Beyond “Diet Jesus”: Rediscovering the Real Christ in a Practical World | Elliott Cherry
Elliott Cherry, pastor of Midtown Fellowship in Nashville, joins the conversation to explore what it means to follow the real Jesus in a culture that often prefers a convenient, life-hack version of faith. Drawing from his experience leading a diverse, “purple” church in the heart of a rapidly changing city, Elliott unpacks the tension between cultural Christianity and true discipleship, the challenge of navigating faith in a polarized world, and the opportunity to reintroduce people to the authentic, transformative Jesus many have misunderstood or left behind. From stories of redemption to reflections on leadership, this episode invites pastors and leaders to move beyond being right and instead lead people toward a deeper, kingdom-centered way of living.
Related Links
-
ECN - Elliot Cherry
Mike Glenn: You stand up every Sunday and say, this is word of God, the congregation goes, eh.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah,
Mike Glenn: yeah. Maybe.
Elliott Cherry: I'm not sure yet.
Mike Glenn: Yeah, exactly.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Glenn: I've heard eight truth claims on the way in this morning.
Elliott Cherry: Yes.
Mike Glenn: And I'm balancing all of that with what you just said. And
Elliott Cherry: yes, someone said, this week I was in a pastor's retreat that I do once a year with some Presbyterian guys from all over the country, and they. He said, I think our people are, they believe in diet Jesus with life hacks. Yeah. Like as long as Jesus can help me maximize my life, yeah.
I'm great with him, but I don't need the full Jesus or what he calls me to. I. If he's not making my life feel good, then I'm not really sure
Mike Glenn: if he becomes inconvenient.
Elliott Cherry: The moment that happens,
Mike Glenn: yeah. Then I'm out. I'm going to rethink it.
Elliott Cherry: Yes.
Mike Glenn: It's all about making my life work. It's all about very practical.
Elliott Cherry: Right.
Mike Glenn: Americans have always been very practical.
Elliott Cherry: Mm-hmm.
Mike Glenn: Most of our [00:01:00] inventions aren't that we invented something, we made something that made something else better.
Elliott Cherry: There we go. Yeah.
So as long as Jesus can do that, as long as he make my life better, I'm in. Yeah. And like a Haitian pastor or a Haitian farmer would like not even know what to do with.
That way of thinking about Jesus.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: They'd be like, I have to have Jesus to live.
Mike Glenn: Right?
Elliott Cherry: Yeah.
Mike Glenn: And the first entry church would've just,
Elliott Cherry: right. What are you talking about?
Mike Glenn: That, that you, you'll think about what the Lord ask you to do. You, you know? Excuse me.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah, it's true.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: We're not recording yet, but.
I kind of wanna interview you on some of that 'cause how, how much would you say, how much did that dynamic of the American church shift change, morph grow in your life of a, of being a senior pastor?
Mike Glenn: Oh, well, you see it went from
expository preaching.
Elliott Cherry: Mm-hmm.
Mike Glenn: Which everybody was an [00:02:00] expository when I was little. Right. You open the Bible,
Elliott Cherry: right? We're gonna walk through,
Mike Glenn: right? We're gonna walk through the book. Right. Are we gonna do the parables? Right? But there was always a link of, right?
Elliott Cherry: Yep.
Mike Glenn: Of biblical. We're going to, here's the text, here's the text.
Let's
Elliott Cherry: talk about
Mike Glenn: the text. Let's talk about the text.
Elliott Cherry: Right.
Mike Glenn: Then we had the megachurch pastors come on the scene Schuler and all of that. Yeah. And Schuler was famous for saying, you can't grow a church talking about theology. Okay. That was, that was one of his texts.
Elliott Cherry: Right.
Mike Glenn: So you had those kind of folks, Uhhuh, who were, who would say that the need for preaching now is to be very practical.
Elliott Cherry: Yep.
Mike Glenn: Fick was the patron saint of that.
Elliott Cherry: Interesting.
Mike Glenn: And that he would walk around with a notebook in his pocket,
Elliott Cherry: Uhhuh.
Mike Glenn: Whatever he, his people talked about that week,
Elliott Cherry: I gotta preach to that thing,
Mike Glenn: that that's what he would preach. Uhhuh. So his sermons were always in response to that congregation.
Elliott Cherry: Right.
Mike Glenn: There's some validity to that. Sure. I mean, any, [00:03:00] anything taken to any extreme Right, right. Falls, falls apart. Uh, but his ability and his emphasis on listening to your conversation. Of with your people.
Elliott Cherry: Right.
Mike Glenn: Because you know, to be an effective preacher, it's not only the ex of Jesus, of the text, it's the ex of Jesus of your congregation.
