Growing Deeper

A few weeks ago Embrace started a 10-week session called Deeper.  Deeper is intended to teach people how to be disciples at Embrace by living out our 7 core values.  Jason Dillard has been leading the group and is doing a fantastic job.  Our hope is that teachers/leaders will emerge out of this first group so we can pass the torch on to them for the next session of Deeper in the future.
I have been impressed by the turnout.  Last night we had 21 people in this session that is amazing for a church our size.  We are asking each person in these sessions to champion one core value that they want to live into by developing a goal and strategies for implementing it.  Also, we have 4 small groups going as well as our Wednesday night Applebee's Bible study.  We are trying to not just get people in the door and pride ourselves on "99 million served" but we want to produce quality disciples. Embrace wants to embody it's core values because that is what's going to speak the most as our faithsharing and love for the city of Lexington.

Time in Prayer

In the midst of a hectic few days with having our electricity out, getting stuck in the snow 6 times (time for new tires and a vehicle with 4 wheel drive), and living out of a suitcase it was all worth it to spend time indoors at the Rock (Embrace's sister church).  It's because we were able to have some Jesus time today.  Over the next year we are having a world-renowned spiritual director, Glandion Carney. He works with Richard Foster and Dallas Willard.  Glandion will be conducting staff and personal spiritual retreats in 2009.  Today we were able to sit in on some lectures and meet one on one with him for an hour.

My time with him presented some surprising moments as I talked about my spiritual goals for 2009.  The Lord started connecting some dots for me.  The first is when I felt called to start Embrace it was for the broken, hurting, and rejected all of which I have experienced and I'm sure you have too.  Lately, I have been challenged at how to accept those who have caused the brokenness, hurt, and rejection.  At one point or another we all have rejected and hurt Christ, we even have been the "other man" or "other woman" in our relationship with Christ.  This week has brought up a lot of emotions for me.  I know I have forgiven those who have hurt me but I believe God wants to bring continued healing in my life.  Sometimes I experience intense suffering off and on, especially the past few years for a number of reasons.  I understand that God wants to use my suffering as a way to humble me.  Suffering keeps the balance of humility.  No matter what has happened or continues to happen in my personal life and at Embrace I am persuaded God is the only stable reality one can have in their life.  As I was being hit with this in my prayer time with Glandion I received the image of Joseph in my head.  Joseph was hurt, rejected, and broken by his brothers and others who came into his life.  In the end he was given a position of authority to bring change and help those who were "hungry."  Also Joseph extended forgiveness to his family.  I'm still processing all of this…

The Measure of Success

Mark Driscoll describes a church planter as the guy or girl who isn't going to wrap themselves up with a blankie and cry in the corner.  It's somebody who has a wild look in their eye, somebody who's scrappy, the kind of person home invaders would fear to face.  While the average pastor wearing a sweater vest would try to counsel the home invaders, the church planter would go a little UFC/MMA on them.  In the world's eyes you have to be brain dead to be a pastor or in ministry.  At least when you are pastoring an established church no matter if they are on the decline or not you know you have some people that will be there every Sunday.  As a church planter, you not only need to rely on God but there are times you need to make opportunities happen and bust down doors.  For me planting Embrace has been my dream.  I am living out what I have always dreamed or what God has put in my heart.  The world measures success differently than followers of Christ.  The world thought the Cross was a big failure and yet it is the symbol of our faith.  I have to look in the mirror everyday and ask myself the question: would I be willing to do the right thing despite looking like a failure to the world, or my denomination, or even the people I'm leading?"  Even though I'm living out my dream and call it doesn't mean it's been easy.  If it were easy everybody would plant a church and they would all succeed.  I get tired and my knuckles bleed at times from knocking on metaphorical doors.  I've been rejected, mocked, misunderstood, taken advantage of, and have taken a pounding.  In the midst of it God has sustained me and given me a team of people who are making the vision their own.  Have we succeeded?  Absolutely!  Will it look like what we envisioned?  Maybe or maybe not, I'm not sure, but time will tell.

Why Do We Need Another Church?

