it's almost like what can God give me? Okay, I'm gonna go in now. What's a preacher gonna give me? Well, you know, and this is one preacher saying this to another preacher, if you're looking at the church and the only thing you're interested in, what the preacher's gonna say on Sunday mornings, you're looking at the wrong thing.
Kip:Right. I mean, because there are gonna be days that that preacher's gonna knock it out of the park. That doesn't usually happen with me, but there are gonna be days where that preacher may knock it out of the park. There are gonna be days where the preacher may hit a single, and man, there are gonna be days that preacher gonna fly, like a bunt fly out to the pitcher. It's gonna suck so bad it's not even funny.
Kip:So, if that's the reason you're going, that's the wrong reason. It's about the relationships and we have to put in into those relationships and be open. And yes, being vulnerable is very difficult. It takes time to be comfortable enough to be vulnerable, but once you get in and can begin to establish those relationships and allow yourself to be vulnerable, that's when I think that you begin to feel that. Look, this congregation, I've had, we are not the biggest congregation in the denomination.
Kip:We went through a deal where we were close to 200 and things were going great and now, of course, with pandemic, I couldn't tell you but before pandemic, we were averaging about 140, one hundred and 50 on Sunday morning. The one thing everybody who walked through these doors said is that is the friendliest congregation I've ever met in my life and they are and I didn't have nothing to do with that. They're just friendly people. You walk in and you're gonna feel welcome and if that's what you're looking for, all you do is just accept that welcome and remember, Hey, if I feel welcome enough then these people are going to love me for who I am. We've had people come in off the streets and worship and they were treated just as much as the guy who was the vice president of one of the biggest firms in town.
Kip:But, just think that it is a give and take and once you feel that love, it encourages you to open up a little bit more.
T.J.:Mhmm. Yeah. Because you feel safer Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's some trust.
Kip:Yeah. You gotta feel safe.
T.J.:Yeah. So, Kip, we've talked about God interacting and moving in your life in the past. Yeah. Where's where's God working in your life right now?
Kip:I am I'm trying to see what happens next. I don't know if that makes sense or not. I'm trying to really listen for what is the next step for the church. I don't know how you feel about it but with everything that's changed, there are some things that are never gonna go back to the same. You know, it was interesting before the pandemic, December before the pandemic, my sister gave me a little nevo camera and nevo is a all in one streaming camera and she said mom and dad and I want to watch y'all, want to watch your worship service, so here, Merry Christmas, use it.
Kip:I'm like okay great. So, we had to start figuring out I hate being on camera. I can't stand it. And so, we had to start figuring out how to use it, so we started using it and then, lo and behold, March hits and pandemic hits and here we've been doing it for three or four months and this Mevo was so easy to use that I was using my phone from the pulpit moving the camera around while preaching. So, with pandemic hits, everybody has to clear out.
Kip:We got the staff here. We move the camera up. It's a little bit bigger. We become a production studio and we keep doing it. Well, when people started coming back, it was like, okay, what are we gonna do now?
Kip:We need to make it a little bit better. So, now we've slowly started working through this and you begin to realize we're forever now gonna have to do this. We are now all televangelists whether we like it or not. Except that for some reason I don't have the hair that most of them do. But anyway, neither do you, but that's beside the point.
Kip:So it's one of those deals where from now on, we're gonna have church members. I've added church members, say added, I've had people who have been faithfully watching us online from Oregon, from my home. Now, my parents, yes, but then friends of my parents and friends from high school and all that watching from Texas, others watching it from Hong Kong later on, and I'm sitting there going, oh wow, the church just expanded in a way that I never expected. And then on top of that, when you start adding online giving and you get a check from somebody you had never heard of before and you realize they've been watching online and now they're participating in the life of the church by giving even though they can't be here in person then you go, wow, the church isn't just in Brentwood anymore. You know, Brent Haven Church is not just Brentwood within the confines.
Kip:So, you know, we've got to figure out what this looks like and how are we going to continue to do ministry in a way that incorporates and brings in some of those who can't be here and still offer them a presence in the body of Christ.
