Introducing New Sojourn J-Town Campus Pastor Lisle Drury

Lisle, wife Kathy, boys Michael Brian, Joseph, Conlan, Daven

As we’ve mentioned at the J-Town Campus and in several communications to members, your pastors have been searching fervently for someone with the experience, skills, passion and gospel integrity necessary to be a full time staff Campus Pastor at Sojourn J-Town (as well as East and the future New Albany campus).

Those of you who attend Sojourn J-Town already know that we have found the man for you.  After preaching at J-Town and meeting extensively with Sojourn pastors, Lisle Drury has agreed to lead our mission at Sojourn’s newest campus.  Lisle has 15 years experience as Student Minister at LaGrange Baptist Church. He has done quite a bit of preaching there as well.  He leaves with the full blessing of LaGrange Baptist’s leadership, and the full approval of your pastors in the Sojourn Community.

Our Communications Director Bobby Gilles interviewed him for our short-form podcast, and photographers Chuck Heeke and Tom Branch photographed Lisle and his family at Jeffersontown’s Veteran’s Memorial Park.  We want so much for each of you to begin getting to know Lisle that we’ve provided a complete transcript of the interview, for those of you who would rather read than listen to the 10-minute audio interview.

We will have a member vote of affirmation at the December 1 Sojourn Members’ Meeting, and Lisle will be ready to begin leading Sojourn Gathered at J-Town on Sunday, December 5.

You can listen directly here, or download this new interview for free from our Inside Sojourn podcast at one of the links below.

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Lisle Drury Interview

B: This is Bobby Gilles with Inside Sojourn and I’m here today with Lisle Drury who is the brand new campus pastor at the J-Town campus, pending vote of affirmation at the next Member Meeting. Lisle, it’s great to meet you. I’ve heard a lot of great things from the Sojourn elders about you and I know they’re very excited about you coming on.

L: Yea, so are we. Nice to meet you too, Bobby.

B: I have to tell you, and Pastor Daniel insisted I ask this question: with a name like Lisle Drury, did you get picked on a lot in school? How did you deal with bullies?

L: Well, my name is kind of spelled weird, it’s got an “s” in it so I had a lot of people just call me “Leslie” and “Lisol” and “Lysol” and all kinds of crazy things. And then they eventually took “Drury” and made it into “Doo” and next thing I know I’m “Big Doo” so there’s all kinds of nicknames they’ve used with my name. But I’m not a big person so I didn’t really take bullying by beating people up, I just kind of ran away.

B: Well, it builds character I guess, having to deal with adversity early on.

L: That’s right. Exactly.

B: Speaking of childhood, when did you become a Christian?

L: I was seven when God saved me and a lot of that was from the influence of my mom and dad. I grew up in a fine Christian home. My dad was a music minister, so we traveled a lot as far as locations, different churches, stuff like that. So just through the influence of my mom and my dad speaking the gospel to me, I repented of my sins and put my faith and trust in Him at a young age.

B: And have you always grown up in a close family environment?

L: Yea, I would say that, definitely. My mom and dad stayed together and my dad just passed away when he was 63, a few years ago, of cancer so I’d say I’ve been blessed with a good family; I really have.

B: What kind of ministerial experience do you bring?

L: When I graduated college back in ‘91 I spent four years at a small church in Ohio as the part-time youth guy. So I was there for about four years, got married, and then entered seminary in the fall of ’95 and started at what was called DeHaven Baptist, which is now LaGrange Baptist. It evolved into a full-time position when I graduated. I started out as just a youth minister and eventually evolved into pastoring students and families, and evangelism/outreach also.

B: So you’ve been doing that about 15 years?

L: Yeah, 15 years. Actually I think 15 years this past Sunday. I think it was my anniversary Sunday or something, I don’t know.

B: Did that also include some preaching?

L: Yea, I would be the main guy that would preach when Pastor Tony was either or on vacation, or whatever. We also had a Wednesday night service for the youth. I would preach weekly at that. That’s where I really sensed the Lord gifting me and I was enjoying that part of my ministry. So, those are the opportunities I got to preach at LaGrange Baptist.

B: You mentioned that you got married back in ‘95; tell me about your family.

L: My wife’s name is Kathy; we’ve been married for 15 years. We have four boys: an 11 year-old, a 9 year-old, a 4 year-old and a 2-year old. So, a busy house, to say the least.

B: What kind of family rituals do you all do?

L: Obviously, we really value evenings so I try to make it a value in our family where I’m home most evenings to have supper with our kids and do bedtime together. Bedtime routine usually is baths, and we kind of divide and conquer. Sometimes I’ll take the smaller ones and we’ll read some books to them, we’ll read through the Jesus Story Bible or the big picture book, I forget the name of that one, that Graeme Goldsworthy wrote the forward to.

