Paul Earheart-Brown - Extending The Chain Of God's Love
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 present for one another and extending the chain of love are two of the bonds that hold us together and serve as callings for the church. Reverend Paul Earhart Brown, minister at the First Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Olive Branch, Mississippi knows these bindings all too well as he began as senior minister at the church during the COVID-nineteen pandemic. Paul talks about early influences on his faith and growing into a radical dependence on the movement of the Spirit. Join Paul and I on this new journey on the Cumberland Road.
T.J.:Paul Earhart Brown, thank you for joining me on the podcast.
Paul:Thank you for having me, TJ.
T.J.:Tell me what you're up to tell me where you serve.
Paul:I am the pastor at first CP Church in Olive Branch, Mississippi, just over the state line from Memphis. So I live in Downtown Memphis serving Olive Branch. I first came here as the youth director about five and a half years ago, when I began seminary, and then was ordained here as the associate pastor and then was hired as the senior pastor this past July. So coming up on one year as the as the pastor. So it's been a quite a journey, but I'm very thankful for it and excited to see what the next steps are.
T.J.:So you're one of the few in the privilege that experienced a true first pastorate during the time of a pandemic.
Paul:Yeah, it was, it's been something I'm, I'll say I have I have friends who changed churches and took new jobs during the pandemic. That is unbelievable to me. I can't even comprehend that. I took a new role, but it was in a congregation that I've known for years and years. And so it and of course, we had an extended search after our previous pastor retired.
Paul:And so it's almost like my responsibility here at the church slowly kind of increased throughout that time until the by the time I was hired, I was effectively serving in that role already. And so it it has definitely been a change to try and get used to certain things, not to mention ministering in a pandemic. But I'm very thankful that what has not changed is the relationships with the people here at the church, which is the whole reason for ministry anyway, is just to love and to take care of people. And so they've been so good to me. And I'm thankful that they continue to give me the opportunity to try my best to be good to them.
T.J.:So what is one thing that you have learned in this first year of your pastorate during a time of pandemic? What's one takeaway?
Paul:I feel like there's I feel like you asked me what would normally be two questions, right? One is what's your first year takeaway? And the other is what's your pandemic takeaway? And so I don't really know how to combine those two. Well, yeah, I do.
Paul:Yeah, I do. You know, you you have this, you know, kind of mental understanding of what ministry is and what the role of the minister is, in theory, before you ever actually start doing the work, and then you do the work and then you realize how wrong you were. And for me, it was, I put so much value on I guess, the very visible presentable components of ministry, namely preaching and worship leading, and kind of getting out and being a face in the community and teaching Bible study and classes and Sunday school and things like that. And and the longer I've been in this role, but also the pandemic is like, you know, exacerbated this 100 times. You realize how little that truly matters.
Paul:And how what really matters is that you are there for your people. Right? All that all that people care about is that they can call you and pray or you're having an operation and they know that your pastor will be there or you know, which of course, then there's another wrinkle thrown in with the pandemic, some of the things that we're used to doing as ministers and caring for people, we can't do any, we can't go to the hospital right now, you know, it for a long time. Still, it's kind of iffy now, but like going into people's homes and just hanging out for an hour is, you know, kind of, at least difficult now. But the thing that I've learned most is, you know, the quality of your sermons or of, you know, the the hymns you choose on Sunday morning is nowhere near as if people can brush that stuff off.
Paul:The thing that is by far most important is that you're there and you're checking in and you're asking questions and you care about how their family's doing, and you know what's going on in their lives. And, and so I'm still in the process of learning how to effectively minister within that context.
T.J.:That's pretty profound. Because, you know, that discovery of all the things that you prepare for in ministry. And in the midst of ministry, you think this is the highest priority, then come to discover that it is not as high among the very people that we're called to serve as we as ministers to the word and the sacraments think that it is. Did you have a moment of epiphany when that discovery was brought to light for you? Was there particular time or did you just kind of think of it in retrospect?