People ask me all the time that we are targeting at Embrace.  First of all we are targeting people who are burned out on organized religion and if you want to know what I mean by that check us out☺ The second are people who do not know Jesus Christ.  People have gotten offended that we would dare to plant another church in Lexington and when I say people I mean other well-intentioned Christians.  The fact of the matter is we need to plant new churches because many of the ones we have are not getting it done as Missiologist Winn Arn states "… of the approximately 350,000 churches in America, four out of the five are either plateaued or declining." "80-85% of the churches in America are on the down-side of the growth cycle.  Further, of the 15 percent that are growing, 14 percent are growing as the result of transfer rather than conversion growth."  If American churches continue on this downward spiral, we will have more churches closing their doors. The key is to reach new people with the Gospel and plant new churches:
•    Church Planting responds to Jesus' Great Commission:  An intentional pursuit of lost people and evangelism are two major components.
•    Far too many American churches have missed their mission because people are not accepting Christ.  It was disheartening to be at Annual Conference and hear that many of our UM churches didn't not have a profession of faith or new people come to their churches.
•    New churches grow faster than older established.  63% of all UM churches in Kentucky are under 50 persons in membership and have an average attendance of 25.
•    New churches evangelize better than established churches
•    People are more open to change in new churches

The third population we are targeting are people who are virtually nonexistence in the church, people between the ages of 18-35, especially men.  I think the Church has a challenge ahead of itself to show this population why it is relevant to not only "go" to church but to live a life of "worship."  We have the privilege of being in the center of Lexington and Embrace can be a city within the city of Lexington.  We can influence our culture and show that the Christian life can have real meaning in our universities and work environments.

Launch Service

All Saturday night I did not get a wink of sleep because of our launch service that we have been waiting for the past year and a half.  The night before Andrew and I put everything aside we needed to load in the van.  It was an early morning but we were ready for it.  I was disappointed when I walked outside and noticed how slick it was from the snow.  I dismissed the thought right away knowing that God was going to bring who needed to be there that morning.  We arrived at the KY Theatre at 8:30 and the launch team trickled in.  I have the best launch team ever!  Sarah, Andrew, Jessie, Jason, and Aerial helped out with the sound.  Lauren, April, Stephen, Ryan, and Mark ran around like crazy people.  Abigail was her cheerful self, welcoming people as they walked in.  One person, Kenny, arrived early and Aaron Renfroe sat with him the entire time, which I was happy to see.  Tawndee and Alicia helped out with the refreshments and décor of the entire theatre preparing it as a place for worship.  Gentry had a huge smile on his face when he brought all the balloons in.  Joseph was rockin it out in the hallway as people walked in.  Jordan, Angie, Jenny, Christy, and Jenn helped transform a few hallways into one of the best children's areas I have ever seen.  Danielle was also a big help running around and fitting and need as it arose.  There were a lot of moving parts but it was awesome to see the excitement.

As people started coming in there were a lot we didn't recognize, Praise God!  They were people who had seen our fliers, ads in the Kentucky Kernel or Chevy Chaser.   We had a total of 150 in attendance.  We are reaching a population of young people, 18-35 who are entirely missing from our churches in the U.S.  God has made it clear that Embrace is His church and does not belong to the launch team or me.  It is awesome to meet people and invite them into the life of Embrace.  The next few weeks I will continue my preaching series:  Are You Burned Out On Religion?

We will be starting our discipleship series on Tuesday nights called "Deeper."  It is 10 week sessions of how to be a disciple and apart of Embrace.   We are going to continue to have Friday night dinners at our house on Columbia Avenue.  We are hoping to get more small groups and other programs off the ground as needs arise so we are needs driven instead of program driven.

Our biggest challenge will be to continue to let people know that we are in the KY Theatre.  We need to get the word out and focus on our evangelism strategy. 



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Last night I had the privilege of being a guest speaker at Southern Hills UMC.  The pastoral staff, Bill Moore and John Hatton desire to partner with Embrace and support the church planting initiative of our conference.  Prior to speaking we all shared a meal together and I had the opportunity to hear stories from early days of Southern Hills.  Southern Hills was planted in the 1960s in the founding pastor's home.  It was encouraging to hear of Southern Hill's rich heritage.  The pastor remained there for the next 38 years after planting the church.  I believe a coalition of local churches can partner together to start a new church planting wave with a concentrated effort of pooling financial and people resources.  The only way this can work as if pastors make it a priority to think outside of their own congregations and look toward the greater scope of the Kingdom of God.  Embrace wants to continue to have church planting in our DNA that we would be a congregation that would continually reproduce congregations.  Imagine what it would look like if people were sent out to plant churches beyond our district, conference, and jurisdictional lines to meet the needs of the harvest?

Lexington Is Our Parish

Right now I'm sitting at one of my offices in Starbucks sipping on my espresso.  I amazed at what God has done the last few days with people I have seen "coincidentally" that I have met over the course of the past year.  Even in the midst of receiving my first stretch of questionable emails I am encouraged that we are doing the right thing.  The prevenient grace of God is at work in the hearts and lives of His people and so we are persuaded that the city of Lexington is our parish.  As we anticipate our launch our energy level is high and we are trying to remain vigilant at the attacks of the evil one