Jessica Lewis
For The New Era
Heavy wooden doors open into a gold and white room at the entrance to Embassy House Ministries.
To the left is an office, to the right, a soon-to-be Christian library, which will be open to the pubic, and directly ahead lie two golden doors with purple and gold curtains that open into the Embassy House’s main focus: a family-oriented, non-profit Christian performing arts center located in the former Sweet Home Boys and Girls Club building on the corner of Highway 228 and Oak Terrace.
“We want to be open for our community, to be a gathering place to share drama, music, poetry readings, (etc.),” said director Lynn Tin Cooper, a charismatic, joyful woman whose enthusiasm and passion for her faith are evident in her mannerisms and her dedication.
Embassy House Ministries (EHM) welcomes Christian performance art every Friday and Saturday night. Cooper said that approximately 30 to 50 people attend per night from a variety of backgrounds: old and young, single and married. Interested parties are invited to “just show up,” she said.
Although located in the same building as the Pentecostal Church and the Lighthouse Recovery Center, Embassy House Ministries is not affiliated with either group. The organization is not associated with any specific church and is instead a gathering place for Christians from all churches throughout the Lebanon and Sweet Home area, Cooper said.
EHM accepts a variety of acts, from first-time performers to regulars.
“We welcome people who haven’t really had an opportunity to share their gifts,” said Anita Haydon, Cooper’s assistant.
EHM invites people of all ages to attend their events, either as a performer or as a member of the audience.
“The more lost a person is, the more on drugs, whatever they are, the better, because we like to help people find Jesus…We’ve seen some really spiritual things happen,” said Heather Robles, singer of Christian band Holy Fire and an active participant of EHM.
Cooper said the ministry is an outreach to a “hopeless generation.”
“There are a lot of people that don’t have hope and we just want them to know that it is out there.”
EHM also features an in-house drama team named Kingdom Reign Players. While the actors have changed, the group has been together under the same director for about eight years. Kingdom Reign Players includes 25 to 30 people, Cooper said, ranging in age from 7 to 68 years old.
Kingdom Reign Players brought their Easter performance, titled “We Shall Behold Him,” to neighborhood churches during Easter weekend. Cooper said they plan to put the play on again Friday, May 2, so that people could see the performance without missing the Easter service at their regular church, and the topics covered in the play are still relevant outside of Easter.
Although EHM has been in Sweet Home only since January, Cooper has maintained Christian coffee houses for 25 years.
“I love music and when I first came to the Lord in 1979, the church that I was in had a Friday and Saturday coffee house – a place where you would have coffees and teas and people would share whatever they had,” she said. “One of the things that really helped me in my Christian life was having a place like that to go to.”
Cooper started her first coffee house in Washington at her home before moving to a larger space.
“People just kept coming,” she said. “First they filled our living room, then they filled our living room and our dining room, and then they filled our living room, our dining room and our patio, so we had to get a building.”
Cooper and her husband Tim, who moved to Sweet Home in 1999, started refurbishing the current EHM building in May and worked with other volunteers until January, just on the inside. As soon as the weather permits, they will work on the outside, Cooper said.
In addition to performances, EHM offers white elephant bingo on Fridays from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Attendees bring white elephants to be won during the game, which is followed by a family movie before the performances begin.
EHM also offers a 24/seven prayer line, and they will be starting a child outreach program over the summer for children 4 to 10 years old. The program will be called Popcorn Matinee, and will use movies, games, and crafts to teach children about Jesus, Cooper said. She also hopes to start offering Christian birthday parties this summer.
EHM plans to open a library, called the Sweet Home Public Christian Library, by May 1, Cooper said. The library will offer books, movies, tapes, and other Christian media.
“It has books in there that I’ve had on my ‘want’ list for years,” said Ellen Shaffer, who has been designated librarian.
The building’s décor is heavily symbolic, from the name to the decorations inside the building.
Cooper decided to call their organization “Embassy” because an embassy is a safe place to visit while abroad that is under the laws and rule of that nation it represents, she said.
“When you walk in here, you’re under the laws of God,” she said. “We’re in His embassy, we’re under His rule – the law of God, of love.”
The decorations inside Embassy House Ministries each represent a facet of God and Jesus, Cooper said.
She said that the gold in the entry room represents the deity and the glory of God, the white represents His purity and holiness, and the purple represents royalty and the kingship of Jesus. Tassels hang from the purple curtains, representing the tassels of a priest, and a gold candleholder hangs on the wall with five purple candles, representing the five-fold ministry. Overhead is a gold chandelier with 12 white candles, symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel, and in the corner stands a gold angel statue, which “represents the fact that we are surrounded by angelic hosts,” Cooper said.
The organization’s office is painted in purple and gold, and the library is decorated in blue, “a priestly color (that) represents the priesthood of Jesus,” Cooper said.
Just past the gold doors is a hallway with a wall of blue sheets with wave-like designs that symbolize water, representing Jesus as “the living water,” she said.
Inside the hall is a stage surrounded by white lights to represent that “He is the light of the world,” she said. The ceiling is raised high in an arc, painted white with a dark brown trim. Cooper said the brown represents man, as the hall is “where God and man can come together.”
“Everything is there for a purpose,” Cooper said. “It’s not just there because it was pretty. It speaks to our Spirit Man.”
EHM is open every Friday and Saturday night with activities starting at 6:30 p.m. Cooper says that the performances don’t have a set end time, but they never end earlier than 10 p.m.
Cooper and Haydon said that people who want to attend but don’t have their own form of transportation can call 409-0321 and someone will pick them up. To contact the center, call 367-8878.