A
Elliott Cherry: hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yep.
Mike Glenn: And the good sermon and the good Preacher Brings, does both brings those two moments together, Uhhuh and in a way that that is transferred. To life change?
Elliott Cherry: Yes.
Mike Glenn: For your
Elliott Cherry: folks. But did you watch your people over the, how many years? You remember about was 30?
Mike Glenn: Yeah, I was 32 years.
Elliott Cherry: 32
Mike Glenn: Baptist.
Elliott Cherry: So in 30 years, did the dynamic of what people came in wanting to hear more and more of change?
Mike Glenn: Yes.
Elliott Cherry: Interesting.
Mike Glenn: Social media changed all that.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah.
Mike Glenn: Social media changed all that. Yeah. Here's what everybody else is talking about.
Elliott Cherry: So why aren't you talking about
Mike Glenn: it?
And you've had three tweets, but everybody else is talking about this.
Elliott Cherry: Right,
Mike Glenn: and then the more polarized, it became
Elliott Cherry: uhhuh,
Mike Glenn: then the more that you were you know, I got yelled [00:04:00] at. This is somewhat of an exaggeration, but not quite. It wasn't exactly on the same day, but it was certain the same week I got yelled at because I didn't endorse Trump as a president.
Uhhuh and I didn't endorse anything, anybody.
Elliott Cherry: Right, right.
Mike Glenn: Uhhuh. Right. That was not
Elliott Cherry: right.
Mike Glenn: My thing is God has made Jesus king. Right. That's what you need to hear. A hundred percent. The rest of it's irrelevant.
Elliott Cherry: You're Presbyterian.
Mike Glenn: Look at that. So, so with that but I got mad. Some people got mad at me.
'Cause I didn't endorse Trump. And then I, somebody got mad at me because I should have denounced him.
Elliott Cherry: Totally.
Mike Glenn: That he was, he was flying the Christian flag and he wasn't Christian.
According to, to them.
Elliott Cherry: Both sides are
Mike Glenn: mad, mad
Elliott Cherry: at
Mike Glenn: me, and it's right down the middle now.
50 50. Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: we're a very purple church, blue and red. Mm-hmm. We're down the middle. Uh, same thing. We, we don't, we didn't endorse a candidate. We had people that were mad that we didn't and people that would've been offended. Yeah. Had we, you know, same thing. What that is, what I'm curious about is, is, and we, we talk about Jesus the [00:05:00] king, that should affect all of your life.
Right. Politics and school choices and how you spend your money and all that stuff. But what I have wondered if we've missed, and I, I don't know that I've know, I know how to do this well. But is, I don't wanna talk about politics or endorsing candidates, none of that. I'm glad we have a purple church. But I do think our people are wondering how does the kingdom and the gospel and Jesus shape how I talk about those things when I talk about them.
At the water cooler and right on family vacations and with my neighbors. So it's fine that you're not, that you're playing Switzerland a little bit.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: From the pulpit, but will you help me know how to talk about it when my coworker brings it up?
And I don't know that I've done a good job of that, or we at our church have done a good job of that.
'cause I do want to equip them without pledging their allegiance to a flag.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Elliott Cherry: You know? Mm-hmm. Or a side.
So talk about that. How do you how
Mike Glenn: in 25 words a list?
Elliott Cherry: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. [00:06:00] It's tweetable
Mike Glenn: the uh,
Elliott Cherry: right.
Mike Glenn: The whole thing is how do you live under the Lordship of Christ?
Elliott Cherry: Yes.
Mike Glenn: And everything, you know, I used to laugh because couples would come to me and go, Hey, we wanna get married. I want you to do the ceremony. And I'd sit down with them I'd go, okay, tell me where you were when Jesus gave you permission to take this relationship to the next level.
Okay. You would have thought I was speaking a foreign language.
Right,
Which, what I, what. What's Jesus? Whoa, whoa, whoa.
You both belong to Jesus, right? You can't do anything without his permission.
Elliott Cherry: Right?
Mike Glenn: Much less get married,
Elliott Cherry: right?
Mike Glenn: Because we believe in the Christian tradition that the marriage celebrates the whole gospel,
Elliott Cherry: right?
Mike Glenn: And is living evidence of the kingdom.
So tell me where you were when Jesus said this is my will for you.
Elliott Cherry: This is what I'm asking you to do. Follow
Mike Glenn: me. Yeah. Yeah. Follow me and
Elliott Cherry: obey me here and marry this person.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: And they would've thought,
Mike Glenn: But I love her one. You [00:07:00] don't know what love is, right? And nobody does at that age in a moment.
Right. But so it, it's, everything's under the lordship of Christ and everything is out of love of neighbor.
Okay, so here's,
Elliott Cherry: I think someone talked about the greatest commandment
Mike Glenn: one time. I think, you know, think there was, and Jesus just gave us a handful 'cause he knew we couldn't remember anymore.
But what happens in a situation, tell me what to say. At the, at the water cooler usually gets translated here in Middle Tennessee anyway to tell me how I can be right at the water cooler.
Elliott Cherry: Totally right.
Mike Glenn: Okay.
It's not about being right. It's about being loving and it's about being righteous.
Not right. That's so
Elliott Cherry: good.
Mike Glenn: Uh, you know, you can, you know,
Elliott Cherry: dang, Mike
Mike Glenn: Christianity's like math. You can get the right answer, but if you do it the wrong way you lose all points.
Elliott Cherry: Right? Totally.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah. And now if it's about loving under the Lordship of Christ, loving God and loving neighbor, [00:08:00] being right's. Not even. What are we even talking about? That's right. Yeah. That's not even, that's
Mike Glenn: right.
Elliott Cherry: It's not even in the same category of what we're talking
Mike Glenn: about.
It's not, it's not, it is not relevant to what we're talking about.
Elliott Cherry: I was in Scotland last fall speaking at a thing
Mike Glenn: as a Good Presbyterian,
Elliott Cherry: as a, that's right, that's right. John Knox. And, uh, it was great, but it was the weekend of the presidential election here last fall. It was last early November.
Mm-hmm. And so it was global news when Trump won. But some of the pastors over there were asking me, you know, what do I think about that? And I was talking about it and how will that affect your church and blah, blah, blah. We were talking about it and I asked them, I said, so, and there were some pastors there from all over Europe.
It was a Europe church planter gathering, but it was in Edinburgh and there was a lot of Scottish people there. And they were like, we don't even, we don't even have a category for talking about politics from the pulpit. Like, it doesn't, right. It doesn't happen here.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Elliott Cherry: Some of that's 'cause you're like.
Two party system. It, it creates divisions. We've got a five party system, [00:09:00] there's five candidates all over the place. Mm-hmm. So it's not evident what the church is choosing, but to talk about a political candidate and the gospel would be like talking about your favorite cheeseburger in the gospel.
Right. It's like, this doesn't even,
Mike Glenn: right. It's not a thing.
Elliott Cherry: It's not a thing.
Mike Glenn: We, we are unique in that our people our congregations get a say.
Elliott Cherry: Yes, that's true.
Mike Glenn: And their vote is counted and it does matter. And not only in presidential elections, but mayors and governors and Right. People who make decisions, city council
Elliott Cherry: members,
Mike Glenn: and Right on how we actually live.
Right. And it's important that this person get on the city council. Right. The health of our schools. Right,
Elliott Cherry: right.
Mike Glenn: And, and that kind of stuff. So you do have to come. Some kind of, as Jesus says, wise is as a serpent, generalism, dove. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. There's a way to live in the world,
Elliott Cherry: right. Uhhuh
Mike Glenn: as a believer.
Elliott Cherry: Yes.
Mike Glenn: Without putting ultimate stakes on everything.
Elliott Cherry: Right.
Mike Glenn: If Trump gets elected, the country's [00:10:00] going to hell. If Trump doesn't get elected, the country's going to hell.
Elliott Cherry: Right?
Mike Glenn: Probably not. You know, we, we've had these moments before and, you know, and somebody used to call me, you know, the.
For the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah.
Mike Glenn: Tragic. As it was. People came to me and said, well, this is gonna be a turning point,
Elliott Cherry: right?
Mike Glenn: I said, well, you know, this is about my sixth turning point.
Okay.
Elliott Cherry: It's so true.
Mike Glenn: It turned, it, it when Russia put a satellite in space. That was a turning point,
Elliott Cherry: right?
Mike Glenn: When John F. Kennedy was killed. Uhhuh, turning point. Martin Luther King.
Elliott Cherry: Right?
Mike Glenn: Same thing.
Elliott Cherry: Turning
Mike Glenn: right, another turning point.
Elliott Cherry: Right?
Mike Glenn: The advent of the phone,
Elliott Cherry: right.
Mike Glenn: Turning point,
Elliott Cherry: right.
Mike Glenn: Everything. We've, we've had a lot. We've turned around several times
Elliott Cherry: and I think Jesus Kingdom is still here.
Mike Glenn: Still here.
Elliott Cherry: Still here. His
Mike Glenn: church still
Elliott Cherry: ring.
Mike Glenn: Bill you I was reading the Psalms in my in my own personal study. It said the foundations of the earth are fixed.
Elliott Cherry: Ooh.
Mike Glenn: Just that one sentence.
Elliott Cherry: The cement's not wet.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. No, [00:11:00] on It's done.
