Season 4, Episode 3: “When God Says Move, Move!” with Annie Lambert

00:02 – Jess (Host)
If you’re new here, welcome. And if you came back, oh God bless ya. Thank you for coming back. This is the Jesus Fix it podcast. With Jess, we talk about everything.

00:13
Life it’s craziness, it’s ups and downs, cause you know what. Jesus can fix it and he can handle it all. So if you’ve ever been scrolling through Facebook and you’ve seen somebody doing something and you’re like I wonder what they’re doing that for, and you’re just like you know what, I think I’m gonna ask them. That’s what I decided to do when I saw that you were on a mission to visit every single church in the city. Okay, so let me back up for a minute Y’all. Today I have a very sweet guest, annie Lambert. Thank you, hey, annie.

00:52
If you live in this area maybe you don’t even have to live in this area cause you have like what a million followers on Facebook. It seems like I’m not even sure you have tons of followers Then maybe you know about Annie, who has set out to visit every single church in our city. We live in Lynchburg and you are on a mission to visit every church here. Now, I don’t know if you know how many churches we have in this area. It’s a lot, it’s not. We’re not talking like we have five churches, we have 10 churches, not even 20 churches, not even 30 churches, not even 40 churches.

01:30 – Annie (Host)
We are known as the city of churches.

01:32 – Jess (Host)
We are. So what makes you want to just visit every single church Like I? Have so many questions. The first one why?

01:41 – Annie (Host)
Yes. So you know it’s a complicated answer. When the Holy Spirit leads you to do something, I feel like oftentimes in my life when he’s called me to do something, I get like the instruction to do something, but not a lot of the questions answered. So I’m not. You know, I don’t really have an expectation in mind. I will say that after COVID, you know, as you know, many churches started to advance their technology and live stream and I was very, very ill with COVID and hospitalized and had a really really long recovery process where I was struggling with mobility.

02:18
So I started at that time watching a lot of those live broadcasts that the churches started to implement.

02:26
And at that time, the Holy Spirit was leading me that he wanted me to visit every church in our area, and I don’t know exactly what will come from it, but I do know that every single place of worship that I’ve visited, I feel like a broken part of myself is being mended and healed. Oh wow, and you know just personally, I’m getting so much from it and I hope that you know that the community I believe they are, because people message me and say I haven’t been to church in 20 years and your boldness has encouraged me to step back into church, okay, so, okay.

03:04 – Jess (Host)
So I have to ask this question Did you have a home church before you started visiting all these churches and if so, what about your home church? Are you just like? Bye, felicia, see y’all later. I see you when I see you?

03:18 – Annie (Host)
That’s a great question. So I did. I was teaching Sunday school, which I do miss teaching Sunday school because I feel like that’s, you know, that’s really my calling. But once I got sick with COVID, I could recognize that things were changing within my home. Church. Leadership changed and eventually they changed locations, changed leadership and at that time, while struggling with mobility and having a hard time like physically getting out to church, you know the Holy spirit was working on me, like okay, like once you start recovering and you will recover once you start getting out there, instead of just throwing myself back into a home church. I need you to do this.

03:59 – Jess (Host)
So you felt the Lord leading you into a change anyway, correct? Okay. So why not now do this, okay? Okay, so the introvert in me has to ask you this question, because it’s so hard for people to believe that I am an introvert at heart.

04:17
I know I listen to you all the time and I can’t believe it. There’s a part of me that is so I have to ask this question. So, a lot of churches and maybe this is just because I come from like a old school, little country church but a lot of churches that you visit is very much old school and, okay, any new visitors in the building stand up and introduce yourself. That would terrify me. Are you getting a lot of that?

04:42 – Annie (Host)
I do, and, as a naturally anxious person, you know, that struggles with panic disorder. You know, I often question, like Lord, did you choose the right girl for this? Because, like, this is so out of my comfort zone and I feel like God often calls us to do things that we’re not comfortable with, and those are the people that he usually will choose, because maybe I’m better able to communicate what’s happening. What’s my experience with walking in? But, yes, when I go into a church and now it’s not as much because this Sunday we’ll make 24 churches that have visited but, yes, so I mean, like the first four or five churches, I think we all have a fear of the unknown and I had, you know, some sense of anxiety, not knowing what to expect and, coming from like a small Baptist church background, walking into all of these different places of worship, I really didn’t even know what to expect from denominations or like different forms of worship. You know, I’ve gone into churches where there’s immediate dancing and I love it.

05:46 – Jess (Host)
Yes, okay, so I was gonna ask you so what has been like the one thing that’s taken you way outside of your comfort zone, like, what type of worship like this is the same? Place Sure I understand what’s been that. One thing that’s like, okay, okay, this is like.

