Happy Birthday, Dear Daddy!

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  Happy birthday to me!  I’m getting pretty old, maybe I can receive some wisdom now to go along with my senility.  30 Reasons I’m Blessed Today: 1. Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so. 2. I love my bride more today than ever. 3. I am the adoring father …

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A Healthy Fear of the Lord

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Psalm 86:15-16

15 But You, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,
slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth.
16 Turn to me and be gracious to me.
Give Your strength to Your servant;
save the son of Your female servant.

Our fatherless society is killing our perception of God.

Whether you like to admit it or not, your relationship with your father often alters the way you view God.  If your father was absent, you might find difficulty accepting that God is near and cares for your smallest concerns.  If your father was a temperamental dictator, you might view God as the angry deity in the sky waiting to pummel you with lightning bolts whenever you step out of line.  If your father was a softy and a pushover, you might find yourself living more loosely because God would never really punish you for breaking his rules.  If your father was simply a detached provider, you might find yourself accepting God’s blessing without ever desiring his company.

Most likely, God is a lot different than you father.  God’s plan is that your father imitate him (Eph. 3:14), but unfortunately, that rarely happens.  We rarely see a combination of both love and holiness.  While God has many attributes, theologians categorize all attributes under those two headings – love and holiness.

This description of God, first mentioned in Exodus, is repeated many times throughout Scripture.  The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth.  What is so shocking to us modern readers is that someone can be both compassionate and angry.

A common misconception is that Jesus of the New Testament was compassionate and the God of the Old Testament was angry.  How do you explain God’s constant rescuing of idolatrous Israel and how do you explain Jesus chasing religious people out of the temple with a whip?

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The Walmart Dilemma

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We have all experienced the Walmart dilemma.  You enter into the massive store full of your city’s most eclectic citizens with the intention of buying one needed item.  As the greeter wishes you a good day, you coach yourself that you don’t need anything else except that one item.  As you return to your car, you are unaware of how you just spent $50 on drive-by items.

What’s even worse is when you have bags full but have forgotten that one item for which you came.  The Walmart dilemma is that you lose focus on what you came for because you are overwhelmed with all the other items clamoring for you attention.

The psalmist is in a similar position.  Other gods are present and vying for his worship.  The world powers claim they need not to swear their allegiance to the Lord.  Circumstances are apparent that distract his focus.  So, what does the psalmist pray?  He prays for an “undivided mind” in order to fear God’s name (v.11).  He is acknowledging the presence of distractions, and he is asking for God’s help to leave the store with solely the one item.

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Just What the Doctor Ordered

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1 week.  With the 3 greatest people in the world. This vacation is just what the doctor ordered. I’m unplugging for the week, but you can check back here each day for some new blog posts I scheduled.  Live for Jesus this week with all you got.  Peace out!

Revival of the Heart

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No picture from tonight’s services.  I got the wonderful privilege to preach at South Main about Courageous and fatherhood.  I got to share communion with our worship team and listen to them practice and then head out. I heard the team did great.  They just led worship with everything they had – nothing surprising there. …

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Major in the Minors: Haggai

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What a great day at North Side!  I was so honored to lead in worship with a group from this summer’s Worship Academy.  This is part of the crew that studied together for 7 weeks this summer.  We’re missing a few more, but it was great to get most of them together and lead our church in worship.

Honestly, we stayed more in the Bible than on stage during training (first things first).  We only got our instruments out to play together last Wednesday.  Many of them had expressed interest in playing together, so it was a great time to let this crew lead.  They did a wonderful job!

Today, we worshiped to:

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Sheep-Stealing Tactics

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I love the Body of Christ, but sometimes some of the members make me require an Advil.

I believe in the Church of the capital “C.”  That means that all of the local churches all belong to the big Church – the universal Body of Christ.  That means that we are all on the same team.  That means that we aren’t in competition with the church down the road.  That means that when someone leaves a church to come to ours, we challenge them to work things out with their family.  That means that we celebrate when other churches around us grow.  Big “C” mentality.

That’s where the Advil comes in, not everyone thinks that way.  I was talking with some college students a couple of months ago who were put in a very awkward spot by another pastor.  This pastor was telling them to leave North Side and come to his church.  The words they shared were, “North Side is big.  They don’t need you.  We need you at our church.”  There were other things that the pastor shared, but basically saying that their church was way better and way cooler than ours and that reason should cause them to leave North Side.

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What My Boys Will Remember

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The Agnews love summertime.  We have had unusual amounts of sweltering heat, but nonetheless, we have enjoyed getting out and doing some fun things.  Whether it’s swimming, running through the sprinkler, or going and visiting people, we have enjoyed some special trips.

It made me think the other day about what my boys will remember from their childhood.  I doubt they will remember every time I told them to behave at dinner.  I doubt that memorable moments will be created if I am stuck playing on my phone.  I doubt they will remember moments when I was there physically but detached emotionally.

Sure, that will leave an impact on them, but it won’t create the moments I am hoping for.

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What’s North Side’s New Schedule Mean for My Family?

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You probably have heard that we are going through some changes at North Side.  I’ve got lot’s to blog about where we are heading.  To make it simple, we are uniting our church.  3 services down to 2.  2 styles of worship down to 1.  Adding some programming so that we can have a flip flop schedule on Sunday morning which will help families worship together and grow together.

Let me talk to you concerning how this affects families with children still at home.  I was asked this weekend by a church member if the additional hour of children’s programming will be something different than the first hour.  The answer is yes!

This united schedule provides an hour of worship and an hour of discipleship for EVERY age.  Many people are choosing to spend an hour at worship and an hour at service.  Either way, there is something different.  All of the options, except for Sonshine service, will be repeated.

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Revival Through the Word

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We had another great Revival service tonight!  We focused on Psalm 119 and saw how powerful the Word of God is yet again!  The band, singers, choir, tech team, and host team did a fantastic job tonight!  It was a powerful time of worship as we celebrated together.

Tonight, we worshiped to:

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