Untitled Sermon (16)

It is a great delight to be asked to share some of the story of Immanuel Baptist Church. It is especially kind of Brian Croft, who I has been my friend since my earliest days at Immanuel, to ask me to share with you.

I must admit that talking about the Church I Pastor for 45 minutes of so feels awfully self important. So I want to make a few things clear before I start.

In the Apostle Paul says, “6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. I want you to know before I begin that every part of that verse applies to all I will share tonight. I have not been in this alone. Paul worked with Apollos and others, and I have worked with Tommy Hullette who first wanted to see Immanuel revitalized, Jeff King who has labored as an Elder for a decade and a half. And we have worked with over 30 elders and hundreds and hundreds of saints of the living God. I am speaking tonight but this is their story. Paul did not work alone and neither have ‘I’. In many ways the story of my ministry is the story of being surrounded with people whose godliness is greater than mine, and whose gifts support and complement my many deficiencies. I am standing here as the Pastor but this really is the story of God’s recent work at Immanuel Baptist Church in downtown Louisville, Ky.

Again in Paul says, “God gave the growth.” This is so important to emphasize. Without Him we could do nothing. Unless the Lord builds the house they labor in vain who build it. Throughout the history of recent Immanuel God has provided the growth through empowering us with power we do not bring to the table. He has also provided the growth in spite of us, as anyone who has spent any time at Immanuel knows the Elders have had to stand in front of the congregation to apologize for our sins against them. Even to this day God continues to show me sin in my life that I must deal with if I am not going to derail the work. Nonetheless, the God who does not treat us as our sins deserve has worked powerfully to glorify Himself through Immanuel Baptist Church and I want to tell that story to glorify Him tonight.

With those two truths (I have not done this alone, and God has done everything of value and power) hanging over us like a wet cloud and soaking everything I say like a hard driving rain, let me continue. What I want to do tonight is to tell you about the recent history of Immanuel Baptist Church. If you want a fuller history of Immanuel’s story you can find it in Dave Theobald excellent book, “A Great People’s Church: A History of Immanuel Baptist Church, Louisville, Kentucky 1887-2005.” Dave, who is currently a Pastor in upstate New York served our congregation very well by producing a history that really tells the story of Immanuel Baptist Church.

Although I am going to tell you more about the recent history of Immanuel, I do think it is important to summarize Immanuel’s full history for you in just a moment or two. The first line of Dave Theobald’s book summarizes Immanuel’s history perfectly. He writes, “The history of Immanuel Baptist Church is inseparably linked with that of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.” You see Immanuel was birthed by the student body of SBTS. In 1887 the “Society for Missionary Enquiry of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary” decided that they would start a Sunday School Mission in downtown Louisville’s Germantown neighborhood and on January 9th, 1887 (when my home country of Canada was a mere 20 years old, and this country was only 22 years out of the civil war, Immanuel Baptist Church was born as the Germantown Mission. From that day forward, until today, Immanuel’s history has been bound up with SBTS. Most of Immanuel’s Pastors have been Southern Students. Immanuel’s theology has followed Southerns. Our first Pastors were Boyce’s men, men who loved the abstract of principles and who zealously evangelized our neighborhood seeking to fill Germantown with her doctrine. As the years went on and Southerns theological foundation was eroded so was Immanuel’s. In the sixties when Southern’s theological lines were getting very blurry so were Immanuel’s, so much so that Immanuel was having joint services at St. Martin’s Catholic Church and St. Matthew’s United Church of Christ. In 1970 16 of Immanuel’s members left to join the Catholic Church. When SBTS has been theologically solid so has Immanuel’s. When SBTS has been shaky, Immanuel has been shaken.

Today things are no different. Immanuel currently holds to and loves a doctrinal statement that is almost identical to the Abstract of Principles and of course we know that over the last 25 years of SBTS’s history that is just the kind of theology that Dr. Mohler has cultivated here. My own story of coming to Immanuel centers on SBTS. After attending a Bible College in Canada that was very theologically shaky I was determined to attend a more confessional seminary.