Elliott Cherry: Right?
Mike Glenn: It's done right. And you can dance, but you're not moving it.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah. I mean, the Charlie Kirk thing was interesting. We didn't, I heard a lot of chatter. Mm-hmm. From around my pastor, friends, people checking on me and, and we didn't, again, I think because we're pretty. Purple. Yeah. We didn't have much of that. And I, I did, I mentioned the political assassination of that week.
Right. I didn't talk about his name. We didn't do a special prayer service for him or anything like that, but it, it was awful. It was, it was a horrible death and a public massacre for people in our context, like the Covenant School. We got a lot of Covenant school members, like our people were shaken up just from the, like, public killing of it, the trauma, the trauma of it.
But what I. The sermon that day, providentially, if you will, if you believe in that kind of stuff. We were starting series on Hebrews and opening verse of Hebrews is all about the supremacy of Jesus and how he is seated at the right hand of the father. Mm-hmm. So it's all about the kingship of Jesus.
Mm-hmm. You know where he's [00:12:00] seated right now. Do you know what he's doing right now? Mm-hmm. He's sustaining the universe.
Mike Glenn: That's right. Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: And so the one email I got. Was asking me why I didn't say more.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
Elliott Cherry: And I really wish you would've talked about it more. And it was like, don't you know that's what the whole sermon was actually about.
Right. Like that, regardless of the chaos of the world, Jesus is on the Throne Foundation. Six. I
Mike Glenn: walk in with my pain.
Elliott Cherry: Right.
Mike Glenn: My need.
Elliott Cherry: Right.
Mike Glenn: And that's, that's all I brought into that. At that moment?
Elliott Cherry: Yes. A hundred percent.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: A hundred percent. Yeah.
Mike Glenn: So how long have you been at
Elliott Cherry: Midtown? Midtown? 12 South? Yeah.
Midtown 12. South Midtown is a network of sister churches in the city. There's six of them. I'm,
Mike Glenn: there's six expressions of Midtown.
Elliott Cherry: Yes. Not two dissimilar from Brentwood Baptist in the, but
Mike Glenn: the campus
Elliott Cherry: model. The campus model where when you're at one of the Midtowns, you wouldn't necessarily know. It's a part of a.
Bigger network. Mm-hmm. Bigger sister network. We've got our own senior pastor. I've got my own elders. We've got our own everything. We don't pipe in [00:13:00] sermons, but at the end of the day, the network shares a vision, shares a lot of resources, shares some central stuff. That's helpful. That, so I'm the senior pastor of the 12 South location, which is kinda right behind Belmont.
Not too far from Vandy. We're about, a mile and a half from. City center, just south in a really, really interesting, real
Mike Glenn: cool area,
Elliott Cherry: dynamic part of town. All the great
Mike Glenn: restaurants.
Elliott Cherry: I know. It's, it's fun and we're right on the strip. And I, the Lord has had us in that location right before and as the area was becoming very popular.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Elliott Cherry: And so our little kind of outpost of the kingdom right there to get to preach the gospel, has been really a gift. Like, oh Lord, you put us here 'cause you wanted your gospel to go. So we, we have tons of college students, tons of young professionals, lots of young families, lots of empty nesters that move to 12 South.
'cause they raise their kids in the suburbs, they want 'em move to the city. Mm-hmm. You know, and their retirement or semi-retirement and lawyers, doctors, all of [00:14:00] it. So it's a really, and like the amount of people were very visible, which. Is a huge gift because people just kind of stumble into our church.
Like, how'd you find us? Well, I don't know. I was getting Jenny's ice cream, or I was eating Right, the tap room or, or burger up. And I just saw, I thought I just moved to town. I thought I'd come check it out. So, yeah, it's been, I, this is my, just finished my 10th year as a senior pastor. Just started my 11th year and it's been a ride.
Um, the Lord's done a lot there, so yeah, it's, it's been. It's been fun to watch what the Lord's done.
Mike Glenn: Why did the Midtown leadership de decide on that area? There were a lot of growing areas
Elliott Cherry: Yes.
Mike Glenn: When your church was started?
Elliott Cherry: Yep.
Mike Glenn: Why did they pinpoint that one?
Elliott Cherry: Some of it was not as strategic as it now appears.
But we can take the credit for it.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: Uh, some of it was at the time it was affordable space.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Elliott Cherry: Uh. There was one Midtown location downtown in Rocket Town. Mm-hmm. And it was like, well, hey, where's an area we can plant that's not still [00:15:00] kind of in the city, but not too far, but we can afford to put a church in.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Elliott Cherry: And we have some people already living there.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. That's laughable. Now when you talk about affordable.
Elliott Cherry: Right, right.
