Don't Pay the Ransom!

I have broken free from my hostages and have escaped unscathed. I trust nobody paid the ransom....wait you mean you didn't even try to pay the ransom. I see, I am awol from the blogging community and nobody even noticed. For two months I have not been active in the exchange of thoughts via this wonderful media and NOBODY N-O-T-I-C-E-D. Hey you know what It's ok....tear...whimper.....get yourself composed man what's wrong with you? I'm back and will continue to lay out my thoughts for all to see right here, same place, same local station.

The past two months have been very busy as the embassy gears up for our January 8th launch at the theater. We have had new people come to our gatherings on a weekly basis. It's amazing watching God put embassy metro church together. Let me give a shout out to everyone who is part of the embassy metro church family. I am loving being your pastor!! Let me also throw thanks out to everyone who has helped out with finances, prayer, and labor of love. What we are endeavoring to do for God would not be possible without your involvment. Thank you for making it a joy to serve you while I am striving to serve God.

Well even though you didn't pay my ransom I can say a big thanks to Jesus who paid the price for me so that I could live the greatest adventure possible. None of us have to be hostage to sin, or to lives separated from God's purpose. Through Jesus we can live and be free to experience His best for our lives!

Great News!

For the past two and a half months we have been given the opportunity to meet on Sunday nights at the Serene Bean Coffee house in Woodstock, GA. This has been a great venue, but if you've been with us at the Bean lately you know we are running out of room for the children. Amie & Charla have done a great job with noise control in the other part of the coffee shop, but we don't wish to do noise control with kids we want to do ministry. Seeing that we are going to Sunday mornings on Oct. 2nd at the Bean and will be there until our Jan. 8th kick-off at the theater we can't wait until then to effectively engage our children. Well Sunday night we were thinking about a solution and the thought came to ask the owner of the wellness center if we could use her tae kwon do dojo for the kids. Her store front is just a few doors down in the same building. I got great news. I met with the owner and not only has she offered her dojo she said we can use every room, but her office and file room. Amazing! She was so excited about being able to help us. Her daughter remembers us from the concerts in the park where she got her face painted. I thank God that the owner was one of the first people we met last year when Amie and I came for a visit. It was a God thing that He popped that thought in our hearts on Sunday and today it's a reality. We now have plenty of room for children's ministries until we get to the theater!

Thanks to Whom Thanks is Do

I just want to take a moment to give props to Jared for all the work he has done on the website. Obviously he's got mad skillz and I'm glad he's with us. Vote for Pedro...I mean Jared. Jared man you're dynamite! Thanks from the whole emc gang.

Thoughts from a Mac Store

Hey there I just wanted to give a shout out to everyone from one of my favorite stores. So greetings from the Apple store in the Lenox Mall in Atlanta, GA. I love coming to the Apple Store. It is a symbol of excellence, innovation, stability, and infectious marketing. Apple throughout the years has chosen to do a few things well and it is paying off.

Everyone who reads my blog knows I'm a church planter (that means I am starting a new church). For those of you who have heard me share our vision, you know I am not about busying people with church programming. I think throughout the years the church has tried to do everything and in doing so has accomplished little. It is so important to know what God is calling you to do and then do that well.

I want to help those who find church irrelevant begin to grow in relationship with others and become devoted followers of Christ. For many people the operating system they are use to makes sense (i.e. PC). Within this system the idea of switching to a different platform (OSX) is perceived as confusing & cumbersome. In life we are all running our lives on some platform. For many Christian principles and the Church appear to be cumbersome at best, confusing at worst. We need to present to people that Christianity isn't about this meeting, teaching seminar,men's breakfast, and fund raisers. If we are not careful we will clutter our life's desktops with the good and miss out on the best. Christianity is about a relationship with Jesus and with other's as you grow together as followers of Christ. That's it! Yes we need to become more like Christ, yes we need to understand the principles of the Bible, yes we need to be concerned about our world, but many of the things we do in church are counter-productive. It is time to simplify.

I think Apple reveals to us the principle to do less for greater results. Jesus taught principles, he ate dinner with people, he showed expressions of love to children. I guess what I am trying to say is I want to be more like Christ. Embassy Metro Church will not have a handle on every niche of Christian ministry. We will create environments that relate to the unchurched introducing them to Christ and principles for life. We will reach our children and youth because they are our next generation. We will grow together in small groups because it's healthy and Jesus spent time with 12 other guys too. We will do less for more. We will be a group of people who focus on a few things and through the help of God's Holy Spirit we will become a place of excellence, innovation, stability, and infectious marketing. We hope in the years to come many will make the jump to a new operating system (JC...ok that was corny) for their lives because we chose to be intentional & focused.

Thoughts on Work and Life Outside the Christian Ghetto.