This led my wife and I in August of 2000 to load all of our worldly possessions into a horse trailer and to drive from Drumheller, Alberta to Louisville, Kentucky. That’s 2316 miles if you are interested. We studied together for one semester and then Christy stopped studying to have our first daughter. Then I studied for one more semester and had to quit because, because well the Canadian dollars did not go very far back then since the Canadian dollar was worth peanuts. We worked here in the states of a year but we could never seem to get ourselves in good place to get back to school. Finally after about a year of trying we were ready to give up and we started getting ready to go back to Canada. However, at that time, my friend Tommy Hullette had been trying to serve this little Church called Immanuel downtown. Tommy approached me and said, “If you will become the Pastor of Immanuel I will buy a house in the neighborhood.” And that is exactly what happened. The story of how it happened is pretty funny so I should probably tell that one too.

Around October of 2001 I had preached at Immanuel but nothing came of it. In February 2002 I preached again, only this time I had already given my resume to the Pastoral search committee and I had met with them once. When I met with them but I asked for one condition, that no vote be taken regarding my candidacy immediately after the service. So I preached and after I preached I went to the nursery where there were maybe two kids and I grabbed mine. As I came into the sanctuary Steve O'brien, one of only three members of immanuel who have been there longer than Christy and I have came up to me and said, “Welcome aboard.” I didn’t know what he meant so I just said thanks and smiled. Then Oakley Belden walked up to me and said, “Well, I guess they liked you?” I said, “What do you mean”, he said they had met just then and decided to vote to call me as their Pastor. My first act as Pastor was to struggle with anger towards this dear old man. What? That was the one thing we were not supposed to do. I insisted on one more meeting with the Pastoral Search committee but then, by the end of the week, I had accepted the call to be the Pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church. That next Sunday, myself, my wife, a single man from Third Avenue Baptist Church named Doug Thorpe, and our friends Jeff and Christy King, along with Tommy Hullette, his wife, and their daughter Ruth all began attending Immanuel where I was now the Pastor.

Now I will tell you this. I think it would get a little tedious to go on and tell you how the next 16 years went from there. I think I would wind up droning on and on. So I am going to do two things. First, I am going to give you a quick glimpse by the numbers, and then I am going to look under the hood of Immanuel. I want to look at the theology that has formed us. I want to look at who God has revealed himself to be and how that has shaped us. But before I do that I need another caveat. I am not saying that all who hold these truths will see these results. God is the one who gives the growth. Many who hold the truth with greater clarity than I do, and who live it with greater faithfulness than I do have seen less results in this life. Our view of God does not guarantee results. But because we have tried to live these last 16 years in a way that focuses on God and seeking to do his work his way, we get the joy of saying that the results are from him. He told us how to build the Church and he has blessed the building. With that clearly said, here is Immanuel by the numbers.

In 2002 Immanuel had about 17 people in attendance. For the next seven years we grew by about 50% per year, we have not grown at that pace in many years but today we are a congregation of about 700 members.

In 2002 there were no Elders at Immanuel, as of this year we have the privilege of having 17 Elders and I have had the privilege of serving alongside 30 men who have come and gone.

In 2002 Immanuel had no small groups, today Immanuel is blessed to have 47 and 95% of our people are involved in them.

In 2002 Immanuel had lost touch with one missionary who had gone out from her midst, today she is deeply connected and supportive of 19 missionary units whom she has sent out. Each of the men we have sent out have been tested and deemed qualified in the same way we have assessed our Elders

In 2002 to the best of my knowledge we had never planted a Church, and by 2018 the men who are serving in ministry who have spent time at Immanuel are more than I can count. What I can count is that God has allowed us to send out one one Church a year each year for the last four years, we are currently partnered with 13 Pastors and Churches throughout North America in what we call the Immanuel Network.

