When Travis Cottrell stepped into Nashville, he probably didn't expect his journey to lead where it has. As a Christian Artist, Songwriter, and Arranger, Travis later added "Worship Pastor" to his resume at age 40. Travis's narrative is a soul-stirring blend of faith, music, and the magnetic pull of community that brought him to his current role at Brentwood Baptist Church. His reflections reveal more than just a career path—they offer a window into the life of a worship pastor that stretches far beyond the reach of the microphone.
Learn more about Travis at TravisCottrell.com
--
Learn more about the Modern Church Leader Podcast at ModernChurchLeader.com
--
Learn more about Tithely and how it can help you grow your church at Tithely.com
When Travis Cottrell stepped into Nashville, he probably didn't expect his journey to lead where it has. As a Christian Artist, Songwriter, and Arranger, Travis later added "Worship Pastor" to his resume at age 40. Travis's narrative is a soul-stirring blend of faith, music, and the magnetic pull of community that brought him to his current role at Brentwood Baptist Church. His reflections reveal more than just a career path—they offer a window into the life of a worship pastor that stretches far beyond the reach of the microphone.
Learn more about Travis at TravisCottrell.com
--
Learn more about the Modern Church Leader Podcast at ModernChurchLeader.com
--
Learn more about Tithely and how it can help you grow your church at Tithely.com
Hey guys, frank here with another episode of Modern Church Leader. Here with my new bud, travis Cottrell, coming all the way from Nashville, tennessee. Travis, great to have you on the show. Thanks, frank, nice to meet you. It's great to meet you too, man. It was fun catching up before this, learning that you've got ties to San Diego and I mean we've got ties to Nashville, with Caroline working out there and it's pretty cool. That's right. Next time you're in town you got to let me know and we'll hang.
Speaker 1:I will, and we'll we'll be there soon. You know, one of my most prized loved ones in all the earth is living in San Diego my daughter.
Speaker 2:So I pray for San Diego often.
Speaker 1:Amen, we need it we need it. Pray for the tax situation and all that kind of stuff. Oh my gosh. Yeah Well, I'm not praying that that gets better, because I don't want her to stay there. I'm just praying she's safe until she wises up and comes home.
Speaker 2:And if you don't, lots of people move to Nashville. I hear from California so I hear there's quite the influx.
Speaker 1:Listen, in our neighborhood, which is a newer neighborhood, we have a new street and there are, I mean, 40 houses maybe and there are like 30 people from California on the street.
Speaker 2:I've heard that story Another time. We have, uh, some other folks that uh are with you know work at tithely. They've been in nashville. They moved from la a few years back, um, but they literally said, like the community they live in, it's called, they call it something like related to california, because it's literally all people from california on their street, right, yeah, right kind of crazy.
Speaker 1:They're everywhere and they're like we're from cal, we're sorry and we're like it's fine, we're glad you're here, come on, come on in. The water's nice. You know it's good here in Tennessee.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Well, travis, tell us you are the worship pastor, lead worship pastor, at Brentwood Baptist, but you've been in worship ministry for a long time 30 plus years and you have quite the career there. So I'd love to hear a little bit about you and kind of how you got into ministry and to worship ministry and how you got to where you're at today.
Speaker 1:You know, I kind of just fell into ministry because I, you know, gosh, I haven't even thought about this in a long time. But I, when I was growing up, I, you know, I grew up and I got saved at an early age. My all my family knew the Lord, loved the Lord, and church was of high value to us. Community was of high value to us and I grew up so immersed in it, which obviously also has its downsides too. But for all the things that were good, that that were brought into my life, they were really good. Just the community, the, the importance of investing in something that's bigger than use, the importance of reaching out and serving, and so all of that stuff, it just I I was. I was so immersed in it I I never even considered ever doing anything else. Like the Lord, just like gave me, he gave me this right here, right, and I didn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't know, like in the in, now, inside that context, I never really knew exactly what I was going to do. Am I going to be a singer? Am I an artist? Am I going to lead worship, which, when I was growing up I'm a lot older than you, frank that wasn't even a thing, like there were only a handful of people living on the earth making a living leading worship, you know, just at the in the biggest of churches and the kind of weirdest of ways. Like it wasn't a thing where I was growing up.
