Our New Website and Blog Home

embraceyourcity.com

Overcome Fear! Embrace Courage!

Overcome Fear! Embrace Courage!

Posted using ShareThis

Power of Prayer

God continues to confirm Embrace Church is meant to be downtown. When we started our prayer was, God, why do you need this church? The answer we received was for the city, specifically the broken and hurting people of Lexington. A pastor of a larger church told me he had been praying for a church presence in the Kentucky Theatre for the longest time. Again, it was confirmed to me on Monday night when I talked to a gentleman who has participated in a prayer group that meets on Wednesday afternoons in the Kentucky Theatre. He was excited about what Embrace was doing and felt that the prayer of he and his friends really made away for us. I couldn’t have agreed more!

Skateboard Park

At our Sunday service a young man came up to me that I recognized. It hit me when I saw his face. I met him in the skate park at Woodland Park. Scott and I went out handing bottled waters on a really hot day when we met him. I gave him a flier for a concert a few months ago and didn’t see him to he showed up to Embrace. He told me about stumbling out of bed and finding an old flier fall out his wallet. This young man has not been to church in 7 years until he came to Embrace. I told him with a smile on my face we started Embrace precisely for him.

The Big Day

My thoughts have still been racing in my head since Sunday. My team was ready to kick tail early that morning. Gentry, Scott, and Brady picked up the horse trough and spent a lot of time filling it. Everybody else had everything under control. As time got closer to service I did my walk down to Phoenix Park with Scott and Lacy. We invited our homeless friends to come. One woman, Anna, was hesitant because she didn't want to leave her cart. I didn't blame her because I wouldn't leave all my belongings out in the middle of nowhere. I really wanted her to come so she let me push it down the street. Lacy walked with her while I walked ahead with the cart. I never in my whole life imaged I would be pushing a cart filled with a woman's belonging down main st! However this is the call and now I embrace it. It's funny because one week I'm enjoying a meal downtown at an established restaurant and the next week I'm walking in the opposite direction.

As the service started you could feel the energy in the room. The Holy Spirit brought so many different groups of people together. The worship in song was awesome. Brady gave his testimony and it went wonderfully with the sermon. 2 people made decisions to follow Jesus and our friend Sierra was baptized in a horse trough! It was a special time and probably the first of many baptisms in the Kentucky Theatre.

After service people hung around for a while and about 50 of us went to lunch. Lunch was hosted at Lexington's first non alcoholic bar, "bar none." We are grateful for all God has done so far and look forward to the future.

Embrace the Collision

When Jesus was born, God became a man. He was to part man and part God; he was completely human and completely divine. Before Christ came, people could know God partially. After Christ came, people could know God fully because he became visible and tangible in Christ. Christ is the perfect expression of God in human form. The two most common errors people make about Jesus are to minimize his humanity or divinity. Jesus is both God and man. Jesus could have easily been sent as a man to do his 3.5 ministry but he wouldn’t have fulfilled his purpose. The incarnation was like an indescribable collision between God and man. And I thought about this last year when Andrew and I were watching pro football with the New England Patriots vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers. The patriots leading receiver was attempting to catch a pass in the middle of the field when Steelers safety Ryan Clark collided into him knocking Welker out of the game. The collision caused a huge sound because it was helmet on helmet. Everybody immediately stopped playing and they kept replaying the highlights. I believe the incarnation was an indescribable collision between Jesus as human and divine and also Jesus coming into contact with us. It had the ability of stopping people in their tracks and still does today!

We too are supposed to live within this collision as Bill Hughes pointed out today. When the Holy and worldly collide it makes a sound. Things go haywire. However this is precisely how people’s lives are changed! We must live as a people who will Embrace this holy collision as we interact with our friends/family/culture who do not know Jesus Christ or are apart of a Christian faith community. Embrace the Collision!

The Missional Church

After one of our city-wide preview services on Sunday morning we all walked down to Phoenix Park which is close to the library. It's a place known for where a pocket of homeless people gather in their community. Often times people give them food when walking by. We wanted to do a little bit more by throwing an Embrace cookout. We fed many of our Embrace folks along with 175 of our closest friends! One person commented to me how they enjoyed the service but questioned what we were doing afterwards. They asked me if we were going to be like of those "missional churches"? My response was "is there any other church?" I believe all churches should be missional reaching out beyond the four-walls of a building structure.

The Same Team

I recently had the opportunity to visit a church. I enjoy these opportunities greatly because I can sit back, receive and learn. I am a firm believer that you can learn something from everybody. The church I visited was fairly large and established to say the least. I had the priviledge of being introduced to the pastor. I told him about Embrace meeting in the Kentucky Theatre and his eyes lit up! I didn't know why his eyes would lite because here was a prominent pastor of a large church getting excited about something starting out. The pastor shared with me for the past few years how God had placed it on his heart to pray that a church would someday meet in the Kentucky Theatre! Right after he said that he put his arm around me and started to pray. He told me that he would point put who live downtown to come to our church because we are on the same team.

