A Note from the Trustees

After prayerful consideration, discussion, and reviewing the Senior Pastor Search Team report, the Trustees formally present to Brentwood Baptist Church, Jay Strother as candidate for Senior Pastor. We’re excited for you to get to know Jay over the next few weeks and hope that you take the time to review this material, attend an upcoming town hall, and most importantly, pray for this approaching decision for our church. We believe God is going to bless our church through this process. We’re excited about what God has next for us, and we hope you are too.

BRENTWOOD BAPTIST TRUSTEES
Joey Moss, Randy Overton, Kevin Drake, Mike Barnett, Leilani Boulware, Dale Clayton, Jeremy Johnson, Donna Keel, Matt Ragan, Tommy Sanders, Gene Torti, Mal Underwood

 

Senior Pastor Candidate Town Hall

Brentwood Baptist Church • 5:00 p.m. • April 23 • Worship Center

A Note from Our Search Team

The Senior Pastor Search Team has spent over six months earnestly and humbly seeking the Lord’s will for the next Senior Pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church. After much prayer and an extensive interview process, the team is confident the Lord has led us to Jay Strother, current Campus and Teaching Pastor at Station Hill. We are confident that Jay meets the Scriptural qualifications and has demonstrated alignment with Brentwood’s Mission and Vision through more than 20 years of ministry to our church and is best positioned to lead the church into the future. We have unanimously agreed that Jay Strother should be recommended to the Trustees as Senior Pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church.

SENIOR PASTOR SEARCH TEAM
Joey Moss, Randy Overton, Donna Keel, Jeff Kauppila, Buck Thompson, Alan Pulfrey, Betty Wiseman, Donna Taylor

View the Executive Summary

A Letter from Jay Strother


In the fall of 2001, Tanya and I moved to Middle Tennessee to serve Brentwood Baptist Church as part of the student ministry staff. We were deeply convicted that God was at work in and through our church and we wanted to be a part of what He was doing. Twenty-one years later, its amazing to look back at all He has done and its as exciting to look forward to all that He can do through a church fully committed to engaging the whole person with the whole gospel of Jesus Christ, anywhere, anytime, with anybody. I’m both humbled and honored to be the candidate for Senior Pastor at Brentwood Baptist Church.

The calling on my life is to preach and teach the Bible in order to equip leaders, families, and churches to live out the mission of the gospel for the glory of God. As a family, we have always lived in surrender to whatever assignment God would give us next. I’ve had five assignments within the Brentwood Baptist Church family over the past two decades that give me unique insight into what God is doing and where He is leading us next. In just the past twenty years, our church has multiplied into an entire movement of churches and congregations who share the same biblical convictions, leadership, and resources. We have over forty global worker units who serve as missionaries throughout the world and dozens of gospel partnerships getting the light into some of the spiritually darkest areas of our world and culture. We are currently on the front lines of deaf ministry, special needs ministry, and foster/adoption ministry, and more. I was blessed to come on staff at a time when I was able to serve alongside our first senior pastor, Bill Wilson, and I’ve been able to serve closely under our current senior pastor, Mike Glenn. We’ve been given by those before us a strong foundation on which to build into the future.

I believe the future belongs to churches that stand on the Word of God, depend on Him in prayer, boldly share the gospel, make disciples who multiply disciples, and who equip and empower the church to “live sent” (John 20:21). The future of the church belongs to those who minister to the whole person. This means we have much work ahead of us – engaging the “nones” (religiously unaffiliated); re-engaging the “dones” (the de-churched, many who checked out after Covid-19); highlighting intentional biblical unity; and utilizing the deep resources of the gospel to engage areas for which our culture has few answers – the crisis in mental health, education, foster care, political division, economic disparity, and more. Engaging these arenas will not be easy but it’s worth it because Jesus calls us to do hard things in hard places, beyond our human limits so that we’ll dependent on prayer (Mark 9:29) and the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8a). Only Jesus has what a broken world truly needs. From Middle Tennessee we’ll start, and we will not stop until we reach the ends of the earth (Matt. 24:14).

We eagerly anticipate what God has for us in the days ahead. I am profoundly humbled and grateful to have an opportunity to shepherd and steward the amazing body of believers known as Brentwood Baptist Church.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Jay Strother


Jay's Biography


Jay Strother oversees four campuses as the Lead Campus Pastor for the South Region of Brentwood Baptist (TN) Church. He also serves as the Campus and Teaching Pastor of one of those campuses, The Church at Station Hill, in Spring Hill, TN. He previously served as the Next Generation Minister developing a family-equipping model for the spiritual formation of preschoolers, children, and students.

He’s the author of Loving Well: Healthy Relationships (equippedchurch.es, 2016), a contributing author to Perspectives on Family Ministry (B&H, 2009), Trained in the Fear of God (Kregel, 2011), and an author of several small group and video resources. He is a regular speaker at conferences and a guest lecturer at seminaries. His favorite stories come from the adventures of life with his wife (Tanya), their four girls (Eliza, Lexi, Ella, and Skylar), and their son (Liam). In addition, Jay enjoys good books, long hikes, strong coffee, and St. Louis Cardinals baseball.









Key Events

Sunday, April 23
All Campuses During Regularly Scheduled Services • In View of Call Sermon from Jay Strother

Sunday, April 23
Brentwood Campus • 5:00 p.m. • Candidate Town Hall • Learn More

Monday, April 24
West Franklin Campus • 6:00 p.m. • Candidate Town Hall • Learn More

Tuesday, April 25
Avenue South Campus • 6:00 p.m. • Candidate Town Hall • Learn More

Wednesday, April 26
Station Hill Campus • 6:30 p.m. • Campus Town Hall

Thursday, April 27
Brentwood Campus • Senior Adult Meet & Greet


Voting

During regularly scheduled worship services on Sunday, April 30, and Sunday, May 7 current members of Brentwood Baptist Church and all campuses will have the opportunity to affirm or not affirm the vote for Jay to become the Senior Pastor.

All votes will be counted by a third party and will remain private.

Results will be presented on Sunday, May 14.