Paul:Man, I'll I'll tell you. Well, and so the other thing is like, almost think that this illusion extends to laypeople to like the members of the church who are serving. If you would ask them, they would also say, they have to be a really good preacher, they have to pick the right songs on Sunday, they have to do a really good Bibles, because that's what all of us are conditioned to think the church is right. But in those moments, when it's their mother in the hospital, or their father who is dying, or, you know, they would also have this awakening and this realization that wow, this is what I have a pastor for, you know, this is the purpose of being a part of a community. My favorite thing, this is pre pandemic, my favorite thing in the world is when I go to visit somebody in the hospital.
Paul:And on my way in, bump into another church member who's also there to visit them in the hospital, right? Or I'm standing in a room and three more church members come into the room. Because again, that this this work of caring for each other, this isn't my job, it extends to the whole church, right? But that's, that's what people realize is that is why I'm a part of a church is because of the love that we receive. It's not about all these, you know, kind of performative things that we think is what it means to be a Christian and to be the church.
Paul:And if I if so, one moment that I'll think of, I'll shout out who gave me this advice was Stephen Shelton, who was he actually gave the charge at my ordination service. And he said, if you ask my mom, who her favorite pastor is, and she will tell you who it is, and she won't be able to remember a single word a single sermon that he preached a single anything that he did in worship, the way he did communion or way he did baptism, she won't remember any of that. But she'll say, he came to visit me when I had surgery. Or he came and prayed with me when somebody died. That's what's important.
Paul:So from the moment I was ordained, had I had this like idea introduced to me in theory. And then things start happening to people and somebody gets sick and someone has a stroke and someone has a heart attack and someone ends up on the transplant list. And you start to realize that your sermons are not what are sustaining people what are getting them from week to week, but your phone call is in a very different way, you know, in a really holy kind of way, right? The cards or letters that you write out and send through the mail are sustaining people in a way that your prayers and songs and sermons on Sunday morning aren't. And so that this crazy time of difficulty for everybody during the pandemic has has kind of had to bring that to the fore for all of us that it's it's being there for one another, that is really the purpose of being the church, right?
Paul:And then extending that blessing of why we're so thankful to everyone else to try and bring them into the fold as well. Is that that's the reason we're the church not so we can sing pretty songs and, and, you know, pray pretty prayers. But so it has been a an interesting learning curve in the ministry. I feel for all first time or young ministers who are trying to learn how to do this during a pandemic.
T.J.:Because you're living it.
Paul:I I am with you. I am I am sympathetic. Yeah.
T.J.:You're right. You know, these meaningful experiences with with God and with our faith that, you know, they come in in some unique places. You've mentioned some through the very people that you're serving with. So I would I'd like to flip that a bit and and ask you, can you recall a meaningful experience that that you've had with God? And that can be something that happened a long time ago or something very, recent.
Paul:Yeah. I am a product of the West Tennessee camping ministry that that is by far probably to even to right now my life, the most formative part of my faith and my theology and my call to ministry and all that was kind of formed there through church camp and retreats and stuff at Camp Clark Williamson and West Tennessee Presbytery. So I could give you a million moments from camp, you know, that's what they're for, right? These these mountaintop experiences where you can kind of experience an unfiltered version of God's presence apart from distractions and, you know, the context of our lives. But I'll never forget experiencing this call to ministry through my camping experiences.
Paul:I remember when I had this certain feeling that I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but it was vague enough that I didn't know what that was. I just knew that it was it would be in the church and it would be involved in some kind of church leadership. I didn't know what that was. And you ask friends and family and people who've known me and they'll say they knew that call long before I did. Which unfortunately, think is often the case for pastors and ministers.
Paul:But there's there's this one moment of that I that I'll never forget of Camp Clark Williamson. One summer we had the theme throughout of all the worship every night was to have a different like style, a different tradition of worship. So we had like, gospel and bluegrass one night, and we had kind of more liturgical Celtic spirituality worship one night, and then we had kind of, you know, all kinds of just these different styles of worship. And I'll never forget one night Corey Williams, God bless him up at Dyersburg back when he was in West or in a camping ministry in West Tennessee and he put together a little choir and they were singing a song and he was playing his guitar and had this look on his face. And then that choir hit that high note.
Paul:And and if you've ever felt it when the spirit just kind of makes you crumble, and you just kind of break down and lose everything. And I'll never forget that that moment and like what what I saw in that moment, I couldn't I couldn't even like sing or speak, I couldn't sing along with the song because it was so powerful. And throughout context of that week, all of a sudden, call starts forming. And that grows into college where I studied philosophy and a lot of theology and then into seminary, you know, halfway through my college career, I decided, yeah, this is probably the right thing to do. And I ended up going to seminary.
Paul:And then want to be called the youth ministry, which I still very much am called the youth ministry and still actively do youth ministry. And then how that call expands and grows from there to, you know, general parish ministry to even even the old folks as a as you say around here, but it so I don't know if there are any specific moments I could I could name. You know, recently, a moment I've seen, you know, God recently was our just this past Sunday was Pentecost, right? And there were three or four people present who have not come to church since the pandemic started. So you know, a year plus a year and two months, where people have have been forced to watch from home, some people who haven't, you know, aren't able to watch our services online and have had very little contact.
Paul:And to see them back in person this past Sunday on Pentecost, we're celebrating the falling of the Holy Spirit is that was a really special kind of moment. Lot of lot of tears were shed this past Sunday and it was a good thing.
T.J.:Yeah, what a celebration for the folks at the Olive Branch Church. Yeah. Those are those are some powerful, meaningful experiences with God. And I wanted to ask you, Paul, those meaningful experiences, what is it that keeps you just keep coming back to the Christian faith, identifying with it in spite of struggles of identifying and and receiving the call to ministry, just the struggles of life and relationships? There are many, many opportunities for each and every one of us to just pitch it aside and just do our own thing and not worry about the consequences or the damages it may do to our relationship with God, but also the people that are around us.
T.J.:So what is it that just keeps you coming back and going? This is the faith for me.
Paul:Man, that that's such a great, great question. And for me, it is I love that you said that and I've had this thought frequently. I think we all have right that that my faith doesn't need these institutions, right? My faith doesn't need the church. I have this strong relationship with God and with Jesus.
Paul:And that's good. And that'll transcend any church or denomination or you know, any any religion even, right? But the and so I love that your question is what keeps you coming back to the Christian faith. Because I think I would always come back to God, there's there's too much in my life that that has shown me the necessity of of the dependence that I have on God and God's love for me and Jesus. But it's interesting to hear the question about, you know, well then what keeps you coming back to the Christian faith and the Christian church?
Paul:And to me, the answer there is not God's love, but it's how incredible God's children have been at showing God's love to me. It's we I'm sick of hearing about how terrible people are man. Mean, I mean about how depraved and sinful and awful and rotten and worthless we are. I'm sick of it, man. And because it's not true.
Paul:And it is it is absolutely true that we are broken and simple and we can do horrible things. But the idea that any of us is incapable of being genuine reflections of the divine love that we're called to be is ridiculous to me. And, and the reason that I'm still not just a Christian, a part of the Christian church, but a Cumberland Presbyterian, is because I've seen genuine reflections of divine love of the face of God, of the image of God in all of us. I've seen those genuine reflections poured out for me through these broken vessels, through these people who have no business being so holy. And yet they are.
Paul:So stop telling me, you know, that we're just these broken, irredeemable messes, right? It's, are the vessels of God's love in the world and being able to receive and experience that through things like my, you know, 10 or 12 or 15 youth pastors I had, because I was involved in camping ministry from all over West Tennessee and all over the world, from my own youth pastor, Missy Rose, my own parents, my dad, who's a pastor, from my Sunday school teachers from, you know, people who I knew who I would only meet at General Assembly, you know, all these expressions of welcome and affirmation and divine love that I've experienced over my lifetime, have have built such a firm foundation in me of God's love, not in this kind of, you know, ethereal, you know, theoretical way, but in a very tangible human way, right? That this is what God's love manifested on earth is supposed to look like, you know, and that and I feel that from the church and from the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. And that's why I'm still here. And that's why I have no intention of ever leaving.