Speaker 1:But I came, I went to school at Appalachian state university in my hometown in Boone, north Carolina, and I I transferred to Belmont university because I just felt like the Lord wanted me to come to national. I didn't have enough sense really to know everything that went on in national at the time I I knew there was a lot of Christian music there, but I didn't know what it meant for me. So that was the beginning of it and I spent the next you know, from the time I was 20 when I moved to the time I was 40, just making a living creating resources for the church, choir resources, praise team resources, and then traveling and leading worship for events and conferences and just doing a little bit of everything. It wasn't until I was 40 years old that I ever even worked at a church full time.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I love the church.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love the church. I had a heart for the church. I was living to resource the church, but I never served at a church as my job until I was 40.
Speaker 2:Right as your main job. What kind of resources. It sounds like you were traveling, doing some stuff, and I'm sure that was you know how you also, you know, made what you needed to feed the family. But like, what kind of resources were you creating for church worship and things like that?
Speaker 1:I was doing like in my late twenties. I started like In my late 20s. I just had some inroads into the publishing world as it pertains to church choirs, like creating music for church musicians, whether or not if they had a choir, or if they just had a praise team or they had an orchestra or just a band that in my late 20s I just found myself writing charts and being connected in those circles of places that had influence into those churches. So I was writing songs and I was writing charts every week for publishing houses that were giving churches music to sing and play.
Speaker 2:That's really cool. Did you enjoy that? Was that like? I love it, I still do it.
Speaker 1:I mean, in many, in many ways I feel like with the exception of the addition of working full time at a church when I was 40, which I'm doing still now everything I was doing in my late twenties I'm still still now. Everything I was doing in my late twenties I'm still doing. It all looks very much the same. It's just maybe the landscape's a little different. The stakes may be to some. Some people's and some people's eyes may look a little higher, even though they don't feel it. Feel, feel it to me. I still just feel like gosh. I'm just. I'm just trying to create things that help church musicians be more confident, have things that they can use and take and make their own and lead their people well on Sundays. Yeah, yeah, I love that?
Speaker 2:How did you know? You were onto something Moved to Nashville. You get into that scene a little bit, but when it comes to like writing music and being in that scene and then that that being part of like kind of your profession at that time, how'd you know, when you were onto something like, oh, I could do this, this.
Speaker 1:You know this is going to sound gross and this is embarrassing and I didn't mean for it to happen, but there were. I just jumped into church service, like when I, when I transferred to Belmont and I moved to Nashville, I jumped into serving at a church, getting involved. The first thing I ever did was I was the piano player for the children's choir. Like on Wednesday nights I just showed up and played for fourth through sixth graders. Nice Cause, I loved it and I just I wanted to be, so I just kept serving.
Speaker 1:But the gross thing about it is that everything that happened in my career that was like advancement of some sort happened from a relationship in church and I don't think you can go and serve at a church with that expectation because that's stupid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it happened that way. So as I began to serve and have this community and this church, these opportunities kept coming to me from people in Nashville who went to that church and had some place of influence and they saw something in me and said we want you to come do this here and I would jump in and give it a try. We want you to come sing on this and I would jump in and give it a try. We want you to come sing on this, and I would jump in and give it a try. And so then, every time God would open a door, I would just kind of walk through and and kind of feel where it felt like God was giving me favor for my gifts, cause I do believe that, you know, he gives us favor to do what we're called to do. In that moment and I kind of felt, kind of I felt his favor in in some of those doors, uh, to serve, and so I just kept walking through him and it still feel like I'm doing the same thing, kind of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. What, what was one that you walked through or maybe give me a few if you got some good ones that you were like Holy cow, what just happened? Yeah, right, so I.
