Project Hero makes the Atlanta Journal Constitution

Communities of Faith: Home makeover with heart
Embassy Metro members aid woman

By Candice Hannigan
For the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/10/07

There were no network camera crews filming the extreme home makeover near downtown Woodstock last weekend. Buses weren't needed to bring in throngs of volunteers for the job.

Yet members of the Embassy Metro Church hope the work they did on the home will change the life of the woman who lives there.

"This is going to make a big difference in her life. I know she appreciates what this church and these people did to help her get her house and her yard in order," said Sara Blalock, a friend of the woman, who asked not to be identified.

Blalock said the woman is 66 years old and single, with no family nearby to help her. She faces multiple health challenges, including diabetes, and lives on a small monthly income.

About 40 volunteers spent the weekend painting inside and outside her home, installing new flooring, landscaping, repairing appliances, lights and cleaning from floor to ceiling.

Some church members are taking her to lunch, and out for a new hairstyle and a manicure. Her two dogs are even being sent for grooming. And for the next month, church members will keep the woman's refrigerator and freezer stocked with healthy meals suited for a diabetic's needs.

This home improvement project wraps up a Hero series that pastor Ross Wiseman started on Easter Sunday.

Services have featured public safety workers and other "real-life heroes," as well as challenges from Wiseman to "position ourselves and stand for something that's worth standing for. Our families, our integrity, the lives of those who are lost in our communities, those things that are right and good. We need to be heroes in our communities, and you can't be a hero if you don't take a stand."

Members also raised $1,000 for a firefighter whose son has been undergoing treatment for a brain tumor.

"There's something powerful when people unite together to do something that's bigger than they can do on their own," said Wiseman. "We want to go into the community and let people know they're valuable to God, whether or not they've stepped into the four walls of our church. We want to be a body that's focused more outward than inward."

Embassy Metro Church: Sunday services begin at 10:02 a.m. at Cherokee 16 Cinemas off Towne Lake Parkway in Woodstock. Contact: 678-384-4919 or www.embassymetro.org.

Project Hero Before & Afters

Most of you know that we are doing an extreme makeover on a ladies home in Woodstock this weekend. She has been through a great deal of hardship and health issues. Those of you who were not at the embassy this weekend didn't hear the announcement that we are canceling church Sunday to go be the church. Actually the entire weekend will be full of opportunity to love like Christ and be a hero to Miss Ann. This is going to be an amazing weekend for our church, our community, Miss Ann, and our God!!!!! Is it going to be tough OH Yeah, but we can do it! Yesterday was the first day of cleaning and removing flooring. Everyone blew my mind on how hard they worked. I'll throw some pictures up and tell the story Sunday night when we are finished.

EMC-ers become a hero to a young boy in need

Last week in service we looked at the birth of a hero. Each of us have the potential to be heroic. Heroism always is the result of a moment of crisis. There's always a crisis before a breakthrough…An obstacle before an opportunity…A challenge before a discovery…and a fight before a victory.

A hero is born when a crisis is handled in a way that honors God. The massacre at Virgina Tech brought many heroic actions by individuals. One person in particular was Liviu Librescu. Sunday we looked at three lessons from Librescu. Lesson #1 Heroes run into crisis. Lesson #2 Heroes run in to give other's a chance. And Lesson #3 Heroes are never numb to the pain around them.

With all of this in our hearts on Sunday we encouraged the people to give to make a difference in a family going through a difficult situation. Andrew West is a six year old little boy that was diagnosed on January 1st with a brain tumor. It has since been removed and he is now going through a series of chemo that will extend over the next 9 months. His dad Shane and Mom Natalee have faced the worst of all crisis, but together the family is getting through it heroically. We as a church felt that the West family needed a boost in morale so we took up an offering on Sunday for them.

I challenged the people to run into this crisis and make a difference. To do something that would give the West's a chance to get relief. And to not be numb to the pain of a little guy and his family going though hell on earth.

