PASTOR MARC BARTHOLOMEW
Associate Pastor
Marc serves as associate pastor at Emmanuel Church. Some of his duties include member care, managing the Emmanuel Life Center, helping people discover their place in ministry, and shepherding the Celebrate Recovery ministry. He has a passion for reaching the hurting and guiding those struggling with life’s hurts, hang-ups, and habits through recovery and ultimately leading them to Jesus Christ. His favorite Celebrate Recovery Principle is principle 7: “Reserve a daily time with God for self-examination, Bible reading, and prayer in order to know God and His will for my life and to gain the power to follow His will.”
Marc grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, and moved to Maryland straight out of high school where he has resided since. He was a master General Motors auto technician for thirty-six years before transitioning to full-time ministry. In January 2004, he found healing through the power of Jesus Christ through the Celebrate Recovery ministry and a calling upon his life to serve God. God placed a yearning in his spirit to reach the hurting and unchurched and to lead them to Christ through the hope and grace found in Jesus Christ and the Gospel. Within Christian community and Celebrate Recovery, lives can be changed, and our brokenness can be used by God to help others. God never wastes a hurt, hang-up, or habit if used for His glory to advance the Kingdom.
Marc has played an active role within Celebrate Recovery since 2004 and has served as Maryland state representative for the Celebrate Recovery National Team since 2007. In late 2004, he began the journey bringing Celebrate Recovery to Encounter Christian Center Church located in Charlotte Hall, Maryland. He was the ministry leader for ten years and during that time he became an ordained minister of recovery at Encounter Christian Center. He served on the pastoral staff for six years until he was called to Emmanuel Church in 2015.
He started and volunteered as the lead facilitator of Celebrate Recovery Inside (CRI) within the Charles County, Maryland, Detention Center from 2010–2016. He has led and participated in several 12-step study groups, a self-help study through Celebrate Recovery. He has facilitated, mediated, and overseen crisis interventions helping families and loved ones with a clear plan in leading people to the path of recovery through local and national treatment facilities, in addition to Celebrate Recovery and other local 12-step programs. He introduced Celebrate Recovery in 2008 to the Salvation Army in Capitol Heights, Maryland, working with the pastoral staff and counselors to implement an in-house treatment plan utilizing Celebrate Recovery and the step studies as part of their curriculum. Marc has played a key role in building leadership teams and launching numerous Celebrate Recovery groups within the Southern Maryland area during his seventeen years of ministry. He graduated from Rockbridge Seminary with a degree in Ministry Studies.
According to Marc, he is “blessed by God in all things”: “I am married to the greatest woman only God could provide. We are so madly in love with each other!” Marc loves his time with his family, especially family dinners together around the dinner table, just like old school. He loves teaching and preaching the Gospel to his peers along with his family. He has a blended family of nine children and two grandchildren. He enjoys hunting, fishing, enjoying life to the fullest, and serving the Lord. He loves playing the drums and uses that gift serving on the Praise and Worship Team here at Emmanuel. Most of all his greatest testimony comes from who he was before Jesus Christ—for his family (especially his children) and friends that knew the broken Marc, to now see how Jesus Christ radically changed him when he confessed Jesus as his Lord and Savior. His life verse is, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV).
Marc grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, and moved to Maryland straight out of high school where he has resided since. He was a master General Motors auto technician for thirty-six years before transitioning to full-time ministry. In January 2004, he found healing through the power of Jesus Christ through the Celebrate Recovery ministry and a calling upon his life to serve God. God placed a yearning in his spirit to reach the hurting and unchurched and to lead them to Christ through the hope and grace found in Jesus Christ and the Gospel. Within Christian community and Celebrate Recovery, lives can be changed, and our brokenness can be used by God to help others. God never wastes a hurt, hang-up, or habit if used for His glory to advance the Kingdom.
Marc has played an active role within Celebrate Recovery since 2004 and has served as Maryland state representative for the Celebrate Recovery National Team since 2007. In late 2004, he began the journey bringing Celebrate Recovery to Encounter Christian Center Church located in Charlotte Hall, Maryland. He was the ministry leader for ten years and during that time he became an ordained minister of recovery at Encounter Christian Center. He served on the pastoral staff for six years until he was called to Emmanuel Church in 2015.
He started and volunteered as the lead facilitator of Celebrate Recovery Inside (CRI) within the Charles County, Maryland, Detention Center from 2010–2016. He has led and participated in several 12-step study groups, a self-help study through Celebrate Recovery. He has facilitated, mediated, and overseen crisis interventions helping families and loved ones with a clear plan in leading people to the path of recovery through local and national treatment facilities, in addition to Celebrate Recovery and other local 12-step programs. He introduced Celebrate Recovery in 2008 to the Salvation Army in Capitol Heights, Maryland, working with the pastoral staff and counselors to implement an in-house treatment plan utilizing Celebrate Recovery and the step studies as part of their curriculum. Marc has played a key role in building leadership teams and launching numerous Celebrate Recovery groups within the Southern Maryland area during his seventeen years of ministry. He graduated from Rockbridge Seminary with a degree in Ministry Studies.
According to Marc, he is “blessed by God in all things”: “I am married to the greatest woman only God could provide. We are so madly in love with each other!” Marc loves his time with his family, especially family dinners together around the dinner table, just like old school. He loves teaching and preaching the Gospel to his peers along with his family. He has a blended family of nine children and two grandchildren. He enjoys hunting, fishing, enjoying life to the fullest, and serving the Lord. He loves playing the drums and uses that gift serving on the Praise and Worship Team here at Emmanuel. Most of all his greatest testimony comes from who he was before Jesus Christ—for his family (especially his children) and friends that knew the broken Marc, to now see how Jesus Christ radically changed him when he confessed Jesus as his Lord and Savior. His life verse is, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV).