First Baptist Church pastor, family feel firmly at home in Morgan County
By David Blanchette
Patrick Embley first said “no” about coming to Jacksonville to be the pastor at First Baptist Church. “When we interviewed here we didn’t think it was going to work out, so we told them no the first time,” Embley said. “But we liked the community, and one day while my wife and I were talking about it we said, ‘man, did we mess up? Should we have said yes to the church in Jacksonville?”
That same day the Embleys got a second chance when they opened the mail and found a letter from First Baptist asking if they would be willing to reconsider the offer to be the church’s pastor. Embley accepted, and has been the First Baptist Church pastor the past eight years.
“My family and I weren’t really ready to move the first time that we said no,” Embley said. “So it was just God’s perfect timing how we ended up here.”
Embley is a Jerseyville native who studied to be a French teacher but also felt called to the ministry. After graduating from Lincoln Christian Seminary and asking God to “be sent anywhere but up north,” Embley was hired by a church in Graymont, “up north” near Pontiac, Illinois. He served that church as pastor for 12 years before accepting the call to Jacksonville.
“My wife is from Quincy so we knew about the First Baptist pastor’s position being open,” Embley said. “In fact, my mentor was their interim pastor and kept telling me that we needed to look into it.”
Embley and First Baptist started a conversation and although he didn’t take the church’s first offer, the Jacksonville congregation remained on his mind until Embley took the second offer.
“We talked about the family atmosphere of the church, and I have four kids and knew that moving to a new city would be difficult for them,” Embley said. “But I also knew that we needed to be part of a church family who loved and would be accepting of one another, and that’s just what we found when we moved here.”
Embley enjoys the anything-but-routine work as the church’s pastor. Besides Sunday church services he has a Sunday night youth group, a Monday young adults’ group, a Thursday morning men’s group, plus congregant visits, hospital calls, and all of the other duties that come with being the congregation’s spiritual leader. He also recently returned from directing a junior high summer camp for Christian youth near Springfield.
Embley finds that he often learns as much from the members of his congregation as they learn from him, and tries to be “really authentic” as he listens to and counsels the members.
“The Bible is an amazing story of people full of doubts and struggles. That’s one of the reasons why I appreciate the Bible because it shows people just like us, full of warts and all,” Embley said. “Look at Peter, who got it wrong way more often than he got it right. But on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down, Peter suddenly got it and he was able to spread this amazing message.”
The Embleys have embraced the Jacksonville community, and Patrick Embley is poised to be inaugurated as President of the Jacksonville Kiwanis Club in October.
“When I first joined the Kiwanis I thought they were so rowdy, but then I realized how much they cared for each other and they are all about their motto of serving children in the world,” Embley said. “It’s a fun organization with great people who care about children.”
Embley said a highlight of being a Kiwanis member was the opportunity he had to attend the Kiwanis Annual
Convention this year in Denver, where former Chicago White Sox star Chris Singleton was the keynote speaker. Singleton’s mother was one of the victims of the Charleston, South Carolina church shooting in 2015. Because of that incident Singleton has very anti-gun views, but he has a gun-loving best friend.
“Chris’ message was we can still be friends even with such a political divide between us if we are united in friendship and love,” Embley said. “He made everybody in the convention stand up, tell the people next to them ‘I love you,’ and give each other a hug. As Christians, and Kiwanians, we can change the world if we focus on loving each other and making the world a better place no matter where we are on the political divide.”
Embley’s wife, Kelli, is a Spanish teacher at Triopia High School. The couple have three sons – Daniel, who is married and lives in Bloomington; Eli, a senior chemistry major at Western Illinois University; and Graycen, a ninth grader at Triopia. Their daughter, Faith, is a senior at Triopia. The Embleys live west of Jacksonville.
Patrick Embley loves playing ping-pong, tennis and golf and shares his kids’ interest in Legos and Star Wars. His church office holds “overflow” Lego creations made by his children.
“I have used Star Wars lines in sermons, like ‘you’re my only hope,’” Embley said. “I have also used lines from the Marvel Comics movie series.”
Looking back on his eight years of ministering to the First Baptist Church congregation, Embley is humbled by the way that God has called him to serve in Jacksonville.
“I still can’t believe this is what God called me to do because there are many times I don’t feel qualified to do this job, I don’t always have the wisdom or the right words,” Embley said. “But God has said ‘you’re the right person for this job because it’s not about you, it’s how I can work through you.’”