EMC-ers ya'll came through and today Amie, Grant, & I were able to go to the hospital to give them $1,000.00 on behalf of you along with a couple superhero comic books (remember Dru loves Batman). They were very appreciative and so gracious to us. I'm hoping in a few weeks for them to come over to the house and let Dru have a chance at catching a few bass with his new rocket fishing pole Shane got him last week!

Thanks guys for being a hero in this family's life, but more important thank you for showing them the heart of the greatest Hero who ever lived and who lives in you today....Jesus!

Get ready to be a hero again on the weekend of May 4th-6th as we adopt a home in Woodstock to make a difference in. We will be cleaning, painting, doing yard work, preparing a 30 days worth of ready made meals, and other things to show Miss Ann the love of Christ.

Embassy Metro Church I love ya'll you truly are making a difference. Keep being the heroes your families, schools, businesses, and communities need!!!!

Tragedy Strikes Again

What a senseless act of violence and pain. Let's continue to keep the families of those connected with the Students at Virginia Tech in our prayers.

A Couple of Days of Downtime

My family arrived at 3:00 this morning in Mrytle Beach. We are visiting Amie's folks and taking a couple of days to decompress. I have brought couple of books and my cigar box guitar and am just looking at chilling out. One thing I have noticed since becoming a lead pastor is if I don't take a couple of days every few months to decompress I get fuzzy in my head. Just a couple of days is all it takes and I regain clarity and focus.

I even notice this in my regular schedule. If I don't pull away to take a walk by the lake, or sit and look out over Red Top or Kennesaw Mountains I loose a great deal of creativity and direction. The time spent in doing activities focused on nothing opens my mind, heart, and vision to get a "heads up from God".

If you feel like you are hitting a creative wall or lack of vision do like Christ and pull away from the crowd and make some space for your head and watch as God fills that space with His thoughts.This isn't a mind blowing revelation, but too many of us never do this and we find ourselves chasing life instead of leading life.

Emc-ers take a stand!

This past Sunday was our second week in the "Heroes" series. Our take away was "If you're going to be a hero you have to take a stand." We looked at some of the men that fought for King David and how they would do anything to stand for this man who had accepted them when they were at their worse. Specifically we looked at Shammah who positioned himself in a field and didn't back down from anything. This guy was a freak.

I encouraged the emc-ers who make it happen week in and week out by saying that they are freaks....mutants....not normal because they have a passion that drives them to make an impact in people's lives. People all over the theater raised their hands to say that the Jesus had radically changed their lives through the passion and work of these freaks who ever week take a stand!!!!!!

Woodstock doesn't need another church that sits.....it needs more churches that stand. Your families don't need another daddy who sits, but one who stands. Your school doens't need students who sit, but students who stand........

We need to position ourselves, and stand for something that's worth standing for. Our families, our integrity, the lives of those who are lost in our communities, those things that are right and good. We need to be heroes in our communities and you can't be a hero if you don't take a stand!!!!

The service ended with people placing on the stage an anonymous "take a stand" card that was their commitment to see a difference in a particular area of their lives. It really was an awesome day as we embraced what I called "aggressive salvation and vicious faith" in order to see become the heroes God wants us to be.

I am loving this series and I'm loving seeing emc-ers become the heroes I know they can be!!!

Shout out from the Mac store

Man the Apple store at the Lenox is crazy tonight. They are in the middle of a remodel that will make it the largest Mac Store in the South. They always do things right and even though they are operating at 1/5 of their previous space they are getting it done. It feels like church when things are just getting crowded and you know big things are coming. I've been there and what's so cool is I can tell the embassy is right on the verge of some crazy stuff!

You want to be at church tomorrow. This week has been muy tough and from hearing from a lot of my pastor friends they've experienced the same thing so tomorrow is going to be one of those days where we dot the Devil's eye!!