Community Garden

As many of you know the Columbia Heights Neighborhood Association was granted permission by the University of Kentucky to plant a community garden in the vacant lot of 544 Columbia Avenue. Despite getting a late start due to rain delays the tilling of the land was done toward the end of June. I believe it rained for two weeks straight! We were under a time crunch and knew we had to get a move on it. On our tilling day we had wonderful participation! We had many neighbors, community volunteers, and Embrace Church volunteers work in tilling and planting together. Though I myself am not a gardener, I knew that if we had the land that the people with experience would come and they sure did! Maureen Saxon was the first person from our neighborhood that contacted me. She has been gardening for several years along with Embrace member Steve Fisher. Also, students from UK who were agriculture majors such as Russ Caldwell became involved immediately. Because of their wealth of knowledge the rest of us would automatically default to them. Our tilling day was quite humorous because many of our volunteers have never used a tiller before. Once we figured out how to turn it on we had to practically wrestle it where we wanted it to go. So again we’d cry for help to our more experienced gardeners for some pointers. I would have to say that this was actually the toughest part of the gardening process, but the most fun and humorous as well!

Russ Caldwell made our wonderful sign to promote our garden. There has been a lot of word of mouth about the Columbia Heights Garden, especially in the garden community in Lexington. As I was on the Lexington Garden tour a few weeks back I heard our garden mentioned a few times. I’m currently having conversations to have the Columbia Heights Garden on the garden tour for next year.

Since our tilling and planting day many still come out once a week on Tuesday evenings at 7pm to pick weeds and other general maintenance. As we have seen the garden grow we too have seen relationships grow between all our volunteers and the beautification of our neighborhood. Presently we are seeing a harvest of yummy vegetables such as corn, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers to name a few.

Members from Embrace church provided the tillers, fencing and along with community members we had many seeds donated to the garden. This first season of the community garden was a trial run and we are hoping that next year will even be bigger. We are hoping to expand the plot and get more involvement from our neighborhood.

Keepin it Simple

When God started to give us the vision for planting Embrace Church we were faced with a few questions. The first was where were we going to meet on Sunday mornings and what was it going to look like? Our decision for meeting in the Kentucky Theatre wasn't to be cool or different. I literally looked for space all over town including schools, bars, and storefronts but every door was slammed shut. However God had other plans and we are thankful that He did! My friend suggested we ask the Kentucky Theatre for space. I was reluctant to ask because I wasn't sure if I even wanted it and if I did would they even want us. God had other plans and when I talked with the Theatre manager the door was opened so we walked through it.

The next question was what would are worship look like on Sunday mornings? I knew that keepin it simple was what we needed to do. There are plenty of churches who do the rock concerts, skits, and other segments very well. We needed to be different. We wanted to do the opposite and look like the early church in our worship. We call are worship style, "ancient future." I take the time to explain each thing we do in our service with the central act of our worship being Holy Communion. Our services are rather short and the best part is you can wear anything you want. So far our congregation is made up of fairly different people which is what I believe is the true reflection of the kingdom of God. Come and check us out to get a taste for what we do on 9.13.09

Awesome Weekend

it has been an awesome weekend. the service had 70 people in attendance and i gave a talk on Jesus @ the wedding feast. for real, it was laid out beatiful by the Holy Spirit. Just amazing what can happen on Sunday morning.

last night i met with the leadership team of 25 people and we laid out a sweet two week plan to launch this church right! you will see us at the events that are posted on the facebook page.

can’t believe that we all get to do this with our one life.

praise Jesus.

_ros

Highlights From Embrace Preview Service 8/16/09

In church planting there are plenty of ups and downs. Though it sounds unusual they can be experienced all in one day. However, as of late, we are experiencing a wave of faith sharing, relationship building, and church/community congruence. This past summer has been a refocus for us to exactly how God desires to build Embrace Church. We have continued with our community service through avenues such as our community garden, passing out bottled waters in the hot sun, Embrace concerts at Al’ s Bar, community dinners, free coffee hours, and supporting local businesses by purchasing their gift cards to use as “acts of kindness” for folks in our community. What started out with a few young professionals has blossomed and grown to bring more of what the kingdom of God looks like. We are growing and have seen almost 100 people at our past Sunday morning service, along with 2 professions of faith. The past few months we have had 6 people come to know Christ and numerous rededications. After the service we had an Embrace cookout at Phoenix Park where we fed nearly 200 people! Many of them come to Embrace and we are so thankful that are homeless brothers and sisters feeling welcome and participating in the life of Embrace. We are excited at the ways God is working and how He is building His Kingdom right in the downtown!

