Sherry Cothran, former lead singer of Mercury Records rock band The Evinrudes, trades in the road for the robe. Now a lead pastor for a United Methodist congregation in Nashville, TN, Cothran still finds an outlet for music and songwriting. Featured in USAToday.
PRLog - May 6, 2014 - NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- by Bob Smietana, USAToday (read excerpt & link to full article on SherryCothran.com)
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Sherry Cothran Woolsey dreamed of being either a rock star or a missionary while growing up in west Tennessee.
She got close to the first dream in the late 1990s as lead singer of the Nashville-based The Evinrudes, a band that once opened for the Spin Doctors and the Goo Goo Dolls and had a hit with the song “Drive Me Home.”
Then the Evinrudes lost their contract with Mercury Records. The struggle of trying to make it in the music business took its toll and eventually her marriage and the band broke up.
“I just didn’t want that kind of life for myself,” Woolsey said.
Searching for her life’s calling led Woolsey to Vanderbilt University divinity school and eventually to the ministry. Today the Rev. Sherry Cothran Woolsey is pastor of West Nashvillle United Methodist Church. Along with her preaching, she has written and recorded a CD called “Sunland,” with songs about the wild women of the Bible.
She’s also working on a book about the same topic, looking at the lives of biblical women like Jael, who killed a Canaanite general with a tent peg, and Rahab, a prostitute who saved the lives of a pair of Jewish spies in the city of Jericho. Then there’s the unnamed woman from the Song of Solomon.
Woolsey said these characters show how God can work even in the lives of unconventional people.
“These women characters are playful and exotic and they do some pretty outlandish things,” she said.
For a former rock singer, Woolsey is a fairly traditional pastor. She wears a robe and stole during services, which feature organ music and hymns. That’s what her congregation is used to and it works for Woolsey, who says she’s not a big fan of contemporary Christian music.
When she was playing music, Woolsey stayed away from church. She was reluctant to bring her music into her ministry when she was named pastor in 2008. John H. Collett Jr., her district superintendent, said he encouraged her to bring all of her gifts, including her art, into the church. But at the time, she didn’t see how the two could fit together.
“I needed to learn how to be a pastor first,” she said.
That included spiritual tasks, like leading worship services and preaching sermons, but also the day-to-day concerns of raising funds for the budget and renovating the church building.
Her congregation is small, with about 100 members. Most services draw about 50 or 60 people. One the congregation’s strengths is community outreach, said church member Malinda Wilson, a longtime friend of Woolsey… | READ FULL ARTICLE on USAToday.com
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Ex-rock singer gives up stage for pulpit
May 06, 2014 at 09:12 AM EDT