And then we’ll do the other two oldest. Right now we’re reading through the book of Isaiah because my wife’s in the BSF [Bible Study Fellowship] and they give little home studies so we’ll read portions of Isaiah and talk about it. That’s kind of our normal routine.

We try to do a consistent family night but sometimes in ministry that gets hard to do, to be real honest with you, and so we’re trying to re-amp that a little bit in our own lives and say, “We’ve got to pick a night and put this on our calendar. We’re not going to have people over; this is going to be a time where we spend with our kids.” So, that’s some of the little things we do at home.

B: Now with becoming the J-Town campus pastor, will you guys be moving?

L: Yes, definitely. We’ll keep our two oldest in school. One’s a sixth grader and the other’s a third grader. We want to keep them in school until May and so we’ll probably transition out there sometime in the spring, first of summer. That’s what our hearts would be, to get out there and live somewhere in the J-Town area, buy a house, and that kind of stuff. Right now, we’re investigating school situations, the public schools here in Jefferson County as well as private schools and all that kind of stuff, which is somewhat a little stressful but that’s all right; that’s to be expected.

B: What are you most looking forward to in the transition?

L: I’d say several things. Number one, I’m looking forward to preaching. I’m looking forward to having a consistent time where I have an opportunity to preach. Number two, really looking forward to getting to know you all, Sojourn.

I’ve just heard so much about you. I’ve read a lot about you. I’ve listened to messages and I’ve come to different conferences here so I’m really excited about getting to know this church and what goes on here, and the great reputation that you guys have. And I’m just a relational kind of guy so I’m looking forward to getting to know the people out there at J-Town.

B: Can you describe for me the greatest trial, or maybe crisis of faith, that you have had?

L: I would say, without a doubt, we had a little girl in between our four-year old and our nine-year old (Joseph is nine and Conlan is four). We had a little girl named Kay. She was born in May of 2004 and long story short, she just had some issues and eventually, five months later, she died of pneumonia.

It’s still hard. It’s not something that you ever leave. I remember reading somewhere, and I can’t remember where it was, your joy is different now that you’ve had a daughter and she’s passed away, you’re just never happy the same way that you may have been happy before.

Not that we’re walking around all somber and crying all the time but it’s just an interesting hole and issue that you have to deal within your own heart and in your own life. I mean, I could go on about the story but the Lord was just amazingly faithful during that time, we amazingly experienced the grace of God, and had a wonderful church community at LaGrange Baptist that was just unbelievable for us.

I could give you story upon story upon story of how people were so helpful and encouraging and even just opportunities where God in a tender way reminded us of his love for us. That would definitely be one that was just huge in our life and still is. She would have been six so it’s hard to sometimes see a little six year old in first grade class with black hair, to be honest with you. That would be the most difficult thing we’ve faced in our 15 years together.

B: I can’t imagine, as a parent myself, going through something like that so thanks for sharing that with us.

L: No problem.

B: How can we, as a church body, both the Sojourn J-Town members and also the church as a whole, East and Midtown campus, how can we be praying for you all?

L: I think number one, and this is not in any kind of order either, but just the transition. We took our kids — we did this a couple weeks ago because we were planning on telling the church on Sunday the 31^st — so on that Friday we decided to take all our boys to the J-Town campus and we thought “This will be an opportunity for us to tell them what we’re getting ready to do.”

When we told them, my oldest started crying and actually begged me not to take the position. That was hard. After that we were all bawling. But a minute later he snapped out of it and he’s the most excited now. So I just pray for that kind of transition, that as they get into new schools, as we get into a new home, that God would provide good friendships that they can connect with in our neighborhood that we live in as well as in the school. The transition of moving a family, our family, after being in a church for 15 years is pretty big.

So that definitely, and then this is kind of more personal and selfish, but the nature of the position I’m taking is new as far as the weight of it that I’ve never experienced. So there are some mornings I still get up with a big pit in my stomach, saying “Have I really done this? Is this the right thing?”

So just pray that the Lord would give me his sustaining grace, and his strength and just remind me that it’s really not about me at all; it’s really about Jesus. We want him to be famous, we want people to know Christ and that’s what it’s really about. Pray that I would just keep that the focus and plan.

B: I think you’ll find you’re joining a very supportive and loving community.

L: Yea, that’s what I’m hearing.

B: And I think it will be a great fit. Well thanks for stopping by, and come by any time. I’m sure we’ll interview you many times about different things. And I’m sure the members of Sojourn will love getting a chance to meet you and your family as well.

L: Yea, we are too. We’re looking forward to it. Thank you Bobby.