I found out this this week that the thing I've been dealing with in my ear according to the doc is not temporary, but apparently permanent hearing loss so for now I'm deaf in that ear and that stinks, but I know God heals, but more importantly I know I am in His hands...... so basically I can't wait until morning to get my preach on and let the advesary who would love to hold me back realize I'm on course, I'm taking my stand, nothings backing me up. I have felt the violence of promoting the kingdom this week....but I know the violent take it by force!!!!!!!

All emc-ers tomorrow you will realize who you are and the force you are becoming. I love ya.....I'm proud of you.....let's do it!!!!!!!

The emc superheroes and eb in the cherokee tribune

Shout out to Noelle & Bobby

Noelle checks me out at target.... I mean she does the cash register thing for me at target. She doesn't check me out because she's married to Bobby and anyways I ain't much to check out in the first place....well anyhoo. They were at the embassy yesterday. It was great seeing you both! Thanks for coming as my guest.

Post Easter Thoughts

Easter is a huge day in the life of a believer and a church. We had a great day celebrating Jesus and enjoyed seeing so many gathered together for this purpose. Below are a few thoughts regarding our Easter at the Embassy.

Team EMC you Rock!!!!!

-The set up crew got there way early and were excited about getting the place ready for the day.
-The props and set design were amazing and for the first time the staff didn't have anything to do with it. Thanks Jeff, James & Katie.
-The egg drop with the fire department was hilarious....the kids loved it and went away with some serious swag (free stuff). I was stoked at which family got the $100 Grand prize.
-The guys from the Woodstock Fire Department did a great job!! Thanks
-The Cafe' team did a great job keeping up with everything on a busy, busy day.
-Our embassy kids team were off the hook. You guys are amazing week after week.
-Pastor Jared led us in an amazing time of worship & celebration.
-The band kicked the day off with the Foo Fighters song ". Hero" Ya'll nailed it!!!!
-My wife was in service with me and not in e-kids (thanks Lela for being such a great assistant to my wife)
-The photographers did a great job with getting the family photos taken (Thanks Jodi & Kimberly)
-Everyone that helped with the Easter egg drop set up were amazing. You guys braved the cold and put together a great event.
-Our superheroes and bunny were a big hit with the kids. Thanks for braving the cold especially in those tights. Oh and thanks for taking a hit for the team on Friday when you were handing invite cards out at the exit. They had the cops called on them, were flown the one finger peace sign four times, and told to do nasty things to themselves once, but people were there Sunday because of your effort. Thanks.
-All the tech guys really did a great job with lights, sound, and video.
-We broke another attendance record!
-I trust a lot of our guests will come back next week.
-I had a blast communicating on the subject of what Easter means in a new way. Jesus is the greatest hero ever!!!
-If Easter & Christmas are the only two sermons you hear a year no wonder you think church isn't for you. There is nothing like coming to a church for a few weeks and realizing how much the Bible talks not just about your hope for heaven and the condition of your soul, but about your relationships, marriage, health, dreams, goals, parenting, sex, and handling all sorts of everyday issues and desires.

I'm sure I missed saying thanks to someone, but what ever your role was yesterday it added into the mix to make one of the best days we have had as a church yet.

When Church is a Turn Off

Mark Twain once said: “A cat who sits on a hot stove will never sit on a hot stove again. He’ll never sit on a cold stove either. From then on, that cat just won’t like stoves.”

You begin to talk to be people about God and quickly you’ll find out their feelings about the “Church”. Although they may be spiritual and interested in matters of faith their negative concept of what church is like is often deeply ingrained. That’s rough because church can be one of the most incredible things in a person’s life. A place for community, a place that challenges you, a center for joining your arts and gifts to better each other and the world we live in. So often church becomes so much of what it never was intended to be and there’s the rub.

People begin to see it as a place that is internally focused where people whose heads are buried in the sand gather to decree the sky is falling, and while we wait for the sky to fall let’s try to work on making each other look like each other because isn’t that what Christ died for in the first place. So that you can look just like pastor “bob” and his wife and all the smiley people in the halls and foyers. I guess to me I thought we were supposed to look like Christ.