06:02 – Annie (Host)
I’m not used to this but okay, okay, I’m here now. I’m here now. So my daughter struggles with some, you know, hearing challenges and hearing sensitivity and just some social anxiety and sensitivity, but we attended the ramp church in Linsberg.

06:20 – Jess (Host)
Okay, that’s like a holiness Pentecostal right I think so.

06:24 – Annie (Host)
I don’t tend to look at denominations.

06:26 – Jess (Host)
I don’t tend to look at the information before I go. You just roll up, Just roll up unexpected, unannounced surprise stay here.

06:34 – Annie (Host)
And she walked out in tears and said I don’t think I’ve ever been hugged so much in my entire life. Oh, oh, my goodness. It makes me emotional.

06:44 – Jess (Host)
So did that make. Was that a good thing? For her or was that a kind of too much. Was that a sensory overload when she said that?

06:52 – Annie (Host)
So normally it would be a sensory overload, but I think, you know, there was so much love, compassion, kindness that everybody went out of their way naturally. They didn’t know what we were there to do, yeah, so they just came up naturally loving us and just giving us this sense of like you’re welcome here, you belong, you know this is your home. I also went to a prayer of faith temple and I’m not sure the domination Okay, I’ve heard of prayer of faith.

07:19 – Jess (Host)
I think, Okay, yeah.

07:20 – Annie (Host)
So I got called to the front as somebody that’s naturally anxious.

07:24 – Jess (Host)
That would just I would melt, I would go Right, but I would still feel like, okay, lord, whatever you’re trying to do, okay, but I would still and I was prophesied over.

07:35 – Annie (Host)
Oh, wow so that was totally a new experience for me. That’s never happened to me in my life and I can say that I experienced the Holy Spirit in a brand new way that I’ve never felt before.

07:47 – Jess (Host)
Yeah.

07:48 – Annie (Host)
So just going into, like all of these different places where there’s dancing maybe, like there’s color guard, the diverseness yeah, they’re speaking in tongues there’s, you know, just quiet worship. I’ve been to a service where there was no music at all, nothing.

08:03 – Jess (Host)
Nothing.

08:05 – Annie (Host)
It’s just unbelievable what God is doing for me personally, and I pray that the readers you know, people that are following along, are getting as much from it as you, because you’re blogging about this as you.

08:17 – Jess (Host)
So that’s one thing. When I saw you doing this, that’s the first thing that really struck me as the diversity about it, because one of my friends I never will forget this she attended church with me when we were she. We both were new Christians fairly. I came to Jesus when I was about 18 and a half 19 years old and she was 20. And she experienced and I hate using this term Black Church, white Church I hate using that term, but I don’t know any other way because predominantly I’ll just say predominantly Black Church, and this was her first time. She was one of my best friends in college and she was white and it was her first time coming home with me to go to church with me, and she was like I don’t know what to expect. I’m just gonna tell you the church I go to we just sit and we don’t sing, we don’t dance. When she left my church, she was like I’m sweating, but I have never felt this way before in my life.

09:21 – Annie (Host)
Yeah, oh, I know, sometimes I watch my Apple Watch and I’ve got a cardio workout from her, because that’s just how I grew up worshiping, we danced, we sang.

09:33 – Jess (Host)
it was all the hugging it was. We was also in church for 10 hours, and that’s another thing.

09:40 – Annie (Host)
sometimes you don’t know how long the service that you’re walking into like. It’s ranged from an hour to four hours.

09:47 – Jess (Host)
Yeah, that’s one thing I was determined of, not that I’m now. Look, please don’t get offended. Y’all know I always keep it real. Don’t get offended just because I say I don’t wanna stay in church 10 hours. If that’s, you do your thing. But I said that’s one thing I am determined to do once I become an adult mom. I said I am not staying in church 10 hours but yeah, I love that we can be brothers and sisters in Christ. It doesn’t matter what color you are, it doesn’t matter what you look like, it doesn’t matter what nationality you are. You can just be under one roof and just worship our God.

10:26 – Annie (Host)
Yes, exactly, I love that. I will tell you, every place that I’ve been to I haven’t felt like an outcast. Even if there was a different, diverse makeup of people, that nobody has made me feel like I was an outsider. They like brought people, bring me to the front, and if I don’t know how to dance, they’re teaching me, cause I do not know Me neither girl, and so people are Me neither. I feel like I’m learning how to worship our Lord.

10:54 – Jess (Host)
That’s all it’s about. It’s just learning different ways to worship Him and even languages that I thought would be a barrier.

11:01 – Annie (Host)
I attended Lynchburg Korean Church.

11:04 – Jess (Host)
Oh, wow, okay.

