The Body of Christ

People have been sharing with me how they look forward to Tuesday nights. Transitioning from only having Friday night dinners to house worship has not been difficult but has felt like the right decision. The past few weeks I have started a preaching series on Embrace Values. The core values of what it means to be a Christian at Embrace. Our first week we talked about extravagant generosity and meeting needs in our community. It was from that first week one of our friends; Aaron mentioned a need that a couple had in our immediate community. The couple is struggling financial because they are going through a lot of transitions. Aaron and Jason brought up the idea of collecting money for a gift card so they could buy groceries. I was amazed at how Embrace, a young church, stepped up and gave to this cause. The couple has come to our dinners a few times and has pointed their Christian friends to us. The couple has been severely burnt by Christians in the past and we wanted to be sensitive to their hurts. I wanted to be prayerful about the manner in which I delivered the gift card. I did not want them to feel obligated to come to Embrace or treat them as objects but simply as God's people: my brothers and sisters. When the man opened the door I told him how Embrace wanted to give them something to help out with the transition. The man was blown away and was literally speechless. Our interaction was very brief. A few days later his wife stopped by Friday night dinner. As she started thanking us she broke down and cried. We were able to tell her how much we loved her and her husband and how we pray for them on a weekly basis. I look forward to the day that the family worships with us.

For Such A Time As This

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending a get-together with Lexington UM clergy along with our new Bishop, Lindsey Davis. Bishop Davis shared his "vision" for the Kentucky Conference and on the very top of his list was church planting. Bishop Davis has been a bishop for twelve years and previously presided over the North Georgia conference where 98 churches were planted under his episcopacy appointment. Bishop Davis led North Georgia as one of the largest and fastest growing UM conferences across the country. Also, Bishop Davis chairs the episcopacy committee on the Path 1 initiative to plant 650 new churches over the next ten years across the U.S. Needless to say many are excited at Bishop Davis' arrival in Kentucky!

Supporting his case for church planting Bishop Davis stated a recent study done by Lovett Weems. Weems researched two UM conferences, Virginia and North Carolina. Over the past twenty years the Virginia Conference has declined by 20% and the North Carolina Conference had grown by 8%. Weems reported both conferences share many similarities and are almost identical. However the one underlining difference was Virginia spent too much time trying to revitalize existing, declining churches and didn't emphasize planting new churches while North Carolina did the opposite.

A second concern for Bishop Davis is similar to his first priority of church planting. It's simple; we are not reaching young people between the ages of 18-35. Many of our KY churches have failed to show any professions of faith according to the 2007 Conference report. That means one of two things, either evangelism is not being done or the methods are not being contextualized for today's mission field. These concerns for the Bishop are on the hearts of Embrace UMC. First, we want to launch services in January but also be a Christian faith community that is reproducing itself. So, that means in a few years we hope to send out church planters to start a new Christian faith community. Second, we desire to reach out to people who don't know Christ or have an existing relationship with a Christian faith community. Based on our location, the demographics show a majority of our immediate population is the age group that Bishop Davis is concerned about reaching for Christ.

Please continue to pray that we would stay the course. I believe God has brought all this together not as a simple coincidence but orchestrated by the Holy Spirit. God is bringing all this together for such a time as this that people would be reached with the Good News.

A Worshipping Community

Last night we had our biggest Tuesday night house worship. It was exciting to see everybody crowded in the living room. If we had any more people we probably wouldn't be able to fit them in. We are continuing to have Friday night dinners but are emphasizing Tuesday night a lot more. Fridays have been a good time for people who are new to our community or are looking to meet new people but Tuesdays has been more of a "next step." On Tuesday we worship through songs, prayer, testimonies, tithe/offerings, preaching, and Holy Communion. We feel that it is important to establish that we are a worshipping community into the churches DNA before our launch service on January 18th. Last night was especially cool because a Starbucks friend of mine came for the first time. We have formed a friendship going back to about a month ago. Our conversations are not trivial at all because we discuss the existence of God, sin and the established church. I was thrilled that he came. We continued our series on core values by talking about mature faith development. Last week we talked about extravagant generosity. Going along with the topic we recognized a need in our community that we could contribute to. We began to collect for it and the next day I was surprised to find $90 in my mailbox. We continued to collect last night and are able to buy a grocery gift card for a family in our community. As a pastor it is the best feeling in the world to see a group of believers taking their faith seriously.

Freedom

As a church planter many of my friends and people I meet ask me what I do during the day since we haven't launched services yet. I tell them it's simple, I go where the people are. One of my hangouts has been Starbucks at Ashland Plaza, which I believe; strangely enough is the epicenter of the community. There are many different people who come to Starbucks, it doesn't matter how much money or lack of money they have. People don't necessarily come for the $ 3 or $ 4 specialty drink but come for a place to sit, read, and be around people. It's the new therapy or small group setting. Despite the economic hardship our country is facing it seems not to affect the Ashland Plaza Starbucks.

