Crazy good day with North Side. We finished up John 9 in “Knowing Jesus” with the man who once was blind but now can see. For a bluegrass section at the end of the service, I was even able to talk Jeff into playing banjo with us at the end. So, so good. In addition to preaching a fantastic sermon today, he also played some mean banjo.
Today, we worshiped to:
As we continue in the Christology, this week we are studying the miraculous deeds of Jesus. These works served as a manifestation of the Christ and showed his omnipotence. With Jesus, truly, all things are possible.
The deaf can hear. The blind can see. The lame are rising up to stand upon their feet. He calmed the storm. He quieted souls. He mended the broken. The empty were filled. The sick made well. The mute began to speak of his glory. The dead were rising. With Christ, all things are possible.
But, do we really believe that? Do we honestly believe that Jesus can come in and fix that circumstance clouding our view?
Meet Jay Jones. Jay is the Sheriff of Lee County in Opelika, Alabama. As Sheriff Jones courageously strives to keep his county safe, he oftentimes has to get creative with how to enforce the law.
On July 29th, 2011, Sheriff Jones and his police force created a sting, Operation Iron Snare, to round up suspects who were wanted to pay more than $270,000 of unpaid child support.
Each of these individuals received a letter saying they had won two tickets to this year’s Iron Bowl game between Alabama and Auburn. The address used was the same addressed used in unsuccessfully trying to get them to pay child support. One by one, these suspects filed into a festive atmosphere to claim their tickets where they were later arrested and transported to the Lee County Detention Facility.
See the video here:
Exciting stuff in the works with North Side Worship this year. As a worship ministry, we are really focusing our efforts this year to help disciple our church through worship. I have shared some of what that means, but I thought I would clue you in a little bit more today.
Today, you can pick up THE MANIFOLD WISDOM OF GOD: SERMON REMIX 2011 on iTunes or you can get a hardcopy at North Side. That is just the 1st step of projects that we are working on as a worship ministry this year. Months ago, I gathered the band together and asked them, “What would be better than 1 worship album this year?” Someone got bug eyes, and replied, “2?” The answer was correct as I shared what would be album #2 for us. But then it went to 3. And then even to 4.
Yep, we are planning on releasing 4 worship albums this year through North Side.
In my life, I’ve learned that God often does the most with the least expected.
We often think we’ve got it all figured out. In our estimation, we have enough knowledge to map out God’s plan for our lives.
But that rarely happens. Oftentimes, God uses things in our lives that we never ever saw coming.
I said “yes” to the ministry when I was a teenager. I really didn’t know what area I wanted to serve, I liked doing so many different things.
And yet, if you look at what God is using me the most in right now, I never would have seen this coming.
This project focuses upon the teaching ministry of North Side. These 10 tracks were taken from 10 pivotal messages preached to our congregation in 2011. Our worship team then trimmed the messages down, arranges, composed, and recorded some music to accompany these biblical truths in an attempt to further disciple those who would listen. As a result of this project, …
What a fantabulous day at North Side! We were thrilled to release our new album “The Manifold Wisdom of God: Sermon Remix 2011” (photo courtesy of Taylor Wolfe). While I couldn’t talk Jeff into doing his part live, the band did accompany his preaching. We played track #10 off of the album which is in my top 2 favorite tracks.
Thank you for all that got copies today. I loved hearing about the lines at the bookstore! Hope the biblical truths are impacting you today!
Today, we worshiped to:
As we continue in our Christology, we have now come to the section focusing on the supplication of the Christ. This is the prayer section of Jesus’ ministry and reminds us of God’s faithfulness.
Who taught you how to pray? How did they teach you?
When Jesus was on earth, the disciples saw unbelievable things happen before their eyes. When you encounter Jesus feed 5,000 men, heal every type of disease, walk on water, or be transfigured before your eyes, you probably would develop a list of things you would want Jesus to show you. We would all love a course on how to do the miraculous.
Interestingly enough, with all the disciples witnessed, they asked for Jesus to teach them one thing:
David was labeled as a man after God’s heart. As a passionate worshiper, a brave warrior, and a decisive king, David was used of God to change the landscape of Israel. While many of his victories caused Israel great triumph, his downfalls also caused his family great pain. Along with his moments of faithful obedience sits a series of events that sent David down a slippery slope where he never truly considered the consequences.
Maybe you remember the story. When King David should have been in battle, he was relaxed in the comforts of his palace when he saw a beautiful woman bathing from his rooftop, sent someone to bring her to him, had sex with her, and then sent her home. Weeks later, she informed the king she was pregnant with his child. Her husband, Urriah, was fighting on the battlefield, and David attempted to cover up the incident by allowing him some time with his wife. Out of loyalty to his fellow soldiers, he denied himself that privilege, and David, unwilling to accept responsibility, had him killed on the battlefield.
The prophet Nathan, risking his life, confronted and rebuked King David. Read the consequences that Nathan tells David that await him in 2 Samuel 12:7-15:
“The recent church history in America includes a lot of good men doing nothing. Men who are wired, called, and empowered to be men of action, yet who choose to be soft, insensitive, and passive – men who fail to remember that ‘to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin’ (James 4:17). Passivity is a curse.” –The Resolution, page 137.
Louie Giglio tweeted it best days ago when he said: Props to @invisible children for creating a twitter tsunami and continuing to shine a light on the evil of #KONY2012.
It is true. If you haven’t heard about Kony in the last couple of weeks, you must be in a coma. They have raised awareness on this horrible situation on a massive scale. I have been exposed to Invisible Children’s work since 2003. While they have faced some scrutiny in the media in recent days, as far as I can know, they are legit and I support them 100% (and a whole lot of other more qualified people do too). Media has criticized their handling of the situation. I don’t know if there is a proper way to handle a man who is gathering thousands of children and training them to fight in an army in the Lord’s name.