11:05 – Annie (Host)
Yes, so their service is completely in Korean. Okay, however, the pastor’s daughter was so wonderful that she translated the service for me, my daughter and a friend that attended with us, and I will tell you, one of the most amazing experiences that I will never forget is singing hymns in different languages.

11:25
That makes me wanna cry I know I did cry, I was weeping, because it’s just an unbelievable experience. What is happening? You’re surrounded by the hymns that we grew up with, and people are singing in different languages, but we’re all worshiping together at the same time. And it’s making this sound that it’s indescribable.

11:48 – Jess (Host)
Yes, I absolutely love that. And I love that you’re doing this Because, honestly, at first I was just like, okay, what is she trying to accomplish? And I felt in my heart that it was something God put on your heart. But I just wanted to know, like, what is your end goal? And if there wasn’t end goal, like it doesn’t have to be, but I just wanted to know, like where you felt you were being led by this.

12:14 – Annie (Host)
I know that he works all things for our good, so, no matter what the end result is, I know that it’s gonna work out for our good collectively. But it’s an unbelievable calling. It’s challenging, yeah, as somebody who isn’t usually front and center like to be made front and center in this experience is definitely overwhelming sometimes, but I’ve told people because they’ve asked like are you afraid to go to, like all of these churches?

12:47
And I said if I can’t go into a church and feel safe, where in the world can we feel safe at Like? When we’re surrounded by our family, when we’re surrounded by people who love us. So no, I mean God is teaching me to turn fear into faith.

13:03 – Jess (Host)
Oh, I love that, yeah, yeah. So do you have a plan every week? Do you know where you’re going? So in your like already, do you know where you’re going this coming Sunday?

13:16 – Annie (Host)
That’s a question that I get asked a lot. So how do I choose the church? Right now I am working from a list that I found on the Liberty website. There’s a lot of different lists. A historian who was taking photos of Lynchburg Church has sent me a list and I wanna say there’s close to maybe 300 on that list, if I’m remembering correctly.

13:34
Okay. So I wait for the Holy Spirit to prompt me where to go for that week, and that could be in a lot of different forms. Sometimes somebody mentions a church that I’ve never heard of. Sometimes I’ll drive past and say I’ve been past this place a hundred times and I have never been here, so I wait for that leading to go, and then I show up unannounced. There have been some churches that I’ve had to reach out to say what time is your service? Because they don’t have a website or I couldn’t find anything online. I’m actually wearing a T-shirt from one of the churches that I visited free church. I love the shirt. Yes, yes, nice design. Okay, the pastor and his wife at this church prayed over me and prayed for this journey, and every place that I’ve been has just been one of those experiences that I’ll never forget.

14:24 – Jess (Host)
Wow, I almost feel like I need to like invite pastors to listen to this podcast and be on the lookout for you.

14:32 – Annie (Host)
Yes, I know, I think like if I put my billboard out there and you know, at first it was like okay, some people had compared it to like being a secret shopper and I really don’t like that, because I’m not going in with the expectation to find somebody doing something wrong. That’s never my intent. I don’t think that. I don’t feel that way at all.

14:50 – Jess (Host)
Yeah, I think God is showing me the special things.

14:53 – Annie (Host)
And what’s really interesting is, from week to week, I can see churches adopting some of the things from the blog that they’re like oh, that was a really good idea that church is doing this. So you know, I went to Heritage Baptist Church and they put a Spotify set list of the worship songs they’ll be singing for that Sunday on their website so if you are a newcomer, you can familiarize yourself with the songs and I think, like just little details like that really make that is a great idea, right?

15:26 – Jess (Host)
I love that, see, and I love that. I wish more churches would get ideas from one another, because, I mean, I don’t like the idea of us being in competition with one another. Exactly, and I will tell you. I have received some hate messages you know which is unfortunate because Very unfortunate, yeah, Because if you do read my blog.

15:48 – Annie (Host)
I’ve had someone recently tell me well, I can’t read it because I’m afraid of what you’re gonna write in it and I’m like, no, what? That’s not what this is about, and you know so. You know the people that send the hate messages. I just want you to know. Like I’m not gonna respond to that. You know that’s not something that I’ve been. You know I just pray for the situation. But it’s not something that I’m going to even address like publicly, but some of them are not very nice.

16:17 – Jess (Host)
Well, it’s not even worth your time to respond, and it says a lot about how they are. It says a lot about their personality and how God needs to work on them, and it’s coming from that competitive thing that we’re talking about, and that’s not what.

16:33 – Annie (Host)
God has called us to do is to compete to see who can have the most members in a church or who’s the largest church?