Speaker 1:There was a guy there was if you've heard of the, if you've heard of Lifeway Christian Resources. It's a big. It's a large organization and the the amount of events that they produced in the eighties and the nineties was crazy. The guy that was over all of the student events was a gentleman who went to the church. I went to and out of the blue he calls me and says will you come lead worship for four events for us this year? And I was, like you know, I was 25 years old and these were big events and this was before the days, frank, where people were cutting their teeth in youth group and putting together these amazing student bands, getting record deals or all that stuff. That just didn't happen and I was just serving at church. He calls me to do this and I was so thrilled that he ever booked me on was the same event that 10 years ago, 10 years before to the day, was the event that I walked into. I walked into that event as a 15 year old and I walked in the room and I saw a guy leading worship. I'd never seen anything like it in my life, cause I was from a small Baptist church where it looked really different. I walked into the room, I looked up, there was a guy at a keyboard leading songs and leading 1500 students and leading and singing. And in my spirit, like I've had about four times in my in my life where something just dropped in my spirit like that is the right thing for you, and that was the first one of those that ever happened. And I walked in and I saw that guy and it was like the Lord just dropped in my spirit. That is what you're going to do. And so fast forward 10 years. The first thing that I ever launched out and did in that capacity was the same event at the same location, with the same name, the same everything to the day, the literal same day. It was December 28th 1995. Crazy, when I walked into the room it was December 28th 1985 as a 15 year old. It was just crazy, like little, little affirmation, little pat on on, you know, my head I won't even say the back pat on my head from the Lord going, just keep going, just keep going. I got this, yeah, so that was pretty crazy.
Speaker 1:The same year no, it was one year later I had begun leading like some singles, events, other things for Lifeway and this, and I really developed this great relationship with this girl, this lady that worked at Lifeway and she, she called me and said hey, we've got a new women's Bible study teacher that we want you to come and do for events with us this next year. Her name is Beth Moore. You know, like she's written a Bible study for us. She, uh, and we're we're going to try and see if anybody will come to these events. Would you lead worship? Yeah, and I said it's a women's event, why don't you call? Why don't you have a women's worship leader? And she said I don't know, I can't answer that. I don't know why. We just feel like the Lord is calling us to ask you to do it. We do it. I said, fine, whatever, I'll do it, I'll do it.
Speaker 1:And so, and that was 1998. Yeah, and that turned out right. It turned out right. Yeah, we're starting our 26th year this week. Are you still involved? You're still. Yeah, this is year 26.
Speaker 2:Wow, you're 26 that's pretty cool, that is pretty good. Um, it's, it's just crazy. Yeah, how god you know you can't usually see it going in right, but you look back and you can kind of see those types of things and you're like man, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Thank you right and I was you. You may be, you seem smart You're a lot smarter than me, I can promise you but I never was the guy who, who, like, forecasted for myself Right, or like, had a 10 year plan or a five year plan, or you know, the people say go to the end and take the steps backwards and figure out how you want to get there.
Speaker 1:I never was that guy. I was just the guy that that that kind of just walked through the doors. I just served with my head down and just walked through the doors that God would open in front of me. And you know, it's been, it's, it's kind of, I want to say, served me well, but what, what it really done is, it's kept me busy.
Speaker 2:It's kept me busy with my hands and my heart and my mind working all this time, right, right, well, I mean it's God teaches us to serve and to stay humble and you know that he's going to take care of us. So sounds like it's been working out. You know it's hard to do right, especially when you you know things come your way and all and all that. It's hard to stay that way, but right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:How did you get from? Okay, so that's obviously covered a long span, but now you're the full-time lead worship pastor at Brentwood Baptist. You've been doing that for four years. You said Four years, yeah, so how did that come to be? How'd you get, you know, into that type of role? It doesn't sound like you came up through the traditional way of going to be a worship leader, and that's at a church, at a local church, um, but you've, you've landed there, at least for this time in your life. Yeah, um, how well it.