This is the week that Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. A week that reveals Jesus not as the one out leading the masses with charisma and flair, but the one praying so hard by himself that blood like drops of sweat poured from Him. The one who was beaten beyond recognition, the one who was nailed to a cross naked before women, men, and children.

He did all of this for you and for me. He did all of this so that He could gather people together so that they could be better than they ever could be on their own. The Bible refers to Christ followers as sheep, as The Bride, but it also refers to them as “The Church”.

The word church in the Greek is “ecclesia” and it means a group that’s been summoned or called out for a specific purpose. How amazing that God calls us to come together for His purposes. Maybe that’s where we miss it? We gather for our purposes and not His purposes. Obviously this week reveals Christ main purpose to reach others with His love and to see lives changed forever.

We are emphatic at the Embassy that we want to be a place that celebrates and embraces the best that church can be while pushing from us the things that often make church a “hot stove” to those seeking a living God. Have we arrived? No way, but each week we endeavor to push down pride, arrogance, selfishness, self-righteousness so that we don’t block people from seeing the best of Jesus because of the worst of the church. There is nothing like being a part of a healthy church and to remain healthy you have to check yourself before you wreak yourself. Let’s always strive to embrace what Christ embraced the most and that’s people… good people bad people, well people sick people, strong people weak people can all find their place under the steeple. (OK we don’t have a steeple, but I couldn’t resist the rhyme)

-end of rant

EMC Super Heroes & EB

These guys were out and about on Friday during drive time and Saturday from 10-2. They'll be out this weekend too. If your an emc-er honk your horn and shown 'em some love. They're out there waving saying hey and handing out invite cards. This weekend they'll be on Town Lake. For the kids they'll be at church on Easter Sunday.

"My Time"

For me relaxing is chillin' on the back porch playing some blues on my fat body (that's my guitar....not my belly) and my harmonica. Amie says I look ridiculous, but all I gotsta say about dat is ridiculous never looked so cool. Another thing Amie says is that I am not good at just creating or doing something just for me. So last week I took a couple of hours and built me a cigar box guitar. It is too cool and I sound like Bo Diddley on it. These pics are from my camera phone so they are a little small.

Palm Sunday

This past Sunday was one of the most meaningful days we have experienced at the embassy.
We know that on Easter Sunday we are going to rock and roll baby...high energy....high octane...as we celebrate Christ's resurrection. So we thought the week before we would go the exact opposite.

We took the day and focused in on Christ's death. We can't fully celebrate His ressurection without fully embracing His death. I told those gathered that as humans we want to get to the end of the story. We're quick to get to the resolve of an uncomfortable story line. If we jump to the end of a story, to the resolve, we miss the full impact of the story. I wanted us to be fully impacted by Jesus' death and sacrifice. In doing so it left us a little heavy of heart and feeling a little undone, but I think this week it has made me slow down and think of Christ's pain on my behalf.

At the conclusion of the service we lit one candle that represented Christ and while Jared led us in the song Wonderous Cross five people came and lit candles. They then lit the person beside them in their row and each person helped the next get their candle started. When everyone was lit (There candle that is....) Each of the five read a verse that led up to the crucifixion. When they finished reading that row extinguished their candles then the next reader and row did the same thing until only the Christ candle was still burning. I then read the passage that says "It is finished" and Christ gave up His spirit. I then extinguished that candle. The room was completely dark and as people felt ready to leave everyone left in complete silence. "It was very simple, moving, and powerful" said a guest that we had.

It was something so different than what we normally do that it had great impact. The last part of the service is what is known in liturgical churches as a Tenebrae service. Which means "shadows".

The day couldn't have went any better. we really thought that with spring break our attendance would be down. Last year we were 40% off from our average attendance at that time so we expected a lot less. We were only down 6%. Sorry we ran out of donuts and didn't have enough candles for everyone we just didn't see that coming!!! It makes me think that Easter is going to be crazy. We are planning for a crowd so bring everybody you can think of!