T.J.:Yeah, there's a there's an element, a huge element of grace that manifest itself, you know, from God through other from humans to humans that I have been the recipient of Yeah. Daily. Yep. And that for me is what keeps me part of this The the Christian faith is this grace is is there, and I can ignore it. I can push it away, but it's still going to remain there ready ready to be received.
T.J.:And, man, yeah, that that that love manifested through through other people and through grace, it's it's pretty amazing. Because in other places in the world, holy moly. Man. Yeah, you know, the grace is lacking.
Paul:Yes, absolutely. And in other institutions, you know, even in this country outside of the church, right? Other places where there isn't that understanding of grace and and this kind of unconditional love, right, like loving you for who you are, because because you and I are, you know, tied together in this thing called humanity, right? Because of this image of God that we bear together. And of course, we fall short of that all the time.
Paul:And of course, we don't always do the great job of offering that to everybody. We're really good at offering that to some people, you know, Jesus said, What good is it to you that you love those who love you? It's about loving everybody else too. We don't always get that. And obviously, the church has so far to go in that.
Paul:But the reason the church has lasted this long, I think about that all the time, right? How many other religions and gods and institutions have risen and fallen over the course of human history and this one remains. And I think it's because of the power that we have when we do latch on to this vision of the kingdom of God that Jesus came to proclaim, and what good we can do in the world. And we as the church are called to be the testament to that. And we have all experienced moments when we've fallen short and when we have not lived up to that.
Paul:And yet, we all have experienced moments of kingdom nearness, right where we realize, wow, it really is here, like Jesus said, the kingdom really has broken out among us, you know, and that's, that's what keeps bringing me back is the that that promise that I have experienced the love of God in this place, and that I have the opportunity and am called by God to, you know, continue to extend this chain of love, right, that that all comes from the love that God gives us we love because He first loved us. And now we have that opportunity to be that love in the world to extend that to so many others. And that, you know, that sense of calling and purpose, while also that sense of grounding of why, why do I still do this, right? It's so easy to get so nihilistic and, and, you know, start to doubt what you know, what the purpose of any of this is, right? And that grounding of love is what has always kept me there.
Paul:Always had those questions, but never to the point that, you know, I was cast off in any existential abyss, you know, the love of God is too real in my life. And I'm thankful for that every day. And all I can hope to do is bear witness to that, to the others who I'm called to, you know.
T.J.:So Paul, who are some folks that really extended that God's love to you and that and that grace to you that has a good and great impact on your faith journey?
Paul:Man, how much time you got? Don't know how many names I could. I'll start with obviously my parents. My dad is himself a Cumberland Presbyterian pastor Jay Earhart Brown. And his dad, Larois Brown was a Cumberland Presbyterian pastor out in Oklahoma for years.
Paul:So I'm a third generation CP minister. And then of course, my mom, who, though coming from a very different theological and you know, church background in the CP churches has absolutely shown me so much about what it means to be a person of faith and a person of grace and love and justice. My youth pastor from high school, Missy Rose has always been just a mentor to me. She is the most in tune with the spirit person I've ever met in my life, right in terms of understanding the subtle breezes and the subtle ways the spirit is moving among us and being so willing to throw herself at the movement of the spirit. And I've tried to emulate that my whole life.
Paul:Patrick Wilkerson, for those of you who know Patrick, shouts out to Patrick. He's a missionary in Columbia right now with his beautiful family. Patrick taught me how to do youth ministry. So to all my kids and families, I'm sorry, he's the one to blame. I was his intern at the Beaver Creek Church in Knoxville.
T.J.:Okay,
Paul:so many so many mentors, Jim Ratliff, who was the pastor here at Olive Branch before I was who when I was the youth director here. So we just incredible people of faith and strength and grace who have really shown me like I was talking about, you know, what what community means like what the kingdom means, what love in action looks like. Because of them, have this solid rock, this firm foundation that I that I'm thankful for.
T.J.:Paul, I've asked you some challenging questions. I've got I've got another one for you. Where Where do you see God working in in your life today?