In 2002 we had no Elders and no plan for how to raise up future leaders, In 2018 we have about 60 men enrolled in our three year Pastoral Apprenticeship.

In 2002 I had to turn down the first two baptismal candidates because they did not understand the gospel. In 2018 scarcely a members meeting happens where we do not welcome in over a dozen member and we celebrate multiple baptisms.

Finally, the people of Immanuel are increasingly diverse. While still predominantly a white Church God has gathered African Americans, Asians, Africans, and Latinos into our midst. We also love seeing our leadership reflect diversity and it is a great joy to me to know that 40% of the men in the first year of Pastoral Apprenticeship are visible minorities. Not only is Immanuel racially diverse but our membership includes the most and the least educated, the richest and the poor, and our visitors each week include those in rehab, those recently released from prison, as well as those from other faiths. We count all of this a great, undeserved blessing from God that he is doing for His own glory.

So to wrap up, currently Immanuel is a Church of about 700 people, led by 17 Elders, 7 deacons, 47 GCG’s, who are ministering to one another and our city and regularly seeing new members join, and new believers baptized. And we are seeking to be a sending people who reach out into our prisons, our refugee community, and to our friends and neighbors even as we train up and send men and women across this country and the world.

Now, I must stop there and say to hear these numbers is encouraging, but I do not think it explains Immanuel for what has shaped Immanuel is not her size but her God. What has shaped Immanuel is not her reach but God’s book, the Bible. If I could summarize the history of Immanuel over these last 16 years the words I would want to chose would be, “The Word did it all.” That is the story of Immanuel’s revitalization, her reformation, and (as some would call it) her re-planting. The story is simply this. The Word did it all. I remember in the earliest days of my ministry at Immanuel, back when we used to have a monthly potluck in my living room, I remember saying to a young couple who were visiting, “We want to do everything here so that it is abundantly plain that the Word did it all.” I think that after 16 years of ministry, hundreds of baptisms, and over a thousand new members, we should be able to look back and say, so what did the Word do? Has the word done it all? I believe it has, I want to share that with you tonight, so tonight I want to tell the history of my time at Immanuel by highlighting how Immanuel has been built in direct response to the word of God. To accomplish this I am going to highlight some of the books I have preached and some of the passages we have applied, these words from God deserve the true credit for what God has done at Immanuel. He who has spoken has done it all.

Ephesians - Ephesians was the first book I ever preached through at length at Immanuel. My first Sunday I preached at Immanuel I preached the whole book of Genesis (I probably don’t recommend that). Then I preached Mark in two weeks, then Judges in three weeks and finally Ephesians for about a year and a half. Ephesians shaped the revitalization of Immanuel deeply and is still one of the most influential portions of scripture in our life together. Let me mention three areas where Ephesians has deeply shaped Immanuel.

- When I first came to Immanuel I had some sense that i should not start with big radical changes. I wanted to pursue Biblical Church Membership, Discipline, Eldership, and Church Life but I did not want to start there. & 2 gave me the opportunity to say over and over again, God is big. And God does everything to save us. Before a people will convinced that they should do stuff they have never seen, things like Discipline and Eldership, it seems to me that a people must be convinced that God can be trusted, and the bigger their view of God, and the bigger their view of his love for them then the more they are going to be willing to let him call the shots. One of the things that shapes our life together at Immanuel is that we know God is bigger than us, wiser than us, love us more than we love ourselves, and he is more committed to his cause than we are. That knowledge sustains you when you have practice Church discipline, or confess your own sins, or speak boldly in a GCG.

