Our take: "Embrace" is an initiative by Southern Baptist Churches that is designed to help establish churches in unreached European areas. With much support from people in the U.S. and those overseas, would-be pastors, some of whom have never traveled outside the U.S., are coached about cultural expectations and making connections with local people.
When Nick Hodges decided to watch the Southern Baptist Convention online last summer, he never dreamed he would be navigating the "tubes," trains and taxis of a major European city as a result.
When Hodges heard about Embrace during the SBC meeting, "it was like a light went on inside of me." Embrace is an initiative to encourage Southern Baptist churches to choose an unreached, unengaged people group (UUPG) and establish an active church-planting strategy among them.
"We're supposed to just go and carry out the Great Commission," Hodges said of the stirring he felt.
Hodges is pastor of 80-member Emmanuel Baptist Church in Oakdale, La. He and members of 1,100-member First Baptist Church in Mansfield, Texas, spent the last week of April in Europe with International Mission Board trainers to begin their journey to embrace one of the world's 3,800 UUPGs, 500 of which can be found in Europe.
Read more at TownHall.com.