Paul:It is a challenging one. The way I see God working in specifically my life, well, I'll take a moment to gush for a minute apart from the church. I recently got engaged, I'm getting married. And so I'm very thankful that God is working in my life through my beautiful, wonderful fiance, Katie. And I can't wait to see the things we do in the life we have and the family we have.
Paul:So I love her very, very much. I love you, baby.
T.J.:And And congratulations, by the way. How did the two of you meet? I didn't ask you before we started recording
Paul:recording. How'd
T.J.:you meet?
Paul:We met through an organization called the Mid South Great Banquet, which is a three day renewal weekend for it's an ecumenical kind of program that allows people to go on these retreats. It's a lot of fun. Met through the high school version of that called the awakening. We were both serving as adults leading high schoolers through this. And we've known each other for five or six years, and then kind of became good friends within a group of friends about two years ago and started dating a little over a year ago.
Paul:In February of twenty twenty. Yes, that was about a month before the world exploded. So dating during a pandemic is a lot of fun. But
T.J.:My goodness 2020 has brought a lot of change into your life.
Paul:Yes, yes. Yeah, I never you never really see it like we put it into perspective. But yeah, so so we spent the last year together trying to figure things out and decided to get married. And so I'm very thankful for that. So in my personal life, I'm very excited for where God is leading me in, you know, kind of tying me to another person in this kind of covenant relationship.
Paul:I'm super excited about that. And then, you know, my life in the life of the church, I talked about, you know, the things that I thought were important that aren't as important as I realized. I think what God is doing in me is helping me to become better at those things, you know, and another thing that I've struggled with that I'm sure many pastors or even just leaders at all, know, outside of the church can understand is I feel like the pandemic has kind of rendered many of my skills, the things I'm really good at useless, because I can't do those interpersonal things anymore. Right. So I've had to lean on and rely on things that don't come as natural to me that I'm, I don't enjoy as much, you know.
Paul:But I think that's all part of me learning to extend my skills in ministry so that I can be a more well rounded leader and minister to the people I'm called to. And so what God has been doing in my life professionally with the church is kind of forced me to lean on some of these things that I'm not good at. Forced me to become more comfortable things that I'm not comfortable with, you know, so that I can become a more effective leader and minister to my flock. And, and that's hard. And you know, obviously when things like this happen, you get really frustrated with God for putting in these places.
Paul:But but I have already begun to see the difference that it makes when I try to commit myself and devote myself to, you know, this changing understanding of what church is and of what leadership is and what ministry is and how, you know, we're all better off for it and my church is better off for it and my members are better off for it and I'm better off for it. And so, you know, trying to improve in these weaker areas of ministry has been really an important struggle for me.
T.J.:Yeah. It's interesting that we often think of our struggles in kind of like an isolated way, you know, where some of our weaknesses has been exposed through the pandemic vocationally. Mhmm. And really, the reality check is everyone else is experiencing the same thing as well. Exactly.
T.J.:Exactly. It's like, oh, okay. This is my opportunity with my neighbor and my friend and a stranger to be flexible together. Mhmm. There's no time to be rigid.
T.J.:We're gonna have to experiment. We're gonna have to try things out. Let go of the things that aren't working. And maybe find the icing on the cake, find enjoyment in doing so. Yeah.
T.J.:And and measuring out and trying these things, you know, and allowing curiosity to take place. It can be scary for those who, who aren't used to doing those things. But man, it's very freeing.
Paul:It is it is Yeah, it's scary, but exhilarating, right? The the idea that, that that it can kind of feel like we're falling. But that's, that's kind of what chasing the spirit of God is like, right? I mean, Jesus told us the wind, we know not where it comes from, or where it blows. So are those who follow the spirit of God, right?
Paul:It's kind of this this untetheredness, which can be really scary. And yet is exactly like you said, it's freeing and exhilarating. And when we realize that we can have this kind of full dependence, this radical dependence on the movement of the spirit, even with all the change in growth and, and difference that that brings that even in all of that, we are still tethered to, you know, the the spirit of God that that is such a joyful experience to realize that that we have never been abandoned and will not now. And that's so I'm so thankful for that.