- Another passion I see having shaped Immanuel deeply was a cry for God’s felt presence. In & 3 there are these amazing prayers that we might know the love of God, that we might know him beyond knowledge and experience his love. I think this passion has shaped Immanuel’s prayers, and shaped Immanuel’s corporate worship. I remember thinking to myself a lot in the early years of Immanuel. Man in the 1970’s and 80’s Southern Baptists won the battle for innerancy. In the 2000’s God was doing a great work to help us see the sufficiency of scipture (ecclesiology, counselling) but Oh Lord we need to see the great need for illumination, the light God shines on the Word to make it burn brightly in the believers life. I believe the illumined pursue obedience from a warm heart of love, not a cold heart of duty and I think I have seen that illumination grip us over and over again.

- Another really strong influence from Ephesians has been a push for every member ministry. We can be really finnicky at Immanuel about how we talk about ministry. The idea that only Pastors are doing ministry is forbidden. We are all in ministry, baptized into ministry. I think this has shaped our life as deeply as anything. Our people know they are called to serve one another, to speak the truth to one another, to care for one another. The Pastors often get beaten to the hospital room by other members. Sin often gets addressed before a Pastor steps in. The people of God understand that the ministry is their responsibility. I remember talking to one saint in my first 5 years or so at Immanuel, and he said to me, “We know that when a saint goes astray it is our responsibility to go get them. We have been taught that.” I think this explains why we see 95% of our people in GCG’s, they know they have a responsibility to care for one another.

- I do not know if I ever preached through in those early days, but earlier than I had planned it became a big part of our story. In my earliest months at Immanuel I made a simple announcement that would have consequences beyond what I could imagine. On a Wednesday night, with maybe 15-20 people in attendance I announced that I would begin visiting people in their homes just to get to know them. The next day in my mailbox I had a letter from our Church Treasurer. He was writing me to tell me that if I visited his home I would learn he was gay. I reached out to him immediately, I did not know if he meant I am gay and I reject the Bible’s teaching about sexual morality, or if he meant I am gay and I am fighting it in spite of my bad experiences with the Church. I had him over to my office (which at that time was a room in the parsonage across from the building on the corner of Oak and Clay). We talked for hours. I listened to his story. I assured him that I would help him fight sin. I promised him I would come over at 2 in the morning if I needed to in order to quote scripture to him and to help him get victory over sin. At the end of the night I read him explained to him that he would not be a second class citizen at Immanuel and that God could help him, but if he refused to repent then I would be called to follow the directives in which include telling one or two others, telling the Church, and eventually excommunication.

The next morning, all of the Church finances were sitting outside on my back step. He was leaving to follow his sin. We began to pursue him, calling, pleading, visiting, until finally he told me he would take legal action if I came to see him again. As we realized that he was not hearing the Shepherd’s voice, that the big God of Ephesians was little to him, we began to speak to the deacons about the possibility of congregational Church Discipline. One Deacon, Oakley Belden, the Deacon who had received my resume just over a year earlier was willing to do whatever the Bible said. He was nervous, he needed to walk through the passages on Church Discipline multiple times but he was so eager to obey the Bible wherever it led that he was willing to practice whatever Jesus preached.

In due time we gathered the little congregation, maybe 20-30 people sitting at the front of an auditorium that would sit 350 and we read passages like and we voted to treat this man as a Gentile and a Tax Collector. I remember the moment. I believe it was the moment God added his weight to the ministry. It was like we went from being a congregation with a young zealous preacher to a people who were dealing with God. It was a moment, and there have been dozens since then, of fear and trembling. I believe these moments add a weight to all that happens in the church. JL Dagg said that when discipline leaves a Church Christ goes with it, I would add that when discipline returns Christ comes back. Discipline destroys nominalism, it reminds us that we must ‘give more earnest heed to the things we have heard lest we drift away.’ It helps small groups take the Bible seriously when it says, “Brothers, let us encourage each other as long as it all called today lest there be an evil and unbelieving heart in any of us and we fall away from the living God.” Church leaders in our day are always looking for a way to help people take Church seriously, I would suggest that the best way to help people take Church seriously is for our Churches to take God seriously and to practice their congregational life in a way that honors both the kindness and severity of God. has shaped us.

