7 Miles In The Middle of Nowhere

By Dr. Franklin R. Dumond, Director of Congregational Ministries

“Strategically located seven miles in the middle of nowhere” describes the location of the facilities of Cedar Grove General Baptist Church. At least that’s the way Pastor Larry Embry describes the church location when in conversation with other pastors.

Whether you travel east from Hartford or Beaver Dam when you turn off either highway, it is still seven miles of rural Kentucky hillsides before you reach Cedar Grove Church. But there in the middle of nowhere stands a large multi-purpose building with its parking lot across the road and just down the hill from a large auditorium and educational complex with another parking lot. And right there in the middle of nowhere pre-Covid Sunday mornings found more than 250 people attending in-person worship services every Sunday.

The church has not always enjoyed such fine facilities, nor has it always welcomed such crowds to worship. Back in 1959, the Cedar Grove Church was organized with 14 people. Pastor Larry’s father Rev. Basil Embry with three other men signed personal notes at the bank in order to purchase a house of worship. Previously abandoned by the Methodist congregation that it housed, the little frame building sat empty for 12 years before it became home to Cedar Grove.

Pastor Larry was just a youngster when the church was organized. His father remained as pastor for a few years before moving on to serve other congregations in Kentucky and Indiana.

Cedar Grove remained part of Larry Embry’s life, and it was there as a teenager that he became a Christian. Not many years later he met a charming young lady who attended church with him. She too was converted at Cedar Grove and later became Mrs. Elda Embry.

During his college years Larry felt the call to preach. He remarked, “I told the Lord it was a mistake. I barely made a C in High School Speech Class.”

A call to preach is a call to prepare, so Larry enrolled in Vanderbilt Divinity School and began serving rural churches. Later he took a teaching positon in Ohio County and moved back to the Hartford/Beaver Dam area as a middle school Social Studies and Science teacher.

He still served churches as a bivocational pastor and like everyone else in those days, he stayed in each place 3-4 years and then moved on, as was generally expected.

In 1981, he started a new job as pastor of that church his father had organized and that had been so pivotal in his own spiritual journey.

His educational career moved from the classroom to that of building principal and later Assistant Superintendent for Ohio County Schools. In 2001 the leaders of the church offered to make his position full-time. With an early retirement from the school system he reported, “They paid me to study the Bible full-time!”

In August, 2020 after 40 years of service to the Cedar Grove Church he retired from that position.

Looking back over 40 years, Pastor Larry is the first to say that he never intended to stay that long. In fact, he fully expected after a few years of holding the church together that he would conclude his service there and move to a new location to help out.

That’s exactly what he was planning toward after about year 3 until he heard the Lord “just as clearly as when He called me to preach.” “I woke in the middle of the night and knew the Lord was saying to me ‘I haven’t called you to hold things together for a while. I called you to build my church.’”

When asked what kept him going all these years he was quick to answer, “My wife, Elda. She’s always been a support.”

In 1981, the congregation had an old building with a seating capacity of 60. In 1987, Pastor Larry thought he was preaching his final sermon when he felt compelled to challenge “Cedar Grove must build”. But that first Sunday in January was not his final message. The people heard the message and responded positively.

But how do you grow a church seven miles in the middle of nowhere in Ohio County, Kentucky, with a population of about 20,000 of whom about 5,000 are in the towns of Beaver Dam and Hartford?

Pastor Larry suggested three strategies that attracted people.

First, he convinced his leaders that ministries should be targeted for the future by attracting and training young people. When the complaint was raised “We don’t have any teenagers,” he responded, “Let’s pretend we do and start our ministries with that in mind.” With 3-4 existing teens the church employed the first of a series of youth workers who in turn attracted families with children. This strategic planning started with the end in sight and worked toward that goal.

Second, he focused his preaching on building a theology people could understand. “I always worked hard on the weekly message. I would write and re-write to find the right words. I’ve never been one to preach from a manuscript or to read a sermon but I prepared the best I could.”

Third, he helped the church become a family of believers. “We could easily have been a family church with 3-4 families that made up the congregation, but I didn’t want to be a family church. I wanted the church to be a family.” This family connection provided the fodder for the basic tool of growth: word of mouth. Friends began to share with friends and folks began showing up at church.

Thom Rainer in his book Surprising Insights from the Unchurched researched that topic and demonstrated once again that friends and family members are key to reaching people. However, he also writes that the content and life application of the sermon is key to keeping people.

By the time Thom Rainer wrote his book, Larry Embry and the folks at Cedar Grove had already proved the point time and time again. “The smallest group in our church are those who grew up in a General Baptist Church. We only started with a few dozen of them. But we have folks from a variety of church backgrounds and no church backgrounds who are now General Baptist. They may have been Episcopalian or Roman Catholic or some other kind of Baptist or nothing but now they are part of the Cedar Grove General Baptist Church.”

Looking back to the most memorable experiences in those 40+ years at Cedar Grove Pastor Larry quickly divided them into personal and professional experiences.

Personally both he and his wife came to faith at Cedar Grove. So did their son Brian and their grandchildren. “What a blessing to baptize my son and my grandchildren.” Now with a great-granddaughter there are four generations of Embrys worshipping at Cedar Grove.

Professionally he marked two important milestones in the church’s development. In 2006 the church “borrowed more money that we ever thought we would” to construct their final auditorium and educational wing. Designed with a 375 seat capacity on dedication day 450 people crowded into the new space—seven miles in the middle of nowhere. Five years later the facility was debt-free.

But ministry is more than buildings and Pastor Larry remembers more than 20 years of the annual Passion Play presented to the community every Spring. “The folks just kept coming to fill the house every night.”

What does it take to stay in one place for 40 years?

1. You must have a love for people. You have to treat them as if they were your own kids because you’ve been in the foxhole with them.

2. You must have thick skin without being insensitive. “People say stupid stuff so you need to have a good forgettery.”

3. You must be a shepherd like the Lord. You work with people at their very best and at their very worst moments. Promise Keepers helped us challenge our men to step up. We keep offering opportunities for service and ministry in Jerusalem (Ohio County), Judea and Samaria (annual work camps to do home repairs in Appalachia), and to the uttermost with mission trips to other cultures and countries.

Across the years Pastor Larry has seen members come and go. Crucial people and staff members have been called to serve in other locations, but the Lord has always provided replacements while blessing those who now serve in other churches in the region and beyond.

A chronic back condition helped Pastor Larry see that it was time to retire. So now another Embry, a nephew, Philip David, serves as pastor while Pastor Larry attends when he can and does pulpit supply realizing that even after 40 years the Lord isn’t quite finished with him yet.

Hospitalized at six weeks of age with a serious pneumonia, Pastor Larry reported “They said I was turning blue.” His mother prayed, “Lord if you have a purpose for his life I know you are going to see him through.” Part of the Lord’s purpose for Larry Embry was 40 years as a pastor strategically located seven miles in the middle of nowhere. Not a bad place to be when the Lord sends you there.