T.J.:Right. I was having a conversation with another minister just last week of the dichotomy of having essentially two different congregations, you know, one that is in person, and then one that's, you know, through tech and through that's digital. And the concern of how do I minister to these people who are in a different county or a different state or a different part of the country or a different part of the world? Because all that they're getting is this Sunday morning experience. Mhmm.
T.J.:And it's leaning towards those who are in person, but what about those who are who can't be or don't want to
Kip:be Right.
T.J.:There in person. And so I find that exciting challenge to be able to go, okay. Well, maybe maybe we need to start having something that is just for those who aren't meeting in person. You know, in a different time during the week or later in the day or that sort of thing so that we can build those, especially the relationships you've been talking about in this podcast
Kip:Right.
T.J.:So that those relationships can be built with folks because we we do struggle. We do have needs. We we do experience loss. And how are we gonna connect with others through this digital age? I think it's a wonderful tool.
T.J.:I think we have this opportunity to do ministry. It's been here for a while. We've just been forced to use it.
Kip:Right.
T.J.:I think we can enhance our ministries by reaching out. Now that we've reached out, now we need to strengthen those relationships. And and I think we can still use the same tech to make those deeper relationships with other
Kip:Absolutely. Other people. I mean, you know, we were when we decided, I decided I always do a Lenten bible study and an Advent bible study, and I decided that I was going to make those available for daytime and nighttime, and in person and online. So, we would have people online and in the church. I'd have a TV up with everybody who was online so everybody in the room could see those who were online and then we had an interaction that way and I used a video that they would be able to watch at home and they would be able to watch in the meal and it was an amazing gift to be able to do that but to offer it in the morning and in the evening gave them a choice.
Kip:We're gonna be doing the same study both times, so you get your choice. Pick this day at this time or this day at this time and it doesn't have to be every day. It doesn't have to be every week that way. There was a time where I didn't want nothing to do with any of that mess. Come in, sit down, let's do the bible study and then get out.
Kip:I mean, I didn't want to have to deal with technology and now it's like, hey, you know what? We can do this at any point in any time. But what was interesting was during the major part of the pandemic when nobody was really attending, one of our friends, somebody from Bethel actually, who knew a number of people in our congregation as well started tuning in and her mother got sick and so in the middle of the service, she typed online on Facebook, Please keep so and so in your prayers. She's my mom and we're worried about her and all this and so I shared that prayer concern in the congregation that morning right after she typed it and sadly it was a little while later that she died and she let me know that on there and so I shared that with the congregation and there were people who gave contributions in memory of her and you're sitting there going, Wow, you didn't even know who this person is and you definitely didn't know her mother and yet you gave in memory of her because and so you begin to connect in that way so that if they ever did meet face to face, it could be a really interesting conversation to say, Hey, yeah, I'm worshiping you on Sundays even though you don't ever see me.
Kip:And then we've had people, I've had at least two or three couples who showed up to church one Sunday different times and they go, yeah, we've been watching online. And I said, you have? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. I had no idea.
Kip:You know, you don't ever know who's actually watching and with Facebook and YouTube, they can always go back and watch later. So, it's just, you know, that's one of the things that I'd really like to do is really find out, you know, how can we reach those who are tuning in that we don't know are tuning in. If they're a church member, they're likely gonna say, hey. If they're not a church member, they just may be one of those anonymous people who are watching. But I think that's for me where the church is and I'll be honest with you, I jokingly say that these people have put up with me for seventeen years.
Kip:I've always been one who's All preachers have egos, let's be honest. We all got egos.
T.J.:Healthy egos, healthy egos.
Kip:Healthy egos, I like healthy egos. But one of the things that I have always worried about, and I think this goes back to the feeling that I never really, I didn't think that I would ever be a senior pastor of a church. I always worry, Am I being effective? And so, whether it be out of fear or whether it be just out of concern or just whatever, I'm always saying, Look, God, help me to understand if it's time that somebody else needs to come in and make a difference in this congregation because I don't want to stay to the detriment of the church and if you would have told me I'd have been here seventeen years, I'd say there's no way. They're not gonna put up with me that long.