But it has not only shaped us into a people who tearfully put people out, we have also been shaped into a people who have the joyful privilege of bringing people back in. About two years into our ministry at Immanuel a young woman came to us out of a Charismatic background. She seems shaky in her faith, but real. However, it was not long before she disappeared from our gatherings. Patti Withers, who you will hear from later, and myself, and others began to pursue her. We found her and by God’s grace won her heart to repentance but not before she had spent too much time going to the clubs and in the midst of that she had become pregnant. Because the pregnancy was going to be public, they have a way of doing that, we believed that her repentance should be public as well. In the midst of her shaky faith, and her just budding repentance she came to a Wednesday night service ready to repent to the Church. It was an incredible moment as she stood and said, “You did not fail me, I failed you.” The whole Church (maybe 20 or 30 people at this time) welcomed her with full grace and joy. An older couple in the Church (the first man I baptized actually) welcomed her into their home, and Mike and Patti Withers began a 10000 dollar renovation on their home so that when she gave birth she would have a place to stay with her newborn. When the renovations were done and the baby was born Athena and Simon moved in with Mike and Patti. Mike and Patti became family to Athena and Simon. And Athena and Simon stayed there for years. Actually, they stayed until a young single deacon of ours took a shine to Athena and pretty soon Athena had a husband and Simon had a father. I have often thought that Churches that do not practice Church Discipline, or practice it in a way that is divorced from the real lives of the congregation never get to see this kind of glory.

- One of the things that attracted me to Immanuel was the desire God had placed in me to do good to the poor. Actually, I know it sounds strange in retrospect but for me the little Church with 17 people in the inner city of Louisville in a part of town that was at the crossroads of Louisville’s racial divide. God had placed desires in my heart for racial reconciliation, for ministry to the poor, for the preaching of God’s Word in power, and for healthy local Church life and Immanuel seemed like a dream job a place I would be able to do all of those things. One of the verses which we looked at and preached on in the early days of Immanuel was . Since it is not as familiar as Ephesians or I will read a portion of it to you. Essentially, it is a promise that if we care for the poor we will experience spiritual revival in our own souls. says,

lift up your voice like a trumpet;

declare to my people their transgression,

to the house of Jacob their sins.

2 Yet they seek me daily

and delight to know my ways,

as if they were a nation that did righteousness

and did not forsake the judgment of their God;

they ask of me righteous judgments;

they delight to draw near to God.

3 ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not?

Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’

Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,

and oppress all your workers.

4 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight

and to hit with a wicked fist.

Fasting like yours this day

will not make your voice to be heard on high.

5 Is such the fast that I choose,

a day for a person to humble himself?

Is it to bow down his head like a reed,

and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?

Will you call this a fast,

and a day acceptable to the Lord?

6 “Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of wickedness,

to undo the straps of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover him,

and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up speedily;

your righteousness shall go before you;

the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’

the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry

and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in the darkness

and your gloom be as the noonday.

11 And the Lord will guide you continually

and satisfy your desire in scorched places

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters do not fail.

12 And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;

you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

the restorer of streets to dwell in. ().

In the early days of Immanuel we had the opportunity to obey these words very literally. In addition for caring for the poor through a clothes closet, and through relationships forged with those who would visit our services, we also had many of the homeless poor into our homes. I remember nights I stayed up pretty much all night since I did not trust the people who I had allowed to stay with my family. I remember Jeff King and I think JC Tyson having a woman (who I still sometimes hear from) under house arrest in their home. Another situation I remember was the weekend that one of our new converts had a woman with a newborn baby show up at his door. She had all kinds of problems. She had an ankle bracelet on since she was under house arrest, but she did not have a house. He was going to have her stay with him but a few more mature believers let him know this would not be the best idea. So, by the end of the weekend Sarah was staying with one of our Elders.