The past two weeks have definitely been different. I have been doing a remodeling job in Mid-town Atlanta. The place is a large production house that at one time edited some of your favorite movies (like Species) ok I actually never saw it, but it's always lurking on the video shelf when you are looking for movies like Spanglish, Space Balls, and Sparticus. The place has been closed down for a few years. Everything was just shut up as if the last day of work "2002 something" they expected to be back on Monday. Who knew how much a place could get run down by just sitting empty for a few years. Oak ceiling buckled from humidity in the non air-conditioned building. Mold growing in bathrooms, and every light bulb in the building (100's of light bulbs) all needing replaced. It's been weird not earning my livelihood full-time around a church setting. Weird, but not bad. The guys I am working with are salt of the earth great guys who know how to sling both dry wall mud and four letter words. The stories they tell are often a little crude, but they are there stories and it's been great getting to know them.


For the ten years before we came to GA I had the privilege of working full-time at a church. I must admit I enjoyed it immensely and look forward to it again, however, at times it was a bit too sanitized. It often felt like I was living in a Christian Ghetto where everyone spoke the same language and told the same stories. Everything so clean neat and orderly. I had to be very purposeful to venture outside the "shining" walls of our sweet and fair city. Whenever people fail to make the effort to walk beyond the walls of their Christian Ghetto it doesn't take too long before they forget about people who are lost just beyond self imposed borders. But Ross, we are to "come out from among them and be separate" yes, but we are to be salt and light effecting change and bringing direction to our world. We can't do that inside our Christian Ghettos. We have our language, our arts, our entertainment (wait innertainment), our stories.....so busy with our stories that we fail to listen to the stories of those outside our "fair cities." There has to be a place where our world can intersect and we can earn the right to be heard. That place is the border land of stories where person-hood is expressed and relationships are formed. Relationships that serve to effortlessly tug on another person to follow you as you are following Christ.

We have to take a few steps away from our Christian Ghetto and intersect life with those who are unfamiliar with the language, policies, protocol, and frankly "bull" that is often a part of fitting in to our environment. Listen to their lives as told through their stories. Hear their joys, and sorrows, victories and defeats....and tell your stories, not your two cent answers. They will venture out of their world to the border also and there they should find a person who isn't afraid to engage them and simply tell their stories. Sometimes these stories will be trivial; old girlfriends, fights, jobs, and adventures, but eventually and usually sooner than you would expect a spiritual element moves into your conversation. Nothing forced, it's just a part of your life and there in this border land someone on "the other side" wants a glimpse of your spirituality. Don't lead them up a hill of self righteousness because all they will see is a view of the Ghetto. Show them Jesus. The Jesus that loved you enough....tell the story. The Jesus that can still heal a broken heart.....tell the story. The Jesus that understands.....tell the story.

I would say 70% of my day with the guys I am working with is just telling stories. After a couple of weeks of this, yesterday they began wanting to know about spiritual things. Why? Because they want to know more about me, and my walk with Jesus is a huge part of me so they had to ask. Just like I had to ask about demolition car driving and somehow that conversation led into a diatribe on elaborate bongs (pipes for smoking pot: definition for those firmly entrenched in the CG) I now know more about the art of hittin' a bowl than a pastor will ever need to know, but yesterday they asked me about spiritual things! I guess that's all I got to say about that. Venture out, listen up, intersect, share life, reveal Christ, expand the kingdom.

They Grow Up So Fast

Today was the first day of school for my girls, Adalee (8) & Aubrynn (6). We dropped them off at their new school which is 4 times the size of their old school in Ohio. Needless to say we were experiencing a little parental angst. When we picked them up at the bus stop they both were full of stories to tell about the school, the potential of new friends, and how you don't need money for lunch you just punch your student # in a box and they "just give you your food without any money". What they didn't realize is we had paid for their lunches in advance....hmm I'll come back to this. Let me keep my mind on the start of school.

I am a really sappy kind of guy and the start of every schooI year acts as an annual FYI memo to my brain that says "your children are getting older and one day will be gone." Excuse me...I'm getting a little vaclemped...talk amongst yourselves...ok I'm better. With them going back to school so early in the summer I felt bad for them even though they do get five weeks off throughout the school year.

When I was a kid we didn't usually go back until the Tuesday after Labor Day. Three full months of fun before I had to go back and walk to school three miles each way barefoot in the snow. Summer was spent fishing in what I thought was a creek, but later found out it was just city run-off. I guess that explains the neon green three-eyed fish. Growing up life was what I would call normal, another would label amazing, and some would say "poor thing". For the most part we were a typical mid-western middle class family, if you call having a dad who was both a preacher and a hairstylist typical, but I digress. Anyhoo, I lived life without a care in the world knowing that all I had to do was open the fridge and there was free food. Turn on a faucett or light and leave them on. No reason to turn them off because all that comes with the house, right. Oh and there's a bed too. well this is childhood (or for many twenty-somethings young adulthood until you're tired of living in your parents basement, but I digress.)