I meet many different people at Starbucks, which range from young professionals, older professionals, blue-collar workers, and college students. Over the past three months I formed a friendship with a young woman. The first time I met her she came and sat down next to me. I told her I was a pastor and she started to talk about all her problems. When she started talking I took my laptop and put it away because I knew our conversation could last a while. Since then I have seen her periodically or in passing. My interaction last week with her broke my heart. She has experienced a lot of pain in her life with her father's death coupled with being in and out of rehab facilities for eating disorders. Due to her lack of eating she has metabolic damage due to insufficient calories. She told me her number one priority in her life is to stay thin. She only eats between 400-600 calories a day! On top of it she is a college student, working part-time, and workouts a few hours a day. She is quitting her part-time job so she isn't so stressed. I was able to speak truth to her in love even though it wasn't received. I told her she needs to go speak with a nutritionist, eat more, and that she was slowly killing herself. It still wasn't received. I told her she was a slave to wanting to stay thin; she was a prisoner to the false expectations placed on her by others and herself. I then asked her a question that popped right into my head, "do you want to be free?" She looked at me point blank and quietly said, "no." I politely told her I was only concerned and was not trying to tell her what to do. This interaction has troubled me for days. She is not the only one walking in bondage but there are some many people I see on a daily basis who are slaves to something. Jesus came to set the captives free the only problem is that people don't know that they can be free or simply don't want to be free.

The Front Lines

God has made it clear for a while now that I was supposed to move close to campus. God spoke to Andrew strongly a few years back and told him that he was going to be used to change this area. God brought us together along with our other roommate Curtis into an intense mission field that has been enemy territory for a long time. Like Joshua back in the Old Testament we too want to claim this land for Christ. The task unfortunately is not easy, it rarely ever is. If it were everybody would do it and no one would think twice about it. This weekend proved to speak very loudly to our household. We had about three instances that were out of the ordinary. The first was around 2:30am on Friday night when a drunken college student tried to barge into our house. He insisted on coming in as Andrew was in the doorway asking him what he thought he was doing. I came out and as soon as the guy saw he was outnumbered he stumbled around in the lawn and then went in circles for while…could have been more than just drinking he was doing. I come home late Saturday night to find someone peeing in my backyard…people isn't even this gusty in my old neighborhood (the '05). Sunday morning Andrew and I walk outside to go the car and our neighbor jimmy stops us. A guy who lives across the street started going crazy. He tried to get into 3-4 houses around his own house. He walked on Jimmy's front porch and started rearranging his patio furniture. In the meantime he was talking to someone next to him that wasn't even there! The guy left Jimmy's house and was talking to a parked car with nobody in it. Needless to say the cops came and took him to the hospital. I have invited the guy and his girlfriend to Friday night dinner before…they really need Jesus. This is exactly where we need to be. I believe God has allowed us to live in this neighborhood for "such a time as this."

Already/Not Yet

When people ask me when the "church" is going to start I get confused at first. They are asking when we are going to have services. I use to look at it that way too, unfortunately we only think of "church" as a building or space and not a group of Christian believers gathered together. I think it first hit me that we were already a church is when Scott Denson celebrated his three years of sobriety with us. On that night Scott said he thanked God for his home church. Back then we had no name and still no building, we only continued to gather in Christ's love. On Tuesday night house worship and Friday night dinners we tell people that our church is already in existence. People want to start coming when we have "services" in January but I want to encourage people to get involved now. We are excited at the ways God's working and how He's bringing people in our midst. As we prepare for launch Sunday on January 18th we want to be mindful of living in the present.

Consistency Pays Off!

Sometimes it takes several months to make connections with people and other times it takes a few moments.  Lately, I've been reminded that consistency does payoff when it comes to evangelism.  The first incident this week involves a guy named Ben that Brady and I met many months ago during our passing out bread in the neighborhood.  Ben invited us in for a while as he continued to sip on a few beers and ask questions about the new church.  Ben has a desire to go to a church in the neighborhood and said we were doing a good thing.  Ben seemed very interested and I saw his eyes light up but all a sudden he shut down before we left.  Since then I have seen him drive up and down our street on his little scooter (he's a maintenance man at UK).  A few days ago I saw him at one of my offices, Starbucks on High St.  I invited him to dinner once again.  I could tell that he was more open to the invitation because he knew I wouldn't give up on asking him. 

            The second incident was today, again at Starbucks where a guy by the name of Tradgen walked up to me.  I had met Tradgen a few months ago and explained to him that I was starting a church.  I invited him to dinner but never saw him again.  Tradgen was a bit embarrassed about not coming but he didn't let that stop him from greeting me.  We ended up chatting for a good 20 minutes about philosophy and then the book of Genesis, how to read the Bible, and if the Bible is written literally.  He was asking some really great questions.  We are going to hang out again and go over more of his questions.  I told him about the possibly of Embrace being on Euclid Ave. and he was thrilled. 

            The third incident was tonight at Common Grounds.  This time Andrew and I went there for a quiet evening just to hang out and sip on some coffee.  But there was an interruption, a "divine" interruption as my 89-year-old friend June Tunstill would say.  Henry came and pulled up a seat.  Andrew and I looked at each other, took a deep breath.  We knew what we were in for…conversations about guns, paintball etc.  Typical things guys like but let's just say Henry takes it a little bit seriously.  We have told him in the past that we weren't interested but politely listened to him as he listed how much the equipment would cost if we joined him.  After a while he mentioned something about his personal life and I started asking him questions.  Our conversation all of sudden was starting to go somewhere and we were sifting through some heavy things.  Typically, I am laid back for the most part with my evangelism approach only when I led by the Holy Spirit to do something out of the ordinary.  As Henry started sharing some deep things I told him that Andrew and I were committed Christians who would pray for him.  With tears in his eyes Henry thanked us and left when he got a phone call.  Andrew was amazed at how patient I was at the beginning of the conversation to see it through and actually go somewhere.  Andrew and I rejoiced that we could be apart of what God is doing!