Mike Glenn: So on 12th Avenue,
Elliott Cherry: I honestly, at the time when it started we were sharing the church building with a, like a, it wasn't a homeless church, but it was a guy who. Had a really strong homeless ministry mm-hmm.
In the city. And that was where he would, he had evening services and we had morning services. We shared the space.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: It is not that anymore, but, um, a lot of, yeah. It now appears much more strategic than it was, but. Yeah, it's exploded or that
Mike Glenn: you were aware of?
Elliott Cherry: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you couldn't have been, yeah, you couldn't plan for it.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah. And there's a lot of churches in the country with that story. Like we didn't know what we were stumbling into, but we are now at the very crossroads. I don't know if we're at the crossroads of the city. I certainly know that the microcosm of 12 South. Represents the city.
Speaker: Yes.
Elliott Cherry: In the sense of all the, its development, its growth, it's the [00:16:00] who draws the density, all of that.
All that. Yeah. Very much Uhhuh. Yeah. Which is fun, and I love being at the center of it. So we've outgrown our space. We have four services we need to add on. We need to own our space. We've, we've put an offer in. I, I, I'm hopeful that, that we will be there long term. But what traditional church planting, church growth wisdom would've said, which is not bad, which is, well, let's go get a big giant sanctuary outside the city where we can grow and get all the parking and our elders.
And everybody's like, we believe the Lord's put us here. We don't wanna leave here. We can't afford it's wise
Mike Glenn: elders.
Elliott Cherry: Yes. Get some
Mike Glenn: wise elders.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah. Which is really sweet. So, and I love it too. And we, it's not wrong if we had gone to. Madison or something and
Mike Glenn: mm-hmm.
Elliott Cherry: Got in a big space to fill all the seats, but that's not what we're, we don't believe that's what the Lord has for us to do.
You
Mike Glenn: would've changed your demographics
Elliott Cherry: a hundred percent. Yeah.
Mike Glenn: You would've changed
Elliott Cherry: the,
Mike Glenn: the character in the essence of the church.
Elliott Cherry: So you've, I'm sure you've seen this, but the Operation Andrew Group that's doing the [00:17:00] state of Nashville. Right. What's the spiritual state of things in Nashville?
Nashville's higher per capita than any other city in the country. New York, la, Seattle, Dallas, everywhere. For the people that would identify this way, spiritual but not religious,
So we are kind of the epicenter of the deconstruction movement. People who have been disenchanted by Jesus. I had a history with Jesus.
I got burned, or I saw the church full of hypocrites or whatever. I'm out. And some of that is the artist town. It, it attracts that. But some of that too is people that are moving here from Chicago and Des Moines and New York and Birmingham and everywhere else. They feel like they have a home here with other people who are spiritual but not religious.
Like I may be interested in spiritual things
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: But don't put me in a religious box. Yeah. Don't tie me down with Jesus or anything like that.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: So we go,
Mike Glenn: but I love Jesus and respect Jesus.
Elliott Cherry: Yes.
Mike Glenn: And honor Jesus.
Elliott Cherry: Yes. But I don't really wanna be associated with his people or his church.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: And so what I, what we get a lot of [00:18:00] people that, and I really do feel a heart for this.
I would love. To rehan you with the real Jesus Mm. Not the Jesus that your parents told you about or the Jesus that you, you thought you knew. Mm-hmm. But let you down 'cause you suffered. Yeah. You know, like, let me,
Speaker: yeah.
Elliott Cherry: There's an old story 'cause pastors have to talk in metaphors. And I don't even remember where I got it, but this is not original.
I stole it from some book this guy in like suburban Ohio. Invented some kind of appliance. I think it was a toaster, and he invented a feature on it back in like the fifties or sixties. It was better than the, the standard toaster. Mm-hmm. From, Sears. And so he starts making this couple in his garage, his neighbors start going, man, that's the best toaster we've ever seen.
You gotta sell that. Well, it takes him time to get manufacturing down. So by the time he gets manufacturing down, some big boy GE or somebody has come in and ripped off his feature and then mass produced it and sent it all over the country. So he's late to the market. But they, the big company, mass produces kind of a flop.
They didn't make it the real way. Whatever [00:19:00] feature his was, and again, I need to go find the story, but to get the details right. So it sells, but then it flops. 'cause they'll go, oh, well that actually doesn't really work, right? So then when he finally gets production going and he gets to Phoenix with his sale, they go, oh, we already saw a toaster like that.
It doesn't work. And he goes, no, no, no, you didn't have the real thing. You had the
Mike Glenn: right,
Elliott Cherry: you had what everyone else tried to make. I made the real one. Uh, I want you to try the real toaster. Would you buy this toaster if it actually worked? Now again, the analogy falls apart, but there is a sense of, I wanna give people the real Jesus.