I guess what I am trying to say is the good things we experience throughout life are all too often viewed as coming to us from the wrong source. Kind of like Addie's view of lunch. She didn't realize that daddy had already taken care of this provision in advanced. In life there is the tendency to look at our provisions through childish eyes. I made this life for me, "it's mine". This is my house...That's my car. All this came to me because I just pushed the right button (right college, right job, right investments) and put the right # in and "look what I got daddy!" and Daddy says " don't you realize I purchased these provisions for you in advance" The Bible says all good gifts come from our Father (Daddy) above." God help us to recognize Your involvement in all our possessions and provisions.

Well that's enough for tonight. My girls are getting older and I realize, they just grow up so fast. I guess one reason it gets me so sappy is, once they're grown where will I learn most of my life lessons from?

Refreshing Faith

I encountered two amazing discoveries today. The first discovery was found while looking on the net for places to hike with the family. The second I stumbled into while frequenting my wife and I's favorite coffee house (The Serene Bean).

Every week I find new reasons to fall in love with Georgia. While surfing on the net I discovered that North Georgia is full of beautiful waterfalls. The waterfall pictured here is the Falls on Raven Cliff Trail in White County. (For more falls check out: www.jjanthony.com/waterfalls/)

This water that falls with grace and beauty serves to refresh the pool of water below. It flows through every knot and curve of stone to make it's way to the awaiting surface. This image makes me want to find myself in it. Find a place that's cool and refreshing, a haven from the Georgian heat and humidity. I will find these falls!

The second discovery I had today was found flowing from a young girls heart. It was her faith that poured out and around every bit of her being. She like so many in our area came here from far away. Over the past five years she's dicovered that Jesus is her source. Like a river flowing His grace, mercy, comfort, strength, hope, health, encouragement...life has made it's way to her. All of this flows in and through her, like water over the falls. Her life isn't the source, but she allows Jesus the source to flow over, through, in and out of her. A visible expression of grace and beauty. not her's, but His. That's all she wants people to see anyhow...Him. What a refreshing discovery on my journey through life today. She told me how right now she's sort of checked out of the conventional church scene. She and three others get together in a house once a week to have church. She like many have found church today too busy with busyness. A waterfall is simply refreshing and today she helped me discover a new that faith in Jesus can be refreshingly simple. What's important isn't that you attend three services a week, are involved in four different ministries, and play softball on a church team in a church league. What's important is that you have found the reality of Jesus as your source. He can be the refreshing flow that brings life to you and life to those that view His presence flowing over the hard edges, curves, and knots that make up who you are.

I could visibly see that she could not hold back what Jesus has meant to her over the past five years. As I prayed for this twenty year old young woman I felt honored to have rounded a turn in my spiritual hike through life and had stumbled upon such an amazing discovery of God's creation and interaction. What an amazing discovery...what a refreshing faith!



Psalm 78:15-16 "He split rocks in the wilderness, gave them all they could drink from underground springs;
He made creeks flow out from sheer rock, and water pour out like a river."

The Big Big House

The Wiseman's are finally settled. We found a house to rent in Woodstock so we are no longer living in a van "down by the river." No really when Amie and the kids came we settled into our pop-up camper in the back yard of Jared & Charla's apartment. This was just a temporary 3 week experience and now we hate camping. Anybody want to buy a camper? The house we've rented is amazing. We weren't looking to rent in this neigborhood we were just out looking at neighborhoods deciding where we'd like to buy once our home in Ohio sells. Anyway we're on the backside of this lake community and there's this huge stone-cape-cod-looking lodge of a home on the end of the lake with two decks, cathedral ceiling, blah, blah, blah....wow! This lady is working in the yard and says she'll show us around. There's no way this is in our price range. God is so good! The lady says she doesn't usually rent to people with children, but for us she would make an exception. She throws out a great figure, says we don't need a deposit, and now we are living in the Big Big House!! In the last week I've fished off of my back yard 3 times. We even have a beaver....cool! I guess I am just really thankful that God provided us a home with a country feel and a back porch made for quite times with family and with Him.

It's Good to be Home!

The past two months have been the hardest of my life. My wife and I decided that it was best for me to go to Georgia so that I could get housing lined up and a job before the family came down. So our worship pastor and myself moved here in April. Before this move the longest I had been away from my family was 10 days while speaking at a retreat in Nairobi. That would in no way prepare me for the 55 days of being away from home.

