The Sin of Unbelief

This text was sent to be after service and I think it summed up today’s worship.  At North Side, we are not dictated by a worship formula. We are not tied to any tradition.  I’ve been given the freedom to lead from the text we are preaching from.  Today, was one of those days of not going way back, but just going a little bit back.

It doesn’t matter how old it is, a good worship song is a good worship song.

Today, we worshiped to:

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“Did You Adopt Him from Chile or Something?”

Our family is different.  We understand that.  We have embraced that.  We wouldn’t ever, ever change that. While statements we received early on in our family pilgrimage used to shock me, they no longer shock me anymore. At lunch the other day, a random elderly woman pointed at my son with a darker complexion and …

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The Anticipation of the Christ

At North Side, we’re all about discipleship.  In addition to discipling our worship team on Wednesday nights, I am also discipling a great group of college students right now.  These guys come over to our house on Wednesday nights and we get into the Word.  This semester, I am teaching this group, and our worship team, through the gospels.

We are doing a Christology of sorts.  A study of the life of Christ is normally organized around speculations or disagreements instead of simply going to the text.  In this study, I am using 14 main events or categories of Jesus’ life to get a clearer picture of the historical figure and the world-changing Savior.

Last night, we discussed the Anticipation of the Christ.  We actually started in our previous session by teaching through the entire Old Testament in one night.  I told the big picture of God’s plan from the beginning.  The blank page in between the testaments reveal a 400-year period of silence where God said nothing to his people.  While Israel waited to see if God would speak again, God brought a word in the Word himself!

In John 1, the apostle teaches that Jesus was that Word in the beginning at creation, and not only was he with God, he was God.  Just like the light that God created with a simple word in Genesis, at the fullness of time, the Word appeared and was the light of man.  The darkness could not overcome the light, the Word, the God in flesh who dwelt among us.

During this study, we also looked at the reasoning and information concerning the difference of the 4 gospels.  Four gospels were written because 4 authors had 4 specific audiences that they were educating concerning Jesus:

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Discipleship Through Worship

I mentioned recently that our worship team is embarking upon some pretty exciting stuff.  I’ve struggled with how to share our plans – in parts or all at one time, but for right now let me give you a couple pieces of the puzzle.  As our team has met together, our time has focused on one verse in particular.

Colossians 3:16 says: Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

I am very big on reminding people worship is all about God.  And that is true.  But in that glorification of God process, there is also a discipleship element.  This verse is shocking to me in some ways.  As Paul reminds his people to let the biblical message abide within oneself, he reminds us that we are called to teach one another – through worship!  Our worship should be so biblical and so memorable that it makes theology more portable.

That is why we are going to focus in 2012 that our worship ministry is going to focus on: discipleship.

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North Side Would Fail Church Growth 101 Class

Saturday morning, leaders from North Side gathered together to continue on this journey God is leading us.  We talked about discipleship.  We celebrated the lives that are being changed, and yet we also focused upon those people who are still struggling to follow Christ.

We laid out a strategy that is a little different for a church our size.  In fact, North Side would fail Church Growth 101 class if we were taking it.  Let me explain:

Church growth these days is all about the large groups.  Get more people in the seats and that means that you are winning.  What we are finding is that it is easy to fill seats, it is hard to disciple people.  And in our current church culture in America, people are church hopping, filling out commitment cards, getting baptized, and then dropping off the face of the earth!  The parable of the Seed and the Sower should scare us enough to realize that we might be giving people false assurance of their salvation that way – they need to be discipled!

Here’s some things I took away from Saturday:

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The Words of Eternal Life

I had a great reason to miss North Side this morning (my niece was being dedicated at her church), but I still missed being with North Side this morning.  It is wonderful to know all the talented, godly people that our church was led by today.  In addition to some wonderful worship leaders, we had a promo for many new groups that have recently formed, and a fantabulous message from John 6:41-71 which I can’t wait to listen to.

Today, we worshiped to:

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Fire Hats, Skin Coloration, and Growing Up

We took the boys to Firehouse subs one night this week when Eli made an interesting discovery.  As one of the workers gave them fire hats, he looked up at the picture above the door (see above) and wanted to inform me of something peculiar. “Daddy, look.  Those boys look like Obie and Eli.” “Really? …

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The Sins of Omission

If you were raised in church, you were probably warned concerning certain sins. Oftentimes, different churches have certain sins they really highlight to which they really want you to abstain. It seems that Christianity is often perceived as the “thou shalt not” religion.

In your experience, what are the top 5 sins that you have been taught to avoid?
Thou shalt not have premarital sex?
Thou shalt not drink, smoke, or chew (or date girls who do)?
Thou shalt not curse?
Thou shalt not gamble?
Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain?

Did you ever know that there are sins of omission? These are the failures to do the “thou shalt’s.” Take a moment and read James 4:15-17.

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The Republican Candidates’ Bickering (And How It Is Like Many Churches)

As we watched last night what seemed like the 84th debate for the Republican party this election season, I was reminded of a few things: 1) I wouldn’t want the job of president, 2) I respect all of their knowledge because just to run, you have to know a ton of info concerning a ton of stuff, and 3) the Body of Christ in America looks a lot like these candidates.

Let me explain.  As these debates have continued, the dialogue has gotten increasingly nasty.  I actually remembered one of the first debates when Newt Gingrich was being lured by a moderator to attack some of the candidates around him.  He replied something to the effect that the issue at hand is not to attack other Republicans, his issue was to get the current Democrat president out of office.  Basically, the guys and lady on the platform were not the enemy, Barack Obama was the enemy.

My, how things have changed.  While the remaining contenders beat each other to shreds, their “enemy” is rallying support to face a bloodied Republican nominee in the near future.  By the time this round is over, the contender will be a weary mess to face the incumbent.

And it is just like the Body of Christ in America.

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Are You Paying Attention to Your Children?

It’s impossible to teach your children anything if you don’t first have their attention. With children though, oftentimes, you can’t have their attention until they are sure they have yours.

Think through the last week, the last month, or even the last year. When was the longest time recently that your children had your full attention? Think about what that time was:

When: ____________

Where: ____________

What did you do: ____________

What did you talk about: ____________

It is very interesting that the actual last verse of the Old Testament speaks to fathers giving their children attention.

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