Speaker 1:You know, I I hadn't. I I love the church, but I had no desire to work in a church. I was super busy, like in the early 2000s, like, say, from I started with Beth in 98. And then, from 2000 to 2010, was, just like you know, busy writing church music and church musicals. And I, you know, I was signed on a record deal for a while with Integrity Music and then moved to another record label in that same decade and busy just like touring, writing, being with Beth. We were having babies, you know, we had three kids.
Speaker 1:It was just a busy time and I just I couldn't imagine that God would ever just make me buckle down and work at a church. I didn't want it, I didn't see it, I didn't see it. But then, in 2010, he did that exact thing. So he and it was weird with your timing Cause I had just released a record in 2009. That was kind of like my most successful one to that date and that had a lot of traction for some different and new areas. And the Lord said we had just bought a house too, and Franklin that we thought, gosh, we'll bring our grandkids home to this house, and blah, blah, blah, and just like that. He was like I want y'all to get out of this town and go serve a church. It was out of the blue, yeah and so, but we did it.
Speaker 1:So we moved to Jackson, tennessee, which is two hours west of Nashville. We look back and we have such a different view now than we did then and we see God's fingerprints all over the wise. You know why it happened. You know that's a whole other. Those are whole other stories.
Speaker 1:But I kept doing as much of what I was doing as I could, but I really did just focus on those people and that church in Jackson Tennessee for a whole decade and we jumped into life there and we just began to get brand new paradigms of what it was like to serve God's people, to serve the church, and we did that for 10 years. And then, after 10 years and I will say the 20 years before that, when I was in Nashville, we were aware of Brentwood Baptist. We love that church had a great reputation, but we had no pulling to it Right, like we never went to church here, um, had lots of friends and coworkers and that that went to Brentwood, but we just it just really wasn't on our radar, and the worship pastor for 25 years was a mentor and a friend of mine.
Speaker 1:He was a man that I that, when I did move to Jackson and began serving a church, he spoke into my life in a lot of ways, so we kept in touch. And then so 10 years go by and it's time for Ritwood to have a new worship pastor, and the guy that was before me, the guy that was here for 25 years, the second he called me. I knew it was the right thing. Yeah, it was. It was the third time in my life. I said, the first time, you know, when something just dropped in my spirit, I knew 100%, this was our assignment, Right To come here to Brentwood. And sure enough it was. I mean, we did all the testing of it that we could, and the word and a prayer and a counsel and, you know, right in the middle of COVID I mean like June of 2020, we met.
Speaker 2:Yeah, picked a good time. It was just all online, you didn't even have to. Oh my gosh you didn't have to live there. You could have just stayed Right online. You didn't even have to, you didn't have to live there, you could have just stayed Right, kind of Well.
Speaker 1:I commuted for a year because I had my son my youngest son was he was going into a senior year and so we wanted to leave him plugged in. So I did commute for a year, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's it like being a worship pastor at a church? Like compared to previous decade or two, when you were out doing other things and now you're at the local church serving every weekend. What's your description? What's life like there?
Speaker 1:The difference between the two lives is one is planting seeds and the other one is just watering them.
Speaker 1:Planting and watering, you know, like when I would, when I would have this kind of itinerant ministry where I would go into churches and have a night of worship and pray that what we would do would give them a watermark moment that would kind of move them forward in some way. And and now it's like just constantly watering those seeds constantly. And the only the only way you can really do that, I think, is when you're just willing to be watered yourself with them, just like you just link arms and grow with people and know that next week, you know, we're going to move the ball down the field together. We're going to move the ball down the field together and gosh, I don't, I don't know, it's, it's. It's a rich thing to do, it's a rich responsibility to have to to link arms with a community of people in an area like like worship, where you know people are coming from all these different expectations and experiences and mindsets and beliefs, and try to get them in some some degree on the same field so that we can move forward together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what, what makes a good cause? There's the performing slash, actual, you know, leading songs and singing, and that there's that side of being a worship leader, I would assume. And then there's the leading people and like leading, all the things that go into, like putting on worship on a weekend or any other. You know, I'm sure you guys do other things outside of just Sundays or the weekends. What makes a good like worship leader that can do both?