Kip:Now, there's a fear that goes with that because these people, for instance Sunday, and yes you can see it online, these people let me do things that a lot of people won't. I had them doing energizers during worship Sunday. Actually, I just did one during the sermon. I had them get up and do Revolution by Kirk Franklin, the energizer, and they did it. In fact, Jody told me afterwards, I'm beginning to think they'll jump off a cliff for you if you ask them to, but
T.J.:So you really were going with this camping theme.
Kip:Oh, yeah. Well, what it was, okay, so what it had to do with was David danced and I talked about the fact that we don't always, you know, we've been through this pandemic and everything that we've been so focused on the negative that maybe we do need to dance with God at some point and so that's what we did. Kids did the bunny hop and we did that and then we did one other thing during the worship service but it was just like, so there's a fear in that because not everybody's gonna put up with that. My understanding is there was one guy who'd been visiting who kinda, when I said everybody stand up, he stood up and then he just walked right on out the door. So, you know, but they're just this group of people who have just accepted me but I always want to make sure that I'm doing the right thing for them and if it means that it's a time to, you know, I've told the session over and over, Look, don't hesitate to tell me, Look, this isn't working anymore.
Kip:You're not gonna, I said, it will hurt to hear it and I'll be honest about that, but it won't hurt to do what needs to be done for what's best for Brent Haven and I think that's always what's important. This congregation, I don't wanna go without saying this congregation is a true picture, I believe, of where we are in The United States. We have the farthest radical liberal all the way to the farthest radical conservative and everything in between. And yet, we come together, we worship together, I don't talk politics, it's against my religion, we sit together, we worship together and we come to understand who Christ is and we can study together and we can be in a bible study and somebody can say, Well, you know, I don't really read this this way. And somebody else can say, Well, I read it this way.
Kip:And we can talk about it and not necessarily that we're changing anybody's mind, but we can accept the fact that you can read scripture in different ways and that kind of stuff. So it's a beautiful, to me, it's a beautiful place to be, to be able to say that we can do all this as the people have done.
T.J.:Well, let's talk for a moment about your relationship with God.
Kip:Okay.
T.J.:And and where where do you see that relationship today? You know, you've you've alluded to, hey, I've been around for a little while. I've had these growth spurts. I've been close, been far from God. And and but right now, today, at least presently, how do you know God's part of your life?
T.J.:And what does that look like?
Kip:I have never been the most dedicated prayer. You know, I'm a hit or miss when it comes to devotional times, but I see God in the people and not just the people here at the church but the people I encounter, presence when I'm with the children getting ready to go to church camp like they were yesterday or when I'm sitting in the silence of the office and I'm looking at a text that just looks like jumbled up words and I'm working on what am I gonna preach on on Sunday and all that and I'm looking at this text going, this means nothing. And I just sit there and for a moment, all of a sudden something begins to, it's almost like they begin to move around, and I know they don't, but it's almost like the letters begin to move around and you start going, Oh, this is what this says. And I realize this isn't about me at that point because, looking at it, I couldn't I I still don't know how I get through every Sunday. I mean, I know there are a lot of preachers who are just jazzed about preaching and get up there on Sunday mornings and they give it to them and they feel real good when they get through.
Kip:When I get through, one, I'm exhausted, and two, the one thing that I always say to myself when I'm through is, God, I just hope that somebody got something out of this because this isn't about me at this point. I think that, for me, I think, too, with everything that's been going on with us and our family, the way that we have adjusted to things, our time together is probably one of the most godly times that we have right now. Joe, you know, there was a time, so, Jody's been diagnosed since April and one of the things that changed is my coming home. You know, those who know, mean, I live right in front of the house and know I don't walk to work, which I could, but I don't cause I'm lazy that way. So I get in my truck and I drive the one second over to the house and I get out and our routine was we would go in, we would sit down, we'd get our dinner, we'd go in and sit down and we would turn on the TV and start, there was very little conversation.
Kip:Since everything that's been going on with her, our routine now as we come in, we sit down at the dinner table, the TV's in the other room, we sit down at the dinner table and we just talk and we talk about how our days were but we also talk about how she's steaming and we talk about the future and we talk about flowers and we talk about, I mean, we just talk and there is a spirit that moves in that moment. That is a holy moment for me now that I guess, as sad as it is to say it, it took this shakeup in our life to get to that place to where those kind of things, holy moments like when the kids come over, even though the girls live here in town, when they come over and we sit at the table and we just talk about what's going on and those are holy moments now. I mean, those are god moments that I wouldn't trade for anything. To be able to, for Jody to look at me, you know, so for the longest time I didn't leave town. I mean, were here and then I finally had to leave for seminary graduation in May and we kind of joked about it and I felt horrible, so I get to Memphis and I never told her I got there.