T.J.:And we're tethered to one another. So that that that flexibility, and the fear that may come along with our anxiety that may come along with it is it's shared.
Paul:It is.
T.J.:As long as I'm willing to risk to share that with the person next to me, we will get through it together.
Paul:Absolutely. Amen.
T.J.:But yeah, it's the it's the admitting of, man, this is a really strange difficult time.
Paul:And once we get over that, then we can all kind of drop that guard and be like, okay, when we realize we're all just trying to do our best together, and that there's no roadmap for how to be the church in the global pandemic, you know, and then that's when we can take those steps toward exploring and experimenting kind of freely together. Right. That always in my experience yields, you know, good fruit.
T.J.:And I'm No more playing, no more acting, no more behaving in a certain way, but true authentic transparency.
Paul:That radical vulnerability. Yeah.
T.J.:Right. And it's raw, but it will deepen the relationship that we have with God and also the very people that we are worshiping next to.
Paul:Absolutely. Yeah.
T.J.:Yeah. But, man, it's hard. It's hard to to put yourself out there. You know? Because you know, you know, somebody's eyebrow is gonna be raised, and you're I'll catch it.
T.J.:Yep. Even with my thick eyeglasses, I'll that will be the one that I will see. I'll be like, oh, no, yeah, I shared too much.
Paul:Yeah, yeah. And there's always that threat. But no, that's, that's the joy of it, right? That that's the other thing is that by sharing and being so vulnerable with one another, even to the to a point of fault, that's what gives license for others to share themselves, right? That's that's what gives this permission structure to say, you know, you can, you can do this too, because I'm doing it.
Paul:That's another thing I've learned as pastor is one of the most, I think healing things I've ever done during worship was unintentional and that I broke down crying one Sunday because we had just lost two church members, right? We lost two church members to COVID in the span of about two weeks, or the same, I think it was the same week they both died. And it was terrible and overwhelming. And then we played Precious Lord, take my hand as this last song worship that Sunday and I just fell apart on camera, you can go look it up and find it now sometime earlier this year. And, and it was terrible.
Paul:And on the other side of that, so many church members reached out to me and said that was what helped me feel better about all this was to see my pastor broken down the way I felt. It's this permission structure, right? Like that it is okay to allow yourself to be radically vulnerable, to share our brokenness together. And when we do that, you know, Paul says in Galatians, bear one another's burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. And that's that's what it means to be a church and a community and a people of God.
Paul:And if we will ever experience that, we'll ever truly learn that it'll be through this pandemic. And so many of us have so far, and it's been life giving. I think
T.J.:that's hard. I think it's hard, especially for males to show that vulnerability of crying can be perceived as a weakness. That's a false narrative. But it's there. This is the one person that better hold it together so the rest of us can mourn.
Paul:Exactly. That's that's the perception. The one has to be wrong for everybody else instead of why can't we acknowledge that maybe we all need to not be okay together, right? Maybe we all need to fall apart and fall on each other. And that's what the church is and what it means to be, you know, what it means to be there for one another is to like, to share this suffering together, and not act like I'm in any way above or beyond it, because that's no way to make it through.
T.J.:Yeah, it would be very mechanical if we behaved in such a way that, you know, Wednesday during the pandemic was the same as a Wednesday not during the pandemic. Yeah.
Paul:Yeah. Exactly.
T.J.:Yeah. It would it would look wooden. Well, and it would look not authentic.
Paul:Exactly. Yeah.
T.J.:Yeah. Paul, we've been talking about your faith journey and and shared your calling and what's happening in your life today. Let's take a few moments and talk about the church And what are your hopes? What are your dreams for the Cumberland Presbyterian Church?
Paul:Man, my dreams for the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. I will say part of what I think we've talked about already about what has drawn me to the church and what keeps me in the church is this understanding that we are all here together for something bigger than any of us for reasons that are not entirely quantifiable. You know, the only way that I can describe it is because God has called me here. And so I look at the rest of our world. And I think the way that we can be profoundly countercultural in the in the mold of Jesus, the way that we can be in the world and not of the world is to be this environment, this community that does not rely on conformity of belief, or conformity of identity to determine membership, right?