16:40
And I will tell you going to some of the small churches that I’ve gone to and I don’t know that many people in our community even know they exist, which is unfortunate. But I mean, like I pray that if you’re following the blog and reading along, that you’ll attend some of these churches and go and see the experience for yourself. And I’ve had some people say, hey, you went to this church and we visited and had the exact same experience. It’s really powerful.

17:08 – Jess (Host)
Believe it or not, there are still churches out there that aren’t worried about growing their attendance. They’re worried about worshiping God and gaining souls for the kingdom. That’s just. There are still churches out there, that’s still, that’s their main purpose, like, yeah, they want to get their attendance up, not saying they’re not worried about that, but the most important thing is gaining souls and making sure people and that’s what I look for when I work in a.

17:40 – Annie (Host)
When I walk into a church, it’s you know, I don’t really have a set expectation, because I know there’s various forms of worship and, like I, try to immerse myself in it. So I’m not sitting in the back row, I sit right up front. I want to be, you know, right, you know where I can see everything, where I can experience everything. So I’m not you know, I’m, you know, and most places have been so gracious and kind and stay after the service to take pictures, because I don’t want to just get pictures of a church building.

18:12
I want to get pictures of the people that make the church, the people worshiping, and I mean it’s really a beautiful thing. I think almost 27,000 people have read this blog at LynchburgVHurchcom and in 52 countries. I had an older gentleman from India. He said I’m in a remote part of India, but I just want to tell you that reading this blog has given me hope, and I’m talking about like the remotest places in the world that have wifi access are reading about what we’re doing in our city of churches Wow.

18:50 – Jess (Host)
This is amazing.

18:51 – Annie (Host)
It really is amazing.

18:53 – Jess (Host)
Oh, my goodness, and look how God is using you. I know it’s really, really unbelievable. Thank you for allowing him to, because this is big. I mean just the thought of okay, I don’t like being seen, I don’t like being at the forefront, I don’t like being in a crowd, I don’t like standing up in front of people, I don’t like strangers. But I’m going to put myself out there, not once, not twice, but potentially 300 times or more.

19:22 – Annie (Host)
And God, and you’re doing it, yeah, and God gets every bit of glory, because there is no way that I could do this on my own. There’s just no possible way, so I just and when. I walk in and people are magnifying Jesus. There’s just something that it does to your soul. I mean, like you walk out a changed person. And so this Sunday will be 24 churches that I’ve been to and 24 soul-changing experiences.

19:48 – Jess (Host)
Oh, my goodness, that is awesome. Okay, so I have to ask have you been to Family Life Church yet? I have not. Okay, it is on the list. I’m going to what? That’s where I go to church, and I’m just wanting to see have you been there? And I missed you. So I’m going to be watching. Yes, please be watching. See now I’m going to be on guard. I’m just like, okay, I’m looking on my shoulder but see, I always get to church late, so Okay.

20:12 – Annie (Host)
I see.

20:13 – Jess (Host)
I show up.

20:14 – Annie (Host)
I show up early so I can get pictures and things, because it’s more than just reading the blog. So, people, you know, I think that last month we reached 2 million people on Facebook that are looking at photos and pictures and videos. So it’s more than just reading the experience. It’s like actually getting a glimpse into how your brothers and sisters are worshiping the.

20:36 – Jess (Host)
Lord, wow, and now I just feel like I really should be on time to church now. Okay, that really made me feel crummy. I’m going to start. I’m going to be more intentional about showing up on time. Okay, so before we wrap up, I want to know this is a personal question If there was like one thing big or small and you could say, okay, Jesus, fix it, what would it be?

21:03 – Annie (Host)
Okay, jesus, fix it. And I’d mentioned this before. Not a lot of people know this, but I am going to write a book after this experience, called After the Service, because you can only fit so many things into it, into a small blog that keep people coming back and reading. But I would say, during sermons or during church service, I don’t like to hear people speaking badly of different denominations and doctrines and things like that, because I feel like God is showing me through this journey that that’s not what it’s about. We should not be talking and gossiping about other people. We shouldn’t be sending hate emails because you don’t agree with the church that I visited. So I would say, jesus, please fix it to where we show love and grace and compassion and we follow the golden rule and treat others how you’ve shown us to treat others.

21:58 – Jess (Host)
Yeah, I love that. Okay, so perhaps this is it. Maybe Annie inspired you to go to church or visit a church or just plain, try something new. It’s a good time to set new goals, change old habits and try new things. If you don’t get out of your comfort zone, if you aren’t learning and taking risks, then you won’t grow. You’ll stay right where you are. It was Vincent Van Gogh who said what would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

22:34 – Announcer (Announcement)
Life’s not perfect. That’s why God gave us friends like Melody and Candy. Check out QuirksBumpsandBruisescom or search QuirksBumpsandBruises wherever you listen to podcasts.