You may not like how they are going about pursuing justice, but here’s what you have to say about it: at least they’re pursuing justice.
We were so honored to have the Faith Home choir help lead us in worship this morning. Mama Barnes of course had the place dancing and shaking as always. She and her choir did a wonderful job of worshiping Jesus and leading us to do the same. Faith Home is a Christian recovery program that we partner with here in Greenwood. You can get more info on their ministry here.
Today, we worshiped to:
Thursday night, I was honored to lead worship and preach for Lander’s BCM. I felt pretty clear concerning the direction for the message, but I knew it was going to be a bit different. I wanted to focus on the biblical character Demas. If you haven’t heard about him, you are not alone. He’s not that famous. We don’t know …
As we continue our Christology, this week we are focusing on the teaching ministry of Jesus. This is the Revelation of the Christ. Through his preaching, he displayed the attribute of wisdom as he proclaimed words of life.
Nobody taught like Jesus. No one will ever teach like Jesus. He was able to communicate long messages to all types of people and his words survived in a mainly oral culture for us to read today.
Some things to remember about Jesus’ teaching ministry:
If you’ve ever given blood, you have answered some of the most awkward questions you have probably ever been asked in your life. Many of those questions revolve around your sexual activity. Included in the lineup of questions is a question concerning different sexual partners you have been involved with in recent years. Even if you don’t have a checkered …
It’s wild to think that it has been six months now since we changed our worship styles from contemporary and traditional to a united format. While there have been concerns along the way, there has been minimal, and I mean minimal drama. I can’t overstate how God has blessed this decision. Instead of splitting or losing tons of people that others predicted we might, our attendance is actually up significantly than this time last year.
Was it the right move for our church? Without a doubt. Does everyone love the music portion of services week in and week out? Not a chance. But for the most part, people are adapting and giving it a shot. We are truly worshiping together now as a church.
To illustrate where our church is, let me share a conversation I had with a church member the other week.
The church member walked into my office and the first words were, “I don’t like the music on Sundays. I just can’t help it. I do no like it.”
The above picture is of the boys joining the choir for warmup this morning. As people were coming in for practice and we got things rolling for run-through, the boys joined the choir. Obadiah especially liked pointing in the air like McFadden and making his “Mommy” singing face with the open mouth and dropped jaw. Fun times!
It was a wonderful day of worship! Even in the giving, we were reminded of how everything we do is an act of worship. In addition to some baptisms this morning, we also had Jeff share a way that people could financially support our missions effort in Africa. After sharing how to do this, it seemed so fitting to sing: “Let the glory of Your name be the passion of the church.”
Today, we worshiped to:
There are 2 Travis Agnew’s. No, for real. There are 2 of us. I’m not doing some type of preacher illustration, there are two of us out there.
So, let me explain. Years ago, when I decided to start blogging, I tried to get a domain name and realized that travisagnew.com was taken. By whom, I wondered. I went ahead with the .org and continued upon my trek through life’s uncharted waters. Then I was talking with a college student one day who said he heard me speak somewhere.
He then tried to find me on the world wide web. He said I had changed my appearance a lot. He then asked me when I lived in Wisconsin. I was perplexed. I was pretty confident that my looks have not changed that much and that I had remained in South Carolina in recent years. Curious, I began to do research and I was shocked at what I found.
Here’s what I discovered:
As we continue in our Christology series, we have now arrived at section 5 – the selection of the Christ. This section deals with Christ calling his 12 disciples and thrusting them into ministry.
Jesus’ calling of the disciples displayed the attribute of grace. When you look at this rag tag group of men he chose, there isn’t anything special about them. In fact, if you were on a pastor search committee and drafted up a list of qualities you were looking for in a spiritual leader, you would probably list out things that none of these men possessed. They weren’t obvious choices, and yet, they were Jesus’ choices, and for that, they would develop into who Christ had called them to be. The old saying is true here: Jesus doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called.
Here are some things to note during this time of ministry:
Amanda and I love watching The Biggest Loser. While there has been some wearisome drama this season, Tuesday night had me standing up and applauding as I watched this father and son duo in the weigh-in show a great example of a father showing affirmation for his son. Chism was being sent off and his youth pastor father, Mark, was …
You are looking at the great cover that Cory Wilson designed for our upcoming Sermon Remix 2011 album. If you missed this announcement, we have taken pivotal messages at North Side from 2011, spliced them down to under 5 minutes, written and recorded music to back them up.
Since the last time I mentioned it here, we have added 2 additional tracks. An EP is a 5-7 song collection, when you get all the way up to 8, you might as well go for 10! Jeff picked two additional messages from last year on Habakkuk and Nicodemus. So glad these were included!
Cory did a wonderful job on the artwork, and the final mixes are being worked on currently and they are sounding great. The worship team members who have been involved have all stated that they thought this was a neat idea, but now, listening to them, they are blown away with how impacting these tracks are all the while being impacted by biblical truth. This is a very unique project and we can’t wait to get it in your hands on Sunday, March 18th.
Here is the back cover and the track listings:
Marriage should be a one-way ticket. You don’t invest in one side of this journey. It is more than starting the journey, finding out along the way that you don’t like the accommodations, and deciding to turn back around. No two-way tickets should be issued.
That’s why you need to resolve that divorce will not even be an option for your marriage. Take the word out of your vocabulary.
Does the Bible make allowance for divorce? Under certain circumstances, yes. While the Bible does permit divorce in