You've probably tell me the, Jesus, you're not interested anymore. because I'm probably not interested in that. Jesus either.
And the one you think, you know I want to, can I tell you about the real one? Let's open up this book here, and I wanna tell you about the real one.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. The last generation had a chaplain at Harvard and people would come and stick their head and go, I don't believe in God.
And he was come and sit down. I probably don't believe in that God either.
Elliott Cherry: Yes. See, I mean, that's exactly right. Right. Yeah. Tell me about the God you've rejected. 'cause I probably don't believe in that
Mike Glenn: one either. I don't believe in that one either.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah. [00:20:00]
Mike Glenn: So with that, we believe that, uh, that there's a reason Baskin Rames has 31 flavors of ice cream.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah.
Mike Glenn: And, uh, yeah. Not everybody likes Rocky Road.
Elliott Cherry: It's
Mike Glenn: okay. And what what Bacar Ramas has decided is we're gonna sell you ice cream uhhuh. And we, we, you walk outta here, you're gonna have some ice cream,
Elliott Cherry: right?
Mike Glenn: But we, we don't care what flavor it's
Elliott Cherry: right.
Mike Glenn: And by the way, you're not old enough, but let me give you the grandfather truth of Mascar Rama's ice cream.
Elliott Cherry: Okay?
Mike Glenn: Always get vanilla or butter pecan.
Always, always. Everybody knows what those tastes like.
Elliott Cherry: So I can That's true. That's
Mike Glenn: true. That's right. And your kids are not going to go, gimme a bite of that.
Okay. You, your whole Thank you Cream my bite. That's the kind of stuff you show up here for.
Elliott Cherry: That's right.
Mike Glenn: That's right. Right, that's right. So that,
Elliott Cherry: that's why I'm here. What's for that? That's, yeah. Thank you.
Mike Glenn: What is unique about Midtown?
Elliott Cherry: What's our flavor?
Mike Glenn: Midtown? Midtown Avenue South. Yeah, because you're, you're even different from
Elliott Cherry: the other Midtowns.
Mike Glenn: The other
Elliott Cherry: Midtowns. Yes, that's true. Yeah. Midtown 12 [00:21:00] South. That's a really great question. A shared value of all the Midtowns, which looks a little bit different in each place, but is, we, our worship band is not on stage. They're off to the side. You can't see them. Which was a value years ago that kind of got embedded, which is a lot of our musicians, a lot of people in this town are used to going to a rock show.
We don't want church to be a rock show. And a lot of our musicians that play on Sundays, they've been performing all week. We don't want them performing. We want them worshiping and leading our people in worship.
So we've got
Mike Glenn: difference between a musician and a worship leader.
Elliott Cherry: Right.
Mike Glenn: A lot of musicians in Nashville.
Elliott Cherry: Not a lot of worship leaders. That's exactly right. He's been in this town a long time. So one, one thing that people most comment on, or one of the things they comment on the most when they walk in is, is I was struck by how you did worship. It's not, there's no lights, there's no fog machines, there's no you don't really get the sense of.
Wow, this worship, incredible show. Which there's churches that feel that way, [00:22:00] that I know they're worshiping Jesus the same. Jesus too. But that's Rocky road and we're mint chocolate chip, you know, or whatever. That's one thing. I think that there's a, we're a pretty program, light church.
Mm-hmm. Meaning we focus on a couple things and we try to do those really well. We have men's ministries and women's ministries and we have small groups, but we have found a lot of people coming in really appreciative of, for lack of a better term, simple church. Yeah. It's,
Mike Glenn: you know, one of the things that we did at Brentwood is a long time ago we did a survey
Of all the times we asked people to come.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah.
Mike Glenn: And we found out we were the most anti-family organization in town.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah,
Mike Glenn: totally. That's because we wanted parents up here on Monday night. Right. We wanted students up here on Wednesday. Totally. We wanted children up here on three. You
Elliott Cherry: hate our
Mike Glenn: family. That's right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and the whole time I'm preaching parents, you have to disciple your children. Well when,
Elliott Cherry: yeah. That, and there's an element of that that we still have to be careful of. And I want, I want people to, [00:23:00] like you said, lordship of Jesus, like take Jesus seriously and following him. So if we're.
Doing something. I hope you come
Speaker: right.
Elliott Cherry: And we do stuff during the week every so often. But there is a reality of we want to give you the real Jesus in a simple way, a disarming way. I want you to leave here having been changed by him so that you go back out into your hospital or classroom or living room or boardroom, knowing you're a member of a different kingdom and how are you bringing that kingdom with you, where you go, you're not bringing Midtown with you.
