Travis Agnew

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

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.  I heard Jeff’s message on

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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Major in the Minors: Zephaniah

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1 week after our “Finding Your Place” volunteer recruitment, I am happy to share that we are already 56.5% complete of our new volunteer needs.  As we started there this morning, many more gathered together to fill in the other spots.  I am not sure the final number from today, but we are getting closer!  Amazing to see hundreds of volunteers signing up!  If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do so with the list online here.

It was great to watch the God story from commissioning one of our own to the American Samoa islands, hearing testimonies of volunteers, and watching the worshipers love on Jesus!

It was another great day of worship!  As we focused on Zephaniah, we were reminded of a God who disciplines us and yet rejoices over us with singing!  We worshiped to:

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Book of the Week: God is Not One

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This week’s book is God is Not One by Stephen Prothero, professor of religion at Boston University.  Prothero is not an evangelical.  His book is not a Christian world religions book.  I think it is always wise to read people who think differently than you to see if your faith really has substance.

I read this book, because his introduction blew me away.  Here was a very well-respected non-evangelical speaking of world religions with some actual solid reasoning abilities.  In a post-modern world where everyone wants to claim that all religions are the same and maintain religious tolerance, Prothero thinks that type of thinking is ignorant and dangerous.  A simple look at these religions show that there are remarkable differences in what they believe and how they practice.  I literally was jumping out of my chair reading the introduction because someone in a different thinking community spoke solid wisdom concerning this religious dilemma.

Below, you can hear Colbert interview him concerning the book.  Very intriguing:

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