Situations where our lives were deeply enmeshed with the poor were common in the early days of Immanuel. They are not as common today and I actually that is mostly because of wisdom. Today there are homeless men in our Sunday morning services every week, there are men recently released from jail every week. Each week Immanuel members minister in homeless shelters, prisons, and to our refugee community. We have realized the great value of programs like LRM, and Refuge as we care for the poor, none the less, I am glad God gave us this heart of service in the early years even if we were not the wisest in using it.

Galatians - It might be hard for you to feel the significance of Galatians in our life as a Church. IT HAS BEEN MASSIVE!! I don’t have a bunch of stories to help you feel it, but still I will try. I was converted out of a deeply hedonistic, pleasure seeking, wickedly immoral, drug and sex soaked lifestyle. I was also saved out of deep sympathy with, and some involvement with socialistic and communistic ideas and movements. So when I got saved, mine was a radical conversion. Now, in many ways radical is good when you are coming out of so much wickedness but it isn’t always balanced. I was very attracted to what we might call radical Christianity. I wanted to live what John Piper called a wartime mentality. I also never met a conservative conviction I did not like. I remember during my time at Southern hearing Dr. Schreiner say, “Just because a position is the most conservative does not mean it is the most biblical.” I was the kind of guy who needed to hear that. I was eager to be as conservative as possible, as radical as possible, and let’s just say that wasn’t always good.” I remember during that time hearing things like, “I love your preaching you just tear me to shreds.” or “I feel beat up when I hear you preach.” Now, before you think man how did such a gospeless ministry take off, well it wasn’t a gospel free ministry. I preached the substitutionary death of Jesus pretty much every week, and justification by faith very often. I understood the gospel, but I was not able to preach the gospel with proportion and balance. I had heard that Francis Schaeffer said once that if he only had 1 hour with an unbeliever he would preach 45 minutes of law and 15 minutes of gospel. Well if you only have one hour with an unbeliever that might not be a bad idea since the law does drive us to the gospel, but I was basically doing this every week. Yes, I was preaching an hour or more, and I was basically preaching the demands of the Word with greater clarity than the free gift of Christ’s salvation. So let me put this together for you. A group of young zealous Christians were downtown moving to the inner city seeking to live out radical Christianity and the preacher was clear on the need to obey and not as clear on how the gospel motivates us to do it. There was a lot of pressure to obey, to sacrifice, to live a life of radical love for Jesus and then Galatians.

I remember week after week feeling like weights were actually lifting off the shoulders of the saints. I remember week after week seeing new freedom and joy coming into the faces of God’s people. We could see the results of the gospel happening right there in front of our faces. But perhaps the most profound way I could influence the effect of Galatians was by a conversation my wife and I had a few years later. Of course no one felt the brunt of my rigid radical Christianity more than my wife. No one had enjoyed Galatians more than my wife. So a few years later I came to her and I said to her, “Hey, I am going to preach on ministry to the poor again.” I was expecting her to say, “Oh that will be so burdensome, it will make me feel crushed.” But instead she said, “That sounds good.” I said, “I was not expecting to hear you say that, I thought you would think that was too duty bound or legal or something.” She said, “No, it’s good, because now we understand Galatians and we know where these things fit.”

Daniel & Dinner Parties With Jesus - Immanuel has a fairly unique structure on Sunday Morning. We gather to worship, to sing God’s praise, to hear God’s Word, and take the Lord’s Supper. Among Churches shaped by the scripture this is fairly common. What is not common is that in our second hour the Church meets for prayer. Instead of filling the Church Building with Adult Sunday School Classes, or Adult Bible Fellowships (which can be great), Immanuel is filled with what we simply call Prayer Rooms or Gathered Prayer. We have two morning services, and during each of them prayer rooms gather throughout the building. About 8 rooms gather each morning, each under the leadership of one of our Pastors. These prayer rooms have become in many ways the backbone of our ministry. Through these prayer rooms we pray for the 19 missionary teams Immanuel has sent out. We pray for the 13 Churches and Pastors of the Immanuel Network. We pray for the unreached people groups of the world, especially the ones our missionaries are trying to reach. Through these prayer rooms we have seen God do what only God can do time and time again. How we came to have these prayer gatherings is the story of two sermon series colliding, a group of Elders wives crying, and a desire to move out in evangelism under the power of God. Let me explain.