Just a few more days until Easter

I can't wait until Sunday. Last year at this time we were all freakin' out because the staff and small core of help that we had was still doing everything to make Sundays happen. This year the embassy is 2 and 1/2 times larger than this time last year and we have a ton of talented people. You guys rock. It's weird not having to build anything, paint anything, or stuff, fold, or lick anything and we still have a few days until Easter. Thanks to everyone for set design, egg hunt preparation, getting the complimentary photo areas lined up, and 100 other things I am forgetting.

Don't miss getting there early for photos and the egg drop/hunt at 9:30. Last year we opened the day at 10:02 with Bono & B.B. King's "When love came to town" (This was before we had a full band so we just played the cd) This year our band is rockin' a Foo Fighter's song to launch the service and our "Heroes" series. I am so proud of these guys and ladies who lead us in worship week after week.

Invite your friends and family for what will be a great day of celebrating the greatest hero who ever lived.

Creative Design Team

When we began the Embassy we decided to maintain a strong commitment to presenting timeless truths to modern minds in such a way that they would embrace and live out the principles of God's Word in every area of their life. The work of putting together all our creatives has usually fallen to the staff and this has worked well for a year, but if we are going to excel and broaden our creative elements then it is going to happen by broadening our team. So we put together a creative design team made up of artists, musicians, builders, thinkers and even a couple of pastors (Jared & Me) who are all passionate about reaching people for Christ and changing their lives forever. Our Easter experience & the series that follows is a result of this process.

We meet on the first Monday night of the month for dinner & design and the ideas just flow....I love it! We also have a google group that serves as an online studio for the exchange of ideas and progress between our monthly meeting. During our CDT meeting we have some structure as I lay out our up coming series title and take away. We also look at individual weeks for creative elements that God will use to ingrain the teaching into people's hearts. This is the form we work off of. I usually have the series title and weekly sermon subject ideas before we meet and I put them on the form below:

Series Development Needs

Series Title:

Target Audience/Goal (Take Away):

1. Weekly Sermon Topics:

Wk 1
Wk 2
Wk 3
Wk 4

2. Sermon Branding:

-Series Theme

-imagery

-series logo/icon

-title slide ideas


3. Set-design:


4. Illustrations:


5. Marketing:

-invite cards

-evite cards

-mag/sign adv.


Does it take all this today to do ministry? Sometimes I wonder, but what I don't wonder about is the fact that people's lives are being changed every week at the embassy and we're never going to back down from allowing God to resource his truths with the creativity He has laid within those who attend EMC. To keep us on track we are playing around with creating some core values for the CDT.

Creative Team Core Values

1. We are more creative together than anyone of us alone.

2. Our creativity stems from seeking the creator in prayer, devotion, and spiritual awareness to
the world around.

3. We hold to a deep commitment to create a relevant presentation of Jesus teachings and
Biblical principles.

4. Since God is the Creator the church should be the most creative place on the planet.

5. The greatest message deserves the greatest means to convey it.

6. We will use anything except sin to draw people to Jesus and the truths of His word.

Experience Easter at the Embassy

I can't wait for Easter this year. Start inviting your friends now because it is going to be off the hook! We are launching a new series on Easter Sunday called "Heroes". That morning we will celebrate the greatest, but most unlikely Hero who ever lived, Jesus! The creative team is building an amazing set for the main auditorium and the foyer. Does it take all this...I don't know, but it sure is fun. I heard someone say that the greatest message deserves the greatest means to convey it and what Jesus did for all of us truly is the greatest thing that ever happened.

Easter Sunday we will have Woodstock's first ever Easter Egg drop for the kids. Our local heroes from the Woodstock fire department will drop plastic eggs from the ladder of their fire truck. We will do two different age specific drops. After they gather their eggs they will be able to redeem them for candy and prizes. This is going to be wild! And the kids are going to go nuts. We will also have Team EMC Super Heroes and the Easter Bunny encouraging the kids.

