Jay Voorhees is a pastor, writer, and community activist located in Nashville, TN. Jay currently is the pastor of the City Road Chapel United Methodist Church in Madison, TN, and is engaged in helping to connect others to the example and teaching of Jesus Christ and to take seriously Christ’s call to love our neighbors in radical ways.
Jay is the co-founder of The MethoBlog, a site that aggregates the writings of Methodist-related bloggers throughout the world, and is the former managing editor of The United Methodist Reporter. Jay has been involved in the United Methodist Church at both the local and national level since 1988. Jay is also the owner of Only Wonder Media, a boutique book and media publisher.
This past Thursday night (January 17, 2019) I sat before a sub-committee of the Metro Nashville Council to be interviewed as a part of the discernment process for election to membership of our new Community Oversight Board, which will work with our police to make sure all are treated equally and with respect. We were […]
We sat around the table one night, the appointed leaders of the congregation that I served at the time, considering our future. Attendance had dropped from its high point in the 1950’s and while the rate of decline had flattened, we were faced with a church that was rapidly ceasing to be relevant to the […]
My friend Wes Magruder, pastor of the Kessler Park UMC in Dallas, shared some thoughts this week about how progressive United Methodist congregations might move forward in relation to the “Way Forward” decisions in the UMC. His thoughts were generally positive and worthy of thinking about, but one phrase in the post jumped out at […]
On April 4, 1968, I was probably watching The Flying Nun when the newscaster interrupted and told of Dr. King’s death. I was alone in our apartment as my mom had run downstairs to visit with a friend, and I remember the sense of fear and foreboding that came with that frantic announcement. That night, […]
God of all people, male and female, old and young, from all nations, races, and backgrounds, we come to you as a city that is broken. Trust has been eroded; lives have been disrupted; and we find ourselves wondering where we go from here. We ask that today represents a new day, a new season […]
The city of Nashville has a long legacy of city leaders gathering in back rooms to determine the future of their neighbors. From the Watauga Club downtown to the West Nashville Mafia gathered in a booth at Wendell Smiths to the sheriff and his friends talking in the lounge of an East Nashville funeral home, […]
I would see her walking down the street, using a red wheelchair as a walker . . . a pushcart filled with everything she owned. I would learn her name was Janice, and she’d been on the streets for a while. She was an elderly African American woman, who was full of herself. One day […]
Jerrell “Jerry” Voorhees passed on March 1, 2017 from complications of Alzheimer’s/Dementia. For many years Jerry was a fixture in the D.C. jazz scene, both listening and playing his beloved vibraphones with the Annapolis Jazz Trio. Jerry also spent a season in Nashville, playing regularly at the Sunday jams at Windows on the Cumberland, and performing […]
Dear President Elect Trump, The day has finally come and in just a few hours you will be standing on the steps of the Capitol, making your pledge to defend the Constitution of the United States. At that moment, a transition happens – from one president to another, from one vision of the nation to […]
Back in May of 2013, I jumped into a partnership with a couple of good friends to take on the task of continuing hundreds of years of tradition through The United Methodist Reporter. At the time we hoped that we could develop a business model that would allow for the addition of some part-time staff, […]
God of the ages, I don’t want to pray this prayer tonight. It’s not that I don’t want to be with you. I need to hear your voice. I need your comfort. I need to ask “Why?” And I have no problem praying for the wounded, the grieving, and all of us who have been […]
Everyday as I’m scrolling through my Facebook feed I see all sorts of shared posts about “The 10 Things The Church Needs to do to Survive” or “8 Ways That the Church is Missing the Mark” or countless other stories in the same ilk. I’m not surprised, and in fact I’ve been as guilty as anyone […]
Father Abraham had many sons Had many sons had Father Abraham I am one of them And so are you So let’s just praise the Lord Abraham, the father of three of the major streams of faith in the world, is known in scholarly circles as a patriarch. He was, as the dictionary defines that […]
I think most folks that follow me in any way know that this past July I assumed a new appointment as the lead pastor of a medium size church here in Nashville. In the course of orienting myself to the congregation (as well as letting folks get to know be better) I held 8 meetings […]
Last night, as is my usual practice, I headed over to the local “8:05 Group” of Alcoholic Anonymous for my weekly does of 12 Step education. For the record, just in case anyone is wondering, I don’t have the disease of alcoholism. I understand that God has allowed me the ability to have a beer […]
I confess that one of the things that has always eluded me is how Mother’s Day has become one of the high holy days in the life of the American church. Don’t get me wrong . . . I like mothers as much as the next guy. For sure, this year’s Mother’s Day was a […]
I think most of the world has seen my Facebook post from yesterday in which I announced that I am being appointed to serve as the Sr. Pastor of the City Road Chapel United Methodist Church in Madison, TN. In that statement, I acknowledged that I had thought at the beginning of the week that […]
Last week, my 14 year old and I headed over on Friday night to the local movie mall to catch the opening of Divergent (which, as fans of the books, we enjoyed). In the plethora of previews shown before that movie, we were surprised and excited to catch our first glimpse of Noah. It was clear from […]
Not long ago I sat in a worship service listening to another pastor exhort his congregation to service and carrying out the radical call of Christ to love our neighbors. I was sitting there silently cheering him on when all of the sudden he made the following comment: Now before anyone panics, understand that I’m […]
As most of my Facebook friends know by now, I’m currently in Los Angeles having helped my eldest drive from Nashville to establish a new home. Needing to recover from the drive and needing some time off, I chose to stay over a few extra days to enjoy the sunshine, connect with some old friends, […]
only wonder understands