Kip:And I never checked on her that evening, so she didn't hear from me. When I left that morning to go to Memphis, she didn't hear from me. The next morning she goes, Well, I see when you get away from me, you don't really care. And I went, Oh crap. And so when I got back home, of course she was riding me hard about it, and she was joking, and I knew she was joking, but it was the awareness that being here, you can be so focused on what the problem is that you fail to see what's out there on the outside.
Kip:So, I left, I left it back and I said I left her back and she was like, we were joking about it somewhat, but she said, In all seriousness, I understand. And I said, What do you mean? She said, You didn't have to think about cancer. You got to think about something else. And I said, Right.
Kip:Well, the joke in the house is every time I come in there's some new flower planted outside. She's become this master gardener or something and I mean everywhere I turn there's these gorgeous flowers that are popping up and I tease her about it. I walk in and go, is that a new flower out there? Uh-huh. And that's when she looked at me and she said, that's why I'm doing the flowers because when I'm doing the flowers I don't think about cancer.
Kip:I think about the flowers. And so, our life has been kind of turned upside down in a way that we have to make time not to think about the cancer and to think about the other things and so when I sit down at that table and we can sit down and talk about how was your day, how was the meeting, how was talking to TJ on the podcast, all those kind of things, that's a holy moment man because the truth is we have limited amount of time and so if God can work through those moments, those are important moments for me.
T.J.:Yeah, you've made me think of things I take for granted. Yeah. Things that I assume is just going to occur or happen. And, wow, what maturity to show of taking a break from cancer. And, I'm
Kip:Well, I gotta give her
T.J.:I She
Kip:was the one that put the words in it, but it is. I mean, it's a, you know, and we've got a we know that we've got a lifelong journey with this. I mean, you know, we got a we got a good report and that's the first report of what many good reports we want. There was a decrease or staying the same but that's the first one and we just need a lot more of those and so, every day is a prayer that things go well and that the treatments continue to work and it's been challenging but the church responded well. They have been very, again, as they would do, responding with food, responding with calls and then the session saying, You take whatever time you need for her, but you also take whatever time you need for you.
Kip:And to hear those words is a valuable thing as well. It really is.
T.J.:Well, thank you for sharing that.
Kip:Yeah. Sure.
T.J.:That was deep. Deep. But thank you for sharing. And being vulnerable was a word that you used earlier.
Kip:Well, I could be vulnerable with you and then whoever else is listening over.
T.J.:Well, let let's shift our focus onto this denomination that we're a part of, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Kip, you've been a part of it for a while now. Your your whole life.
Kip:Whole life. Yeah.
T.J.:Looking looking out into the future, what dreams do you have for this denomination? Where do you want us to be? Oh,
Kip:well, where do I want us to I have listened to these podcasts and I've listened to you ask everybody this question or almost everybody this question and I keep thinking and I've been trying to answer this question myself since I heard you ask it the first time. There are a lot of people who say, I had a gentleman in one of the churches that I served, he kept saying the Cumberland Church needs to take a stand. Cumberland Presbyterian Church needs to take a stand. One of the reasons that I have loved the Cumberland Presbyterian Church is what I refer to as medium theology, in that we have in essence taken a stand when it comes to who Jesus Christ is and who is God and the holy spirit and all that. Where we have allowed the uniqueness of the church is as I talked about here in this congregation is that in certain issues, especially social issues, we have not said that it's wrong to drink, we have not said that it's wrong to dance, which, you know, growing up in Texas and I'd date the Baptist girls and they couldn't drink or dance except that they drank and danced.
Kip:So, you know, but I don't think that we need to be a denomination who does that. I think we need to be a denomination who says, you who need a place to worship, you who need a place to feel loved, come. And I've been really hurt by social media, I love social media, but social media has become a place where we debate things and I don't think it's healthy. I think in fact it is detrimental. Social media, when it comes to debating things, is detrimental to the church, I believe.