Where you go, you're bringing Jesus. 'cause he's sent you there. So I think it's all of life is mission, is a, is another feature of our flavor. Maybe that you don't, in fact, we tell people all the time. I hope you give to this church. You should give to the local church tithe. I hope you give to lots of things in this city.
Don't give here and have us go give to those things. Mm-hmm. You go give to those things. Mm-hmm. So we're, we're pretty stripped down from a program standpoint, and I think people have appreciated that
Mike Glenn: anytime we, we talk with the church, [00:24:00] what we ask him is, tell me the God stories.
Elliott Cherry: Ooh,
Mike Glenn: tell me those stories where God showed up.
Elliott Cherry: Man,
Mike Glenn: uh, and, and to say, if you really want to understand this church, you have to understand this
Elliott Cherry: story. Golly, couple just popped into my mind. I, I would actually love, just personally to ponder that for a while. It's, it's like an ebenezer, like I need, it's good for God's people to remember. So I need to remember I mean, there's countless.
Marriages and conversions and things I've gotten to watch the Lord redeem and restore The one that comes to mind, the first one that came to mind, uh, we have a woman at our church who had started a ministry to human trafficking victims. Mm-hmm. Um, which usually ends up looking like prostitution in this, in this country and in this city.
Um. It's called NAHT, Nashville Anti-Human Trafficking, Mary Trap. She's wonderful. Uh, and this was about, this was 2018 ish. It was just kinda getting off the ground. She had done some work and [00:25:00] this is only a story the Lord could write. So she and her husband and her family had been coming and we were supporting her ministry, but they were kind of over off Dickerson Pike and mm-hmm.
Nolansville Avenue, Nolansville Pike, and where. The Murfreesboro Pike where some of this darkness takes place rescuing girls from bondage literally, that they couldn't get out of. It was advent season. We were preaching Advent that year
Mike Glenn: through Nashville is kind of strategic in the sex trafficking
Elliott Cherry: Yes.
Mike Glenn: Trait because of the interstates. Yes. And everything.
Elliott Cherry: And the high refugee immigration population here.
Mike Glenn: A lot. Lot of
Elliott Cherry: trafficking. It's a thoroughfare. Yes, a hundred percent. Um, so that advent season, we were preaching through. What we called the mothers of Jesus, uh, the women listed in Jesus' genealogy.
Mm-hmm. We were preaching their stories. And then how do they connect us to the Messiah at Christmas that day, uh, I was preaching on Rahab, who's a prostitute from Jericho and getting her into the gospel kingdom story. And then to Jesus, Mary, text [00:26:00] me. Mary Tr will text me that afternoon, says, Hey are you okay if I bring like a church fan full of prostitutes?
Ray of Ray rehabs? She didn't know what we were preaching on.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Elliott Cherry: She said, can I bring, can they come to the evening service tonight? Which is our most kind of disarming service. It's, it's, it's its own vibe and it's a lot of skeptics and seekers feel very comfortable that service anyway.
I said I would love it, and I hadn't connected what I was about to do with who was about to sit in front of me, but there were two rows of prostitutes sitting in front of me, and I got to talk about one of the mothers of Jesus as a prostitute. Do you realize,
Speaker: mm-hmm.
Elliott Cherry: How much Jesus loves prostitutes? Do you know who some of his ministry was to?
Why do you think Jesus had a heart for prostitutes? Like one of his great-grandmothers was one, and she got brought into the family.
And they all, the pastor line after that service was one I'll never forget getting to look at women who had been beaten up by the, by the industry and by the world, and tell them there's a Jesus that loves them [00:27:00] and.
We've got three or four of 'em that are now members of our church now. They've gotten clean and gotten off the streets and they got jobs and one was there on Sunday night and gave me a giant hug. And I, it's like that started about seven years ago though, that I'm like, I don't know if we're doing anything right.
I know if prostitutes are coming to faith, we're we got,
Mike Glenn: that's almost biblical.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah. That, that, that I feel, I feel like it, but there was enough going on. And you know this pastorally and I, I know the pastors, listen, this will get this. There are just seasons where you feel like, am I doing anything? Is anything mattering?
I don't even know if I'm fit to do this role.
Mike Glenn: Right?
Elliott Cherry: And the convergence of that sermon with that crowd and the state I was in was like the Lord saying, Hey. I see you.
So that feels like a God moment, not just for our church, but for me.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
Elliott Cherry: I needed it. So
Mike Glenn: what keeps you up at night?
Elliott Cherry: I've got five kids.
So literally five kids keep me up. Oh, five kids. Yeah. Five kids. I had two to 12. So they keep me up at night.
Mike Glenn: We know what causes that.