In April I saw my family every two weeks. Then there were 33 days that we were seperated. I have never experienced loneliness like that in my life. You know the kind of loneliness where people can be all around, but you still feel cocooned in a sense of isolation and seperation. I went home last week and brought my family to live with me in Georgia. This week I have felt whole again; "it is not good for man to dwell alone."

I love Georgia, but it wasn't until my family got here that I felt at home. I guess home isn't a location, but a sense you feel when you are surrounded by those who have celebrated victories with you and also haved loved you consistently in spite of your faults. Everybody needs a sense of family. For some family means your wife and kids, or mama & daddy, for others family is that group of friends that have stuck close to you through thick and thin, either way life is richer when lived together. Right now my babies are in bed and Daddy is truley feeling blessed. It's Good to Be Home!

Loving my Father's Day,

-ross

Why Plant Another Church Plant?

The following is my response to the question "why [plant another church] so close to other church plants?" ::

Thank you for your response. I'll try to be brief regarding why we chose to come to Woodstock. I was the Sr. Associate Pastor at a church in Ohio for nearly 11 years. I loved it there and actually was back preaching this last Sunday at there three morning services. I really thought I would stay there until the pastor retired and I succeeded him. Everything was perfect nice house nice church etc....but God began to speak to me about coming to the Atlanta area. For over five years I wrestled with this because Atlanta has enough churches. Last summer I knew that I had to take the step and do what God was leading me to do. I did a bunch of research on several counties in the metro area of which Cherokee was not one of them. In August I brought my family to Stone Mountain to camp and everyday we would take off into the areas I researched. we would drive and pray and just try to focus in on what we sensed God leading us to do.

One night we had dinner with an old youth pastor of ours that currently lives in Cherokee County. When we got into the Woodstock area my wife and I both felt like God was up to something. For four days we never said to each other what we were sensing. To be honest I thought we would be closer to the city, if not within the perimeter. When I finally told my wife that I believed Woodstock was where we should be, she expressed her sense of calling to this area as well. Please understand at that time I had not done one demographic study, growth analysis, or searched for church saturation statistics. I just knew that this was where God desired us to be. When I got back home and began to study this area I was blown away by the growth that has occurred and is occurring in Cherokee County.

To leave a successful ministry was not an easy choice, but to not follow the leading of God would be the greater loss. I am a very kingdom minded pastor who celebrates the victories of my fellow pastors. This area is definitely a growing community and it will take many dedicated church plants to successfully reach the people flooding into our neighborhoods and developments. Back home we had 135,000 people in our county and there were a few churches that were over a thousand people in Sunday morning attendance. To be honest I was glad for every church plant that began in our city because even though we had grown to be a fairly large church, I knew we couldn't reach everyone. When one church that had a different style then us related to someone of similar style and they began their journey with Christ that was a victory for "team Jesus". It would be arrogant for me to think that I could reach everyone. We are all doing our part and I believe in that the masses can be reached and God will be pleased.

One of those church plants back home started about 8 years ago. They located themselves less than three miles from us. At that time we had grown to around 350 people. Fast forward 8 years and our Sunday am attendance is between 900-1000. The other church has grown to 2000. Does that mean they are twice as successful and if they would not have planted we would have added a great portion of that number to our rolls? No, we have had people visit us that fit better at the church plant and we have recommended them to check it out. They have done like wise for us. The kingdom expands exponentially through the labors of a variety of churches as they can reach out to a variety of people.

You asked, "why so close to other church plants?" #1 God led us to be here and #2 This is one of the fastest growing communities in the country and it will take us all working together to successfully bring in the harvest. I hate to switch metaphors on you, but here I go. When a boat comes into a harbor all the other boats in the harbor rise. I believe that God has a special plan for this area and with the variety of churches coming into this harbor together we can all expect to rise higher. Lets be faithful to God, faithful to each other, and faithful in our pursuit to reach others so that Jesus will rise up before us and the people of our community will be drawn to Him not any one particular church plant including mine.

"with you on the journey"

-ross

To Blog or Not to Blog

To Blog or Not to Blog that is the question. I set my blog up a few weeks ago and have failed to yet journal, expound, declare, promulgate, ponder, pontificate, or publicly peruse my innermost person so this will be my inagural blog.

As with all blogs frequent visits to this site will help you better understand the journey of another. Somehow when we begin to see that another person has similar fears, questions, experiences, concerns, discoveries, and things that make you get the warm fuzzies it makes our life's journey a little easier to navigate.

I hope that this will serve to be a forum that we can use to navigate life together. For some of you I'm your pastor to others a friend, and for many just a stranger throwing thoughts out into cyber space, but whatever our connection with a cup of hot cafe au lait with hazelnut (my favorite coffee) in my hand I raise a toast to you and say "here's to the journey ahead!"

"with you on the journey"
-ross