Kip:Because one, you have a lot of people who get really brave on social media because they don't have to face anybody, they just type those words and there it goes. And there have been a couple of times where I have read posts that said stuff like, well, you know, if they don't agree with me they can just go somewhere else. You know, there's other churches out there, they can go to another denomination and these are from people who, and I kinda got in trouble because I made a comment that these are from people who haven't even been coming to Presbyterian very long and yet have come into this denomination and have basically said to me, if you don't agree with me you can go on and leave. And I keep thinking that if I was to stand in the pulpit on a Sunday morning in this congregation, any congregation and say, If you don't agree with me, you can go on and leave. We wouldn't probably be a church.
Kip:This congregation probably wouldn't exist because while we may have 140 here, we got 140 independent thinkers in this congregation and quite frankly it would be boring if they all agreed with me because I like a little bit of discussion. And I don't mind somebody coming out and going, Look, I don't know if I see this text the same way you do and being able to talk about it. And it's a proven fact that scripture, there is no one particular way to interpret scripture. And while I may not agree with some folks in the way they interpret it, it doesn't mean that they're wrong. Just as it doesn't mean that I'm wrong in the way that I interpret it.
Kip:Now, there are gonna be people who listen to this podcast and would say, Oh no, you're wrong if you don't interpret it this way. And I guess that's on them because I just don't see it that way. My hope would be that we as a Cumberland Presbyterian, I'll just say this, My hope would be that we as Cumberland Presbyterians would come together and figure out who we are as a congregation and what we can do to go into the world and to share the good news Because I think there's good news to be shared and I don't think we have to debate all of that. I think there is good news to be shared. I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about here.
Kip:So, I told you there are 40 churches on this road. We are not the biggest church. I have a 10,000 member Methodist church on one side of me and a 13,000 member Baptist church on the other side, and then every other non denominational Greek Orthodox, I mean, you name it, it's there, Baptist, it all works. Do you know in this city, in Brentwood alone, with all the churches that are here, you cannot go in and ask a church, Hey, could I have a meeting here? Without going to Most of the time, the answer is no.
Kip:So, an AA group or an Al Anon group, if it hadn't already been established, then if something new wanted to come in, they don't have room for you. I had an AA group that they were meeting at one church and they said, you know, they've told us that we can't meet there anymore because of something that's going on and nobody else is willing. Would you allow us to meet in your parking lot? And I said, parking lot? They said, yeah, well we really wanna meet in parking lot unless the weather's bad and then we'd like to have to be inside.
Kip:They wanna do it on a Friday night. We have nothing going on in this church on Friday night. Why would we want an empty building with nothing going on? So, I went to the session and the session said, Absolutely, let them do it. Well, my hope is that we, so my hope is that this congregation, we may not be the biggest one, but that we be a church that when people say, Brent Haven Church, they know that that church is gonna open its doors for the community.
Kip:We're notoriously rural and we know that, and I shouldn't say notoriously, but you know, predominantly rule in a lot of cases and we have a lot of churches that are small and we have a lot of people who are not moving into those areas. I think Presbyteries need to step up and figure out ways that we can help those churches be who they're called to be. And, I don't know what that is. I don't know who that is, but I do think that those churches need some help as well and I think we need to work together instead of putting each other down. I know there are a lot of churches in Nashville and I don't think any of us are guilty of that but I've been to places where somebody goes, Well, you don't wanna go over there.
Kip:If you go over there, this is what you're gonna face. The good thing, and see, here's the other thing. The good thing about the churches in Nashville is we're so diverse. You could become a Presbyterian and go to one church in Nashville and the style of worship is very contemporary. If you come to Brent Haven, it's more traditional style of worship.
Kip:If you go to another church, it's kind of a hybrid kind of thing. So the diversity I think there's there's an advantage to being that diverse. I don't think we all have to look the same. I don't think we need to smell the same.
T.J.:Yeah. I I like asking that question because it's looking forward. You know? Right. And instead of it's it's easy for us, especially in last year and a half, two years, to find things that are wrong.