One other thing we are offering is complimentary Easter photos in the lobby. See the above card for the times of these Easter events.

Woodstock be looking out for the Team EMC Superheroes and the Easter bunny in the cape as they're out on the streets the two Saturdays before Easter inviting people to come experience Easter this year at the Embassy.

Following Easter the "Heroes" series will continue throughout the month of April. Embassy will also be doing two community projects during this series as we strive together to be heroes to our community allowing people to see the heroic love of Jesus through His people. I'll have more info on that later this week.

This Sunday was our second week in our three week series entitled "Supernatural". Over the last year we have looked a a great deal at living the principles of God's word, but I have dealt little just on the power and presence of God. Last week we looked at our "Conversation with God". I built on the theme of Jesus giving us access into the presence of God. We looked at the Tabernacle with the Holy of Holies and the veil that separated man from God in the Old Testament and how Jesus' work on the Cross gives us access through the veil to the living presence of God (Hebrews 9 &10)

Jesus didn't do all that He did for us to just...."Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul...." He did what we did so we would have access into the presence of God. This experience with God is more than a time for an information dump, but it's a time of intimacy. Basically the most Supernatual thing we can experience is to come into His presence. (breaking into the presence of God)

This week we looked at "miracles". Which are basically the by product of God breaking into our lives with his power and presence affecting change to the areas of our lives that are in need. To illustrate this I had a giant box on stage that I stayed in until the time for the teaching. I began to cut my way out of the box as I told various stories of Jesus doing miracles. Finally I step from the box making the statement that it is foolish for your pastor to preach his sermon from inside a box, but equally misguided is putting God in a box. We looked at three boxes that we put God in #1 God doesn't do things like that anymore. #2 God has to move when I say jump. #3 If He does still do miracles I don't think He will for me.

These are all boxes that we use to limit the supernatural in our lives. Jesus is still the same yesterday today and forever and Sunday we just set our hearts to believe that God can do what He says he can do and we invited Him to do what He desires to do in us.

Our final week of the series we will look at the "struggle behind the struggle". If God has given us access and if God can move into the areas of our lives in powerful ways don't you think there will be opposition to our souls trying to keep us from this? Next week we will examine this opposition.

Great weekend at the embassy!

This past weekend was absolutely amazing. We partnered with our city and the YMCA and helped with the 24 hour adventure race on Saturday and no I didn't participate in the race. It's 80 miles of running, biking, and canoing and the participants were crazy in shape. Maybe next year we'll enter Team EMC Extreme. When I say we... I mean you...any volunteers? Everyone that served during this event has been at the embassy for less than a few months. So it was neat seeing new people jumping in and doing their part to show people that they matter to God. One family we met Saturday visited Sunday and they loved it. Thanks team for taking part in this event that in someway will make a difference in this family's life forever.

On Sunday we dedicated 8 children to the Lord. One family e-mailed this about what emc meant to them that day..."You really given my husband and I the drive to start again with the Lord and continue our journey." Team emc thanks for all you do creating the environment God uses to reach people every week! That's what it is about let's never forget that. By the way we also had record breaking attendance on Sunday. We say it's not about the numbers and it's not, but it sure is about people and having 8 kids dedicated and a room well on it's way to becoming full touches me powerfully. Why because people's lives are coming into contact with God, His Word, and His people and their future and heritages are being impacted for ever!!!

Final thing Monday night was our creative design team night. These folks were off the hizzy fo shizzy my peeps. No really we were looking at our Easter experience and the series for the month of April. And it is going to be the biggest thing we have ever done. Frankly we could use some extra finances to make it happen so if you feel led to help us help people "embrace the hero within" so that they can see their lives, homes, and communities change by the power of the Ultimate Hero. Just let me know.