Speaker 1:What makes a good worship leader that can do both. I don't know if you find out what you tell me.
Speaker 2:I'm trying.
Speaker 1:I feel like as little as you can pay attention to your own creativity and your own musical preference.
Speaker 1:I just find that people are so not impressed with how good or slick we can be, right, and that the language of the language of reaching isn't excellence alone, it's not modernization of anything, it's not how cool we can be, it's all relationship.
Speaker 1:It's all relationship. They don't care my church does not care about my new songs, they don't care about how slick we are. I mean, I do believe that excellence brings an amount of favor that you can use to your advantage for the gospel, but it's not the language you speak, because if you just speak a language of excellence, you just speak a language of music or or whatever that is, then you miss most of the people Right, because they're there for community, whether they know it or not, and they're there to be heard and to be seen and to have a place to say something to God as well as hear from him. So I have found that the most important thing is just to be in relationship with your people and understand what language is they speak and speak their language, rather than constantly forcing my own language down their throats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what does it practically look like day-to-day as a worship leader Leading the team? I'm sure you have some people that are on staff at the church with you, but you probably have lots of volunteers that you're leading and you know just the mix of all that. You guys probably are doing things midweek and weekends and all of that Like what's it look like to kind of lead your core team that helps you run everything?
Speaker 1:You know that's like in layers, it's like peeling like a puff pastry apart. You know, like a croissant or something, all the different layers of all of that. You know the first layer is empowering my team. That's here in this office, that they know as much or more as I do and what they think about where we're going, where we're heading and how to get there. That I value it as much as I value my own opinion, that I value their input, their output, their time and their own creativity.
Speaker 1:And so I believe that a lot of success comes from empowering, and that goes to every level, right, like our lay leaders, the people that come and take care of my, of my choir. So we have about 250 people in our choir and we have, we'll have, about 170 active, you know, on any given season, 107. We just did a concert on Palm Sunday. We had 192 sing. So empowering those leaders, like listening to them, asking them questions what do you think about? What we should? What is it, I think, when? I think you know creating leaders, uh, happens more easily when they feel respected and heard. Yeah, and so I I believe in a constant transference of information back and forth to team members on every level, whether it's my team right here down this hall or it's my team that's taking care of rhythm section choir. People respond when they're heard, and so I'm talking to them a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean that's awesome. I'm talking to him a lot. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's awesome. You, in kind of preparing a little bit, caroline said that you're into humor, so leading with humor, or you know, you sound very relational and that's the key to everything. But what's this deal with humor?
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know. That's ridiculous. That's the dumbest thing she's ever said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you probably see her in person. I see her on Zoom, so next time you see her you can.
Speaker 1:I do say so Like we have.
Speaker 1:So, for instance, our choir.
Speaker 1:You know we have 170 on a Wednesday night and it lasts for an hour and a half and I feel like I feel like that is an hour and a half of standup, but I don't mean standup in the sense that I have to be funny, because I don't, but you have to keep that. You have to know how to keep a room buoyant. For an hour and a half you got to understand pacing, you got to know when you got to go hard into music and then you got to release it and then you'll do something that they know really well, and then you got to have a release and then something that's brand new, like just keeping the pace of of leading a large group of people. You have to have a lot of self-awareness and you have to really know you're constantly measuring energy, Right, and so, um, I I do. I mean I'm not funny, I don't think I'm that funny, but I do liken it to being standup a comedian, because you know you have to keep that room right there, for an hour and a half.
Speaker 1:I'm exhausted, like I. After choir I go home and mouth breathe and watch survivor for two hours and that's the way I recover.
Speaker 2:No one talked to me. I am sitting. Good, no one talked to me. I am sitting here. No one talked to me, exactly Because, if you do, I will not talk back. I've just been doing it for an hour and a half. Nothing else is coming out, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of words but you know, in all seriousness, that's an ironic way to begin this thought. In all seriousness, I'm not very serious. I do lend a levity but I depend on the people. People are funny and they're weird If you give them a space to be funny and then you just kind of facilitate the room without it getting out of hand. If I do have a skill, it's reining it in just at the nick of time before somebody is about to go berserko in the middle of a rehearsal or something and like you do have to know when to pull it in and go and turn the page. But I do, I do rely on that room being funny and they are and they don't mean to be. They help you keep the energy up because you do need.
Speaker 2:I would imagine, with that many people I'm sure there's a certain amount of energy just because there's that many people. But you know you got to keep it going and keep people's, keep people into it. So that makes sense. What, um? Last kind of like theme to talk about for a second here? How do you this is probably more personal curiosity, you curiosity you got like old school worship and older songs and then you got the new stuff that's coming that you're going to hear on the radio and all of that. How do you blend the two? How do you think about? You got the people that want to hear the old stuff and that's worship to them, and then you got the young kids that want the new stuff and you're trying to be modern and all the things. Right, it seems like that's always the thing you know. Brentwood Baptist has been around for a long time, so I would imagine you guys face it more than maybe a church that's on the newer side, so they can just lean into the new stuff.
Speaker 1:Frank it can, it can wear me the heck out.
Speaker 2:How many fights have you had to break up over this topic?
Speaker 1:I'm going to be really honest and say, coming in COVID, coming here in COVID, a lot of things were broken. There were things where churches thought they had their stuff together and they didn't. And COVID showed that. And I'm not saying that was necessarily true of Brentwood Baptist, but I am saying that there were some things broken. That, as I had an opportunity to begin to rebuild post COVID, with some sacred cows removed for me because COVID removed that Right Just so actually happened. It just naturally happened.
Speaker 1:I will say, you know, I I'm like any worship leader, I I'm very much in the middle, like I'll see modern churches do their thing online and I'll look and I'll go God, will I ever have a church where I can pogo stick on Sunday morning? Like that looks so fun, I want to do that. And then, at the turn of the page that I'll open up and there'll be some sacred chorale singing some gorgeous Bach cantata and I'll go Lord, will I ever do that? We at this church here, we are right in the middle and the way I consider it and I feel like God has somehow graced me to do this. I don't always do it perfectly, but it's it. It stems from leader leadership with Beth Moore. You know, and I say the same thing about our 26 years together is what I say about Roman Baptist.
Speaker 1:My goal is to cast for this group as wide of a net as possible. As wide of a net as possible because of where this church is, because of who the people are. There are a lot of older people. There are a lot of young families. I mean, we have hundreds and hundreds of babies every Sunday. Yeah, like little babies, zero to two years old. Hundreds of them. So I do. My goal is to always cast as wide of a net as possible so you can't look at us and go, oh, we're a modern church. You can't look at us and go, oh, we're, we're a traditional church, like I'm. Just, I believe my assignment is to is to keep everybody stretched um as as broadly as possible, and that's what we do. I don't know how you do it. One Sunday at a time, I'm looking at songs and looking at the team that we have and going, lord, what's our tapestry this weekend? What is it this weekend? Because we're not trying to fit into some kind of narrow line Right right, yeah, no, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Well, travis, this has been awesome. Thanks for spending some time talking worship with us.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me, frank. Yeah, glad to meet you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Where can folks go to? I mean they can go to Brentwood Baptist website, obviously. Is there anywhere people can go to learn more about you or check out any of your stuff?
Speaker 1:YouTube channel, I mean you can go go to traviscoutlecom, you can go to Spotify or Apple music and find me Listen. Youtube is a sore subject because I because I was so closely aligned with the label for so long, I mean I have, I have like literally tens of millions of views and I own none of it. I have none of it. I don't even have a channel. I don't have a channel. Everybody else has it, which is fine, that's fine, whatever. But you can find streaming, all the streaming stuff Apple Music, spotify, traviscotrellcom.
Speaker 2:Do it, that way Sounds like the right way.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, travis, thanks for this man. Thanks guys for listening. Definitely spread the love, share the episode and we'll catch you guys next week on another episode of Modern Church Leader. See ya.