T.J.:And I like the question because it's it's looking for where where do we want to be? What do we want to strive for so that we're not stuck in finding things that are wrong. That that's easy. But it change changes our posture, and it changes our personality individually, and I think as an entire group. So that's why I like asking of that looking forward of where we could be, where we're heading.
Kip:Well, interesting you asked that because in this congregation in particular, November, we will make our last payment on our $1,560,000 note. Alright? And so, everybody's going, What's next? What's next? And I said, Okay, I'll tell you what I wanna do next.
Kip:I wanna do a family life center over there on that side. And everybody's on board with it, they've known I've been talking about this for a long time, But, I wanna do a family life center, but in that family life center, what I'm envisioning is, and I've talked to somebody about it, haven't talked to everybody who would be involved, but have a room, and this is actually something that St. Luke does here in town, which I thought was wonderful, Have a room that if a group wants to meet at the church and that room is open, the Brentwood Community Room, you want to have a meeting and you need a place to meet, if that room's open on that day, here's a key. There's a bathroom in there, it's self contained with an air conditioner and all that. You don't have go to any other part of the church, it's all right there.
Kip:You don't have to go through session approval, you just hand them a key and say, Here it is, you're there Tuesday from four to five. On the other side of this area of what I want is to work with, we don't need to start a new food pantry here, we don't need to start a new clothing drive here, we have Graceworks here in town, but if we could partner with Graceworks and say, Okay, we got a satellite of Graceworks here, local in the church, we're not reinventing, we're working with ministries that are already vitally important in this community. And then say two, three times a week, We are Graceworks satellite campus open so that they can come in and get food and clothing or whatever. So, we're not having to reinvent the wheel, we're taking the wheel and just incorporating the rest of the car with it.
Kip:Right,
T.J.:We
Kip:want to do ministry. And then, of course, I do want a gymnasium but I want a facility where, if some of those mission groups, youth mission groups, will go into big cities and they'll bring folks in. Well, I want to be a place that if a mission group comes in, that we've got showers and beds and they can sleep down here. So, I just want us to be a place where ministry happens. Yeah.
Kip:And I think that's one of the things we need to do is we, as the Common Frustrating Church, need to be a place where ministry happens. Had And
T.J.:it sounds like it's more of a community center than a family life Yeah.
Kip:Well, that's the way I envisioned it. That's way I envisioned You know, we've had a homeless ministry that was started through this church, Sacred Sparks, who Lisa Cook spoke at the women's convention and when she was bringing, we'd take the bus out and we'd bring 30 people here and they'd stay in the fellowship hall. We're not doing that as much because some of those downtown have opened up and allowed those groups because we were doing couples and we were allowing those with pets to come in. Man, people miss that so bad because we're not able to do that. We're not doing that much as we once were.
Kip:I mean, they love getting in there and using their hands and being a present for people and I'll never forget that first time I brought some of those folks down and I'm driving that big old bus and I've got people in the back and it got real quiet and they're looking around and one of them goes, all right folks, y'all better be careful, we in the hood now. It broke up that whole bus. I've never laughed so hard in my life, I thought, oh my gosh, Here are these people who who live in in the homeless community in Nashville. We're out here in Brentwood with green trees. There's a golf course across the street.
Kip:We're the hood now. Y'all need to be careful. So
T.J.:Well, Kip, with all of these adventures that you have shared and your vision, how can we continue to follow you on your faith journey?
Kip:Well, predominantly on Facebook, the Brent Haven page. I have probably other things as well. I've done some other things, Instagram and that kind of stuff, but I don't really keep up with it that much. Predominantly with the Brent Haven church page.
T.J.:Okay.
Kip:Everything is on there. I do post every once in a while, especially on Facebook, but we're trying to increase our presence on social media a little bit and so through Instagram and some things like that but, really, that's the place. That seems to be the place.
T.J.:Alright. Well, Kip, thank you for sharing your time with me today. We've been trying to do this for a while and finally got you, and I enjoyed it. Enjoyed it very much.
Kip:I did too, TJ. Appreciate it, man.
T.J.:And thank you for listening to today's podcast. Grab a friend and travel with us on our next journey down Cumberland Road.