God Moments

I haven’t written in a while even though there has been much that has happened in the life of Embrace since Easter. Last night I had a God moment. It came at an unexpected time and place. Brady and I were stopping by Redbox to pick up a movie because I got an itch to watch the Soloist. It was late and didn’t make much sense to go when we did however Brady agreed so we rolled up to the McDonalds on S. Limestone. After picking up the movie a man approached us. He came walking fast toward us. “Dwayne” was asked if he could wash our car windows for some change. I didn’t mind. As “Dwayne” was cleaning I asked about his story. “Dwayne” started to tell me about being homeless, new to Lexington, and how nobody wants to hire an ex-con. “Dwayne” told me he couldn’t go back to the Hope Center for at least another week in a half because he got kicked out for about a month because of a discretion he had with another housemate. Brady and I gave him some change, went through the McDonalds drive thru, and gave him a clean pillow/blankets that I just so happened to have in my car. I invited “Dwayne” to our Friday night dinners and he was thrilled that we played cornhole. “Dwayne” had his hands full and as he was about to walk away he dropped a few things he was holding. I helped him pick up his belongings and as we were on the ground he looked up and noticed I was wearing an Embrace shirt. “Dwayne” told me with a grin on his face, “that’s my church!” I was blown away. I asked him, “What do you mean it’s your church?” “Dwayne” said, “I went there a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it.” The Sunday that “Dwayne” came was the first Sunday I had missed since January because I was filling the pulpit at Christ Church and my friend Blake Brodien was preaching for me. I smirked back at “Dwayne” and told him, “I’m the pastor at Embrace.” We both laughed together and the three of us had a prayer. Over and over again “Dwayne” hugged Brady and I and told us how much he loved us. I’m blown away at these God moments and glad I got to share them with others.

Adventures In Easter Egghunt Planning

We have been blessed to have Jordan step up and volunteer to be our children's director.  Jordan has a wealth of experience and her desire to reach young children for Christ is inspiring to others and myself at Embrace.  Jordan agreed to spearhead our Easter egg hunt but she got more than she bargained for, her along with everybody else.  After spending a few weeks advertising the event at Woodland Park I was notified we had to find another location.  As we started praying an opportunity opened up for us as the Dunbar Community Center on North Upper St.  Around the same time the director of the center, Bob Owsley was also praying that somebody would host an Easter Egg hunt for his kids because they had gone through major budget cuts.  Bob was just as excited as we were about the Dunbar Center being our new location.  It was right where we needed to be, especially since the area is such an underserved part of Lexington; an area that doesn't care if we bring a petting zoo, bouncy house, and other fun things.  We only had a few days to get the word out about a change of location.  With everything we went through we still had 200 people show up which was awesome.  Everybody had a great time and we were equally as blessed watching the festivities. We passed out information on Embrace and welcomed parents as they came in with their children.  I think this can be the beginning of partnership we develop with the Dunbar Community Center. 

Embrace Concert at Al's Bar

Life is about taking risk and one person said, "there are no rewards without taking risks."  If you know me, you know I'm crazy enough to take risks.  I have always been a risk-taker.  As the pastor of Embrace we want to be the type of church that is willing to go where the people are and if that means sponsoring a concert with a secular band in a bar then so be it. 

We had two local acts, Goldenrod and Matt Duncan, along with a 15 member pop band from San Francisco, Still Flyin.  When people came into Al's Bar they were shocked there was no cover charge and even more shocked how a church was sponsoring the concert.  It was a great night for music and talking to many of the people at the concert.  It not only helped us with our visibility but also our accessibility to the community.  I was given the privilege to talk briefly in between acts, which was a cool experience.  I kept it short because I knew people weren't there to hear me.  I believe this will be something we do more often and will continue to try new things in the way of our outreach to the city of Lexington.

Jesus Loves Me!

Starting off Embrace we don't have many young families so when they come through our doors we get excited.  Jordan, Christy, and Angie have been praying for the day when our children and nursery area are filled.  As Ronnie and Morgan have been bringing their son Lucca our workers have had a great time with him on Sunday mornings.  I was joking with Ronnie and Morgan about starting a Lucca fan club because all of our Embrace girls brag on him all the time. 
Jordan was telling me about a conversation she had with Ronnie.  Ronnie was telling her that Lucca, whose only 2, has been saying to them, "Jesus love me."  Ronnie and Morgan hadn't taught that to Lucca and it dawned on them that it was the children's workers at Embrace.  To me this is an awesome testimony of not only the dedication of children's staff but also the ways that God sometimes works in subtle ways.

