Missions

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Watching Rob Poindexter lead worship services in downtown Lexington, KY, it’s hard to imagine that he used to stutter.
“I stuttered every word I said, so when I came to the Lord I thought, ‘What could I do for you? I can’t even talk. How could you even use me?’” said Poindexter, who leads services at the Kentucky Theater every Wednesday at noon. “I was even scared to talk in front of people.”
Poindexter said he found it difficult to sing when he played special music at his church. He would say to himself he would be singing in 15 minutes, five minutes, three minutes.
“I was sitting there playing the piano and my right leg would shake so bad that I could hardly sing,” said Poindexter.
Poindexter overcame his fears and gained God given confidence. He began Worship On Wednesday, WOW, at Kentucky Theater November 2004.
Poindexter said God chose the location for the service.
“The Lord said the heart’s sick. He said you have to go to the heart to do heart surgery, [and] as you do this I’m going to release my presence in the center of the city but also to the heart of the city,” said Poindexter.
Poindexter has a vision for city worship with no certain denomination or race, said Linda Mountain, WOW support member.
Linda said WOW is different from other worship services.
“Sometimes you can go where they have a program or a format and you don’t really personally connect with God. I see in this worship that I’m able to personally connect with God,” said Mountain.
WOW has drawn many kinds of people to the worship hour. Many people who walk through the door are unaware a worship service is taking place, said Chris Henderson, WOW support member.
“There are street people, drug attics, street cleaners, we have people from the bank, people from the mayor’s office, people from the judges and the court systems, and they just come over here on their lunch hour,” said Henderson.
WOW has done different things for many people who come to the worship hour. Poindexter said God told him to come and bless his heart in turn he would bring healing to the city.
“We are pioneers to begin a move of God in the city. The Bible says that Judah is the first one into battle. We are apart of Judah. Judah means praise,” said Poindexter. “Praisers in the old testament would go to battle. He would send out the praisers ahead of time, and they would go before the army of Israel. They would worship and cry out to God. As they worshipped, God did some incredible things.”
Before Poindexter evangelized and led worship he not only struggled with his speech growing up. Poindexter was addicted to crack cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol. He overcame these addictions with the help of God, he said.
Poindexter was set free from the power of addiction. Poindexter said he prayed and surrendered his life to God including his relationships and drug addictions. He told God he would serve him the rest of his life if he would take his drug addictions from him.
“God took that little drug addicted boy and turned him in to something,” said Poindexter. “I’m living proof that he is alive and that he is real because I didn’t have the will power to quit smoking marijuana [and] I didn’t have the will power to stop doing crack cocaine. God set me free.”
Poindexter also struggled with believing God was real. Poindexter said he was at one time an atheist. Seeing the hypocrites in the church and his family divided created within him a hatred for religion.
“I had been faced with a lot different ways. My best friend was Muslim, my father was Jehovah Witness, [and] my mom was Methodist. I thought, ‘Which way do I go, I don’t have a clue which way to go,’” said Poindexter. “I remember I had been reading some scriptures. The scripture John 14: 6 says, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.’ When I read that scripture it came so loud to me because I found out it wasn’t about a church, but it was about [him wanting] to have a relationship with me.”
Poindexter faced his fears with his mother’s encouraging words. Poindexter said his mother told him that maybe two people would recognize he messed up if he kept playing. She said if he stopped playing, though, everybody would know he messed up.
“Would you rather have two percent know or a 100 percent know you messed up?’” said Poindexter. ‘“Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do something because you can. Can’t never did anything.”’
Facing his fears, Poindexter uses his gifts to show others hope through Jesus when singing and playing the keyboard, evangelizing different places, and teaching on and giving the prophetic word.
Henderson said God shows up at this specific worship hour.
“It’s almost like [God] has chosen this site to be a place where he wants to come visit us, and we are obedient,” said Henderson. “We’re gathering here not for our own individual purposes, not for what we can get, but it’s on behalf of our city so that our city will be transformed.”

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