In the summer of 2010 I was preaching through the book of Daniel and God was working. He had done a striking work in when I preached on how God still delivers his people today and then to illustrate my point I flew to Indonesia with what was apparently an unacceptable passport and was detained in the Indonesian airport authorities in the basement of the Jakarta airport. As I was detained on a Sunday morning Immanuel prayed for me and I was released later that day. But anyway, that is not the story I am trying to tell. When I got to I began to preach on prayer. We looked at Daniel’s famous prayer in that ends by calling out to God, “Oh Lord do, and do not not do!” We looked at and how Daniel’s prayers literally set off fights between heavenly and demonic forces in heaven. We saw all this and the Church was literally gripped for prayer. It seemed obvious we needed to do something to help our people have more occasion to pray.

Then that fall, just few months later, I started a series that we called Dinner Parties with Jesus. The whole series was meant to encourage evangelistic hospitality. It was meant to encourage our people to get to know sinners. It was meant to help to make Immanuel a people like Jesus who sinners, loved sinners, and led people to himself while all the while not sinning that was our goal. I preached the first sermon and then we went a rare Elders meeting. It was on Sunday afternoon after the service and we had invited our wives.

So here we were with a people hungry for prayer, Pastors eager to see our people (and ourselves grow in Evangelism), and now we were at a meeting with our wives. I don’t remember how the conversation got where it got, but as we talked about how busy we were, and how much more we wanted to do, we wound up with multiple crying wives. I can still see one of them in my minds eye. It was a hard moment. But God really met with us. We did something we have done on a few occasions at Immanuel. We said what if we assumed nothing, what if we treated nothing as sacred (except what God’s word explicitly commands), and we laid everything on the table. Wednesday nights are they helping us or hurting us. Adult Sunday School is it helping us or hurting us. Having small groups (or care groups as we called them) that only allowed believers to attend, was that helping us or hurting our evangelistic endeavors. Our weekly rhythms are they too busy for people to get to know their neighbors or are they helping us have dinner parties like Jesus.

In the end we decided that we would scrap Wednesday night prayer and move it to an even more central location on the map, Sunday Morning. We decided to open our Small Groups to unbelievers so they could be with us, see our love for one another and be saved. We tried to open up our schedule so our best time together would be for praying for power, and our time in the week would be open to getting to know unbelievers.

I tell this story as one more illustration of how Immanuel has tried to be led by the word, and when the word pinches us from three sides (Daniel pushing for prayer, Jesus pushing for Evangelism, and Wives pushing for realism) God helped us to do all he has commanded to be done. The results have been wonderful. While we still have so far to go. We have seen the prayer rooms lead to salvations, healings, and advances on the mission field. We have seen our GCG’s shape us into a much more evangelistic people. We currently have GCG’s serving together in nursing homes, jails, UofL, and with refugees. All of this is because of the influence of God’s Word.

, , - And an Appreciation for Diversity.

Our vision at Immanuel has included a strong desire for diversity. We have always longed to see the rich worshipping with the poor, the educated with the uneducated, and those from every tribe, tongue, and nation singing together. In 2010 or 2011 this led us to adopting the Church Vision Statement that we are “Building a Community From All Cultures Where Christ Is King.”

That vision flows out of where we are told that Jesus has purchased a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. At Immanuel, like so many other Churches, we are praying that God’s Kingdom on earth with the diversity it has in heaven. We want to see the diversity of God’s eternal city reflected as build a Church in this diverse city.

But our heart for diversity does not end there. We love to see God bringing together people with different secondary convictions and different gifts.