Bullhorn

A few months ago I applied for the Path1 media grant which is a grant given to new churches from the United Methodist Church.  I was notified that we were awarded the grant and the proposal was one of the best they have ever received by a church plant.  The next step was to find a marketing agency to help us with event planning and promotion.  Around that time I met a new couple at Embrace, Ronnie and Morgan with their little son Lucca.  After service Ronnie and I met for coffee where we talked about Embrace.  Ronnie told me how he works for Bullhorn Marketing and so I decided it would be a great idea to partner with them and give them our business.  We have been so blessed getting to know people through Bullhorn.  Ronnie, Brad, and Griffin have a vision to help the city of Lexington.  It has been a pleasure working with them and trust that it's just the beginning of our partnership.

A Little Piece of Heaven

    I have been quite blessed as a friend and a pastor to have Duke Gastos join our congregation with his two kids Gabriel and Michayla.  Duke joined us on our second Sunday morning of worship because he received one of our mass mailings.  I admire Duke for stick with us even when everything looked a bit rougher at the beginning.  Whenever I say that Duke comments how one of the things that stuck out to him right away about Embrace is the people are genuine.  
As I have become closer to Duke it has been equally natural to get acquainted with his kids.  I didn't truly understand this until last month when they both had their birthdays within a day of each other.  They asked their mom if I could come to their birthday party at Kidzone.  I came and had a great time despite being asked which kid was mine out of the twenty kids in the room ☺ A few weeks later after our Easter egg hunt a group of us from Embrace went out to lunch.  I was sitting with Duke and his kids when I noticed Michayla whisper in Duke's ear.  I couldn't help but give them a little grin but kept on eating my lunch when I hear Duke say to Michayla, "Ask him."  I looked up and Michayla asked me if you she could hug me.  I told her of course but only if she gave me a bear hug and then I gave one to Gabriel too.  And with a simple gesture as a hug I had another glimpse of the Kingdom of God.  At times I don't see it much but when I see it I don't forget, it burns in my memory.  Jesus had it right when he said we need to come to him as little children and have child-like faith.

How Far Are We Willing To Go?

I mentioned that I met a new friend at Starbucks, named James who has special needs.  James is 38 and is living at home with his parents.  James struggles with alcohol addiction.  The other night we had a painful encounter.  We have made a deal stating that he was not allowed to come to Friday dinners drunk.  When Andrew and I picked him up a few weeks ago it was obvious he was drunk and still had a bottle of whiskey in his pocket.  I told James as much as it pains me he was not allowed to come over and that we would try again next week.  We had a chance to pray with him and then he asked us for a ride to his house.  We got to his house and he changed his mind about going home and instead wanted to go to a local restaurant.  We dropped him off at the restaurant and he then wanted to go back home.  By this time it was getting late, Andrew had to get on the road to Louisville and I had to get back to the dinner guests.  James refused to get out of the car so I had to be a bit forceful with him, which is not what I wanted to do.  After Andrew and I left James, the encounter with him burned in our minds and bothered us the entire week.

Before you know it the week flew by as usual and it was Friday again.  James called me to get picked up and he was sober!  This was a huge deal for him.  While he was sitting at my house people were amazed at the difference between drunken James and sober James.  James needs some sort of long-term residential living with a Christian influence.  It's different because not only is he special needs but also has an alcohol addiction.  Andrew and I have even flirted with the idea of having him live with us when we move into a bigger place.  A prerequisite would be to find like-minded guys who would be willing to journey with James.  Please continue to pray for James and Embrace as we gain wisdom to know how to journey with him.

Winning Friends and Influencing People

I'm trying to keep a running lists of things that have been going on the past few months…oh yeah, my parents are divorced, I've had chest pains, an infection in my cornea, broke my glasses, had my life threatened, tired deflated, and bike stolen.  As the opposition has continued to grow so have the blessings as humorous as that sounds.  It's been an interesting few months to say the least but during this time I have seen 5 people I have been talking to for over a year start attending Embrace after several invitations.

The attacks and persecution we have undergone has been tremendous.  I imagine if we laid low and did not care about sharing the love of Christ with others we would be off the radar.  I've told the people of Embrace that if they hang out with me they will get a target on their back too.  The people of Embrace have been some of the most courageous people I have ever met, first to let me be their pastor!  Secondly, and more importantly the way they are living the Christian life.  I haven't seen people this serious about the Christian life in a long time.  They have been open to being servants and actually learning to live/love in community together.  Community has been something that we have all worked for with many people coming and going because expectations aren't meant in one way or another. We are not a perfect community but we are certainly a redeemed community; a community that has continued to be refined and sanctified by the Spirit.