Paul:That our identity is in our mix of identities. Right. But that that's that's it's not any one factor that determines why we're here. We're here because we want to be here and because we're called to be here. I think the CP Church has such an incredible opportunity to be this voice in the world to say the way that our world is right now, which is so tribalistic and so hyper partisan and so incredibly divided along all kinds of, you know, lines.
Paul:We have the opportunity to be the counterweight to that in the world and say, genuine healthy community is not dependent on whether you're, you know, on the left or the right or a registered Democrat or Republican, but depends on our commitment to one another as image bearers of God's image. And so what I would love to see my dream for the CP church is for us to be that beacon that that city on a hill that I think the church's message to the world has has always been even going back to the time of Jesus, the message has always been, it doesn't have to be this way. There's another way. And right now what our nation, The United States mean, where I live, of course, but even our world where we have so many other Cumberland Presbyterians, the message that is so desperately needed is there is another way. We don't have to live like this.
Paul:We don't have to continue to eat each other and destroy each other as again, sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ. And that's really hard to do. And we as the CP Church are struggling with that just like every other denomination who are trying to be the church in the world is really struggling with that. But that's my dream for the CP Church is to recognize that our unity does not come from as the the confession of faith says, right, any conformity of theology, or doctrinal belief, but our unity comes from the Jesus who calls us. And I think witnessing to that in the world would be so so edifying to the body of Christ, and to all of God's creation that desperately longs for for that kind of a kind of wholeness.
T.J.:Those are big dreams, big hope, big hopes for for the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. I I would say that we have that voice and that we have that witness. It's how are we going to offer it to the communities and to the world that we're a part of? What are the best ways that we can offer those and invite others to? And at the end of the day, that's all we have is that invitation Mhmm.
T.J.:For others to to be part of the covenant family. So Absolutely. We have it. We have those hands and feet. We have that voice.
T.J.:Let's just the challenge, I think, to go with your hope is to to let others know about it unashamedly, humorously, lovingly, caringly, silly, you know, mistakenly, all of those because we're going to do it. You just go ahead and accept it. I'm, you know, I'm going to stumble with my words, my actions, but do you still want to be part of this covenant family or not? Because we we take messy people. Look at me.
Paul:Yep. Look at me. Yeah.
T.J.:Well, I share your hope. I share your dream for the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. So, thanks for sharing that, Paul. Absolutely. So, for our listeners, how can we continue to follow you on your faith journey?
Paul:Well, think I present a unique opportunity for you to follow me in that you can see me live every single weekday morning on my Facebook page. We my church has a daily prayer meeting where we hang out for about a half hour every Monday through Friday at 10:00. So if you're wondering what I'm studying or what I'm thinking tune in on a random day and you might you'll probably find out my studies often bleed over into those prayer times.
T.J.:So how do we find that?
Paul:You can go to you find me on Facebook, add me on Facebook, Paul Earhart Brown or you can go follow our church page, which is First Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Olive Branch join the page, not the group. And so you can follow us there. You can follow our worship services that we stream and upload all the time. And and gosh, I don't even know how else you can follow me. Stay stay stay engaged with me on on socials.
Paul:Yeah. Facebook and Twitter, you'll see all of my NBA and college basketball fandom there.
T.J.:Okay. Alright. So we can get Paul and his theology and his vocation and then his sports picks and commentary as well.
Paul:Which which are really just as important. Right? I mean, go Tigers. Go Gurus.
T.J.:Paul, thank you for sharing. Congratulations. Early congratulations on your engagement and your survival of your upcoming first year of serving in this particular role at the Olive Branch Cumberland Presbyterian Church. And thank you just for for your faith journey inviting me into it.
Paul:I appreciate it very much. Thank you for having me on here. I love what you're doing and sharing the stories of CPs with the church and with the world. I really appreciate your work, TJ.
T.J.:All right. Thank you, Paul. And thank you for listening to today's podcast. Grab a friend and travel with us on our next journey down Cumberland Road.