Elliott Cherry: That's my favorite part. [00:28:00] Um, yeah. Yeah, we've got, I've got great kids. If you're gonna have five, I would recommend mine. They're great, but there's many days where I feel like we've got four too many.
So, my kids literally keep me up at night. But I, I think on the pastor side or the, the state of, the state of the world side, I don't, like you said, the foundations of the world are set. Jesus said he will build his church. I, I'm not, gates of hell will not prevail. I'm not worried about Jesus in his church.
I do our church, the one that Lord's called. Me and our elders to lead. I do get, we're in a, we're in a building crisis right now. We're outta space. We need our space that I, I lose sleep over that. The anxiety of, Lord,
Mike Glenn: what, what a good problem to have.
Elliott Cherry: It is a great problem to have.
Mike Glenn: Thank you, Jesus. Yes.
It's going to give me a problem. Give me this one.
Elliott Cherry: That's You're right. Thank you. I needed that. I'll take that as a laughable rebuke. I need that.
Mike Glenn: No,
Elliott Cherry: I
Mike Glenn: mean,
Elliott Cherry: no, it's true.
Mike Glenn: You're going to have trouble.
Elliott Cherry: It's true.
Mike Glenn: You don't get to make that choice.
Elliott Cherry: That's true.
Mike Glenn: The Cho the problem you have is too many people,
Elliott Cherry: right?
Not enough space.
Mike Glenn: Not [00:29:00] enough space,
Elliott Cherry: right.
Mike Glenn: Not enough parking.
Elliott Cherry: But what I do with that is I can feel really insecure. I'm, I'm young. I don't feel young with five kids. I'm almost 40.
Mike Glenn: Oh.
Elliott Cherry: But I, I feel like in my youth, my in inadequacies as a pastor and a leader. I don't want our people to have to suffer because of that.
Like, have I not been a good enough leader to be able to lead us through these kinds of building crises or missional crises or where are we taking these people? And, and I might be a fine preacher and I'm, I'm an okay pastor, the team, we got a great team, but are, is the church gonna suffer because of my inadequacies, which is really, I could call that shame.
But shame is really pride's cloak. I'm only shameful 'cause I'm prideful, that I have higher expectations of myself than the Lord ha would say he's demanding of me. So, but that I can, I can be anxious about. [00:30:00] I don't know if I'm fit for this. And do I have the gifts and the, and the, the chops to lead a, a, a group of this size and a church of this size.
I can feel that way. Not always, but in a building crisis, I can
Mike Glenn: feel, you know, in, uh, in the early story of the church now, it's always, it's always tickled me that Luke knew Peter and John. He was their friend.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah.
Mike Glenn: Okay. And so he writes about them when they left the Sanhedrin.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah,
Mike Glenn: the Sanhedrin had. These were not well educated men, that was, they're not the sharpest knife in the drawer there, bud.
And this, this is their friend writing about 'em.
Elliott Cherry: And he put that in
Mike Glenn: and he put it in there.
Elliott Cherry: He put it in there, made sure the world would
Mike Glenn: not, he made, made sure the, yeah, Peter and John, we were just, we carried 'em along as long as we could, but so, uh, so that was
Elliott Cherry: really good.
Mike Glenn: It's really good. Yeah.
But, you know, I, I think all of us need to be. To be [00:31:00] reminded you know, you testified earlier and gave praise to God for your building
And for your location.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah.
Mike Glenn: And how you stumbled
Elliott Cherry: Yeah.
Mike Glenn: Into that.
Elliott Cherry: Yeah.
Mike Glenn: Don't be surprised if you keep stumbling into this great future.
Elliott Cherry: Amen to
Mike Glenn: that, that God has been waiting on your stuff, you know?
And it's your, that's really good Indian thing. Now you got too many people. We're gonna take some of that away. Yeah. I'm gonna take that away. So you know what me, you know,
Elliott Cherry: like, you should be a preacher, man. I don't know what you're doing. That's really good.
Mike Glenn: So
Elliott Cherry: yeah, like the insanity. I'm, I'm, I'm, this is hitting me right now as you say that, of like.
We didn't strategize for the state we're in, we were just faithful. So what makes us think that we have to strategize for the next phase?
Mike Glenn: You think? Maybe. Maybe we can get enough dots here. We can draw that line. This is Elliot Cherry. He is a good guy. And if you are in the Midtown 12th South area looking for a church home, let me recommend Midtown.
12 South and this pastor Elliot [00:32:00] Cherry, he's the real deal. Thank you Mike. And he'll do. He'll do you. So good. I'm Mike Glenn. This is Engaged Church Network. We thank you for joining us. Hit like and subscribe on your way out. That really helps us. Thanks for being with us.
