Travis Agnew

Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.

“May Your Life Be” – Storytellers

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I wanted to share another story behind the song from one of the tracks off of our “Enter His Gates” album (You can get your copy of the album at the church or on iTunes).  “May Your Life Be” is the 16th (!) and final track off the album we released in June.  It is such a wonderful prayer with which to end the entire worship project.

John Kennerly wrote this song and we included it on “The Time is Now” project with an acoustic feel.  The vocals on this song are some smooth and open, I wanted to take a different approach to really open it up.  We went to a pad being the primary instrument for the song, and besides a few piano parts and timpani hits at the end, that’s all you hear from instruments.  Vocally, John and Angela changed up some of the parts, but once again, the congregation on this song sounds amazing.

Since the song is a prayer for lifestyle worship, we needed all of our singers on this one, so North Side is singing their hearts out.  Sometimes, I walk into our worship center during the week and see the empty seats and imagine the worship that might be going on all over the city while we are scattered.  We want Jesus’ life to be alive in us!

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We Can’t Hear THE Name Because All We Hear is YOUR Name

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We live in a very interesting time in American Christianity.  In some ways, so much incredible Kingdom stuff is happening.  In other ways, I feel like we can’t hear THE name because all we hear is YOUR name.

Translation: many Christian leaders and Christian ministries are focused more on building their kingdoms than they are on building God’s Kingdom.

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Jesus & the Disciples

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What a special day as we celebrated the fact that Jesus prays for his disciples!  In today’s service, we tried to connect the original disciples with current disciples.  The call of Jesus is the same.  The prayers of Jesus are the same.  The goal is the same!

We were blessed to have Cassandra Erickson give us our 2nd installment of “Ni Zan Je” today as we continue to hear about our partnership with the unreached in West Africa.  Her story was powerful.  It was great to follow up her story with a new worship song our team has written called “I Will Follow.”  The song was written for our upcoming “Knowing Jesus” worship album which highlights portions of the life of Christ.  This song deals with Jesus calling of the disciples.

I played this song for Cassandra and some of the others this summer while we were in Africa during a power outage.  It was such a unique time as we sang this feeling connected with Jesus calling us just as He called the first disciples.  It was great to be able to share this song with the church as a whole today!

Today, we worshiped to:

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The Reason for Reconciliation

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Who has a problem with you? Maybe you know they have said things to you or about you. Maybe they have been distant ever since that one day. The issue is so real you can feel the conflict when around them or when their name is mentioned.

Today, we are going to study a passage of Scripture that should completely altar your schedule today. No matter what you have on the agenda, something is about to take priority over all other matters: it’s time to seek reconciliation with those you have wronged. Read Jesus’ words on the issue in Matthew 5:23-24.

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“No Greater Love” – Storytellers

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“Oh, what joy could make You stay?  Enduring the cross, despising it’s shame…”

I wanted to share another story behind the song from one of the tracks off of our “Enter His Gates” album (You can get your copy of the album at the church or on iTunes).  Track #15 is “No Greater Love.”  I originally released this song on a solo project that was a fundraiser for our adoption.  We had used it often at our church, and so it seemed a good fit to include it on this project.

We also decided to do this semi-live.  In the worship world, all live recordings are semi-live.  Elements are recorded live, but overdubs are done on every project because of bad notes played or off-tone elements.  We don’t have the capabilities at the church to produce a high-quality live recording, but so much of what happens special with our team is when our congregation is in the room with us.  So we played along with a click-track to make sure our tempo was correct and set out to record live congregational singing more than anything else.

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Too Old to Adopt?

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Randy was nearing retirement when he became burdened for something he never saw coming. At his age, his children were out of the home, he had “served his time” in the church, and he was eagerly awaiting the payoff of hitting the golf course everyday. Everywhere he turned though, he became increasingly aware of a problem in our world.

There were too many orphans in the world.

Some of them were orphaned because parents became ill and died. Some were orphaned due to selfish neglect on the parents‘ part. He really wanted to see someone do something about it, but, “Honestly,” he said, “I didn’t want to be that one.”

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Jesus & the Father

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Loved being back with North Side this morning as we dove into John 17 and the High Priestly Prayer.  We focused the entire service on Jesus and the Father.  The key thought was giving glory to Jesus for His life and work on this earth.

We were blessed to have our first installment of “Ni Zan Je” (“I Will Go”) as Lacy Little shared with us some of the work Jesus did around her and through her in West Africa this summer.  I appreciated her honesty so much as she shared the roughness of the road Jesus called them to this summer.

Today, we worshiped to:

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North Greenville Crusade Recap

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We had a busy yet wonderful time at North Greenville University this week.  I got the extreme privilege to serve as the preacher for the North Greenville Crusade.  This partnership with the school and the local Baptist Association is an attempt to unite the church together and bring the Word!

The picture above is from Saturday night at the festival they had at the football stadium.  To invite people to the Crusade, they had free food, inflatables, and music throughout the night.  You can see my two sons really enjoyed their snow cones.  No matter how I tried to show them to stay clean, it was obvious they enjoyed it and you could even tell what color each of them had hours later that night.  The evidence was undeniable!

And that was my prayer for the week.  I wanted Jesus proclaimed so that there would be no denying that He had been in our midst!  I wanted the campus atmosphere to be different.  I wanted people to walk around and their faces portraying that they had “tasted and seen that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8).

Here’s what I preached:

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What’s God’s Will for My Life?

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“The phrase ‘the will of God‘ can sound very mysterious, like a code to be broken or a puzzle to be figured out, but it is actually another way to describe ‘what God wants.‘ His will is described as both a way of living our lives that brings Him the most pleasure as well as His master plan for our lives that will bring Him the most glory” (The Resolution, page 206).

If you are like most people, you may be wondering what the will of God is for your life. What is your next step? Be assured that there is one person who wants you to know the will of God even more than you want to know it – and that is God Himself!

He will not hide it from you, and He sincerely wants you to fulfill it. Read what God’s will is for your life in Ephesians 5:15-17.

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“It’s You” & “Selah #3” – Storytellers

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“If there’s one thing I can’t get over, it’s You.”

I wanted to share another story behind the song from one of the tracks off of our “Enter His Gates” album (You can get your copy of the album at the church or on iTunes).  Track 13-14 is the “It’s You” suite.

This song was originally written for our “Submerge” student camp years ago.  An in-house band, “Brannon,” recorded this song on an EP.  We never used it with the church as a whole, but with much of the teaching we have been focused upon in John, I felt like we needed to bring it back.

The song was basically written as a commitment to the sufficiency of Christ in a prosperity-focused American Christianity.  So much of people’s faith nowadays is based upon Jesus plus something else.  While Christ blesses us in so many ways, if all of them were taken away, we would still have more than what we deserve.

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