New leadership for three of Cleveland's historic black churches

Brian Cash grew up around Superior Ave. 86th St. He had no idea as a child that East Mount Zion Baptist Church, whose imposing edifice he passed every week on his way to Sunday School would one day call him back to Cleveland as its pastor.

Today is the first anniversary of Rev. Cash’s ministry at East Mt. Zion. Just 29 years old, the native Clevelander is excited to be back home as pastor of one of the city’s oldest black congregations.

Shiloh Baptist Church and St. James African Methodist Episcopal also welcomed new ministers to their pulpits this past year.

After attending Cleveland Central Catholic, Cash headed south to Nashville, Tennessee to continue his education. He enrolled in historically black American  Baptist College and following his graduation, he stayed in Nashville to earn his divinity degree from Vanderbilt University.

Cash left Nashville for Ft. Lauderdale, Florida where he served on the staff of a church for three and a half years before being called home to Cleveland.

An added delight of Cash's repatriation is his reunion with his large extended family, some of whom have joined his new congregation. The family welcomed a new member in May when Cash married Krista Eileen of John’s Creek, Georgia. The pastor and the new Mrs. Cash met at Vanderbilt. She works as a speech pathologist at Cleveland Clinic.  

Shiloh Baptist Church

Last July, Shiloh called the Rev. Dr. Lisa M Goods to serve as its Senior Pastor, thereby making her the first woman to serve in that capacity in the church’s 170 year history.

A native of Pittsburgh, Dr. Goods comes to Cleveland from Chicago, where she has lived and worked for the past twenty years. She is not a total newcomer, as her great-grandmother was a Clevelander. Goods says she is surprised by Cleveland’s development since her childhood visits here and is looking forward to exploring the city when the pandemic ends. And she noted having to adjust to a different political and social vibe Chicago affords in comparison to our red-state atmosphere.

Ordained in the United Church of Christ, the scholarly Goods is pursuing a PhD as part of an elite cohort in a program focused on African American preaching and sacred rhetoric.

Goods began serving Shiloh virtually after accepting the call, arriving in town and settling into the Warehouse district in September. As chronicled by Regennia Williams, who has extensively studied Cleveland’s black churches, Shiloh has had numerous highs and lows since its establishment in 1850. In its heyday in the 1960s, Alfred Waller, its longest serving preacher, presided over services with more than 1000 worshipers. The congregation is much smaller today. Goods describes Shiloh as “very much a family church”, with a committed, stable, older core of members and a nucleus of families from which to launch its rebuilding phase.

St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church

Dr. Eric Brown has a history of blazing trails. In 2002, he became at age 33 the youngest pastor in the history of St. James AME in Pittsburgh’s East End. Only two years later, he was appointed Presiding Elder of the Allegheny Scranton District, the youngest middle manager in the history of the Pittsburgh Annual Conference, where he supervised 27 churches and pastors.

On October 31, 2020, he was assigned as the pastor of St. James AME Church in Cleveland, returning to the state where he was educated and had some of his earliest pastorates. Brown earned his B.A. in psychology and religion as well as his M. Div. from Wilberforce University. Subsequently he earned his D. Min. degree from Ashland Theological Seminary.

An author and world traveler, Brown was a delegate to the 19th World Methodist Conference in Seoul, Korea. His work has taken him on preaching crusades to South Africa and Zambia, as well as to Paris and Berlin. He has also traveled to Denmark, Holland, Jamaica, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, Turkey and Italy.

Brown has written two books: A Dictionary of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Volume 1 [2014], and Beating on the Bible — Bragging on Jesus [2019]. He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and a 33° Prince Hall Mason.

His son, Justin Todd, is a sports medicine major at Stroudsburg University  and his  daughter, Jordyn Alexis, is a high school student.

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Note: An earlier version of this original article misstated the year of Shiloh's founding. Shiloh, the second oldest black congregation in Cleveland, was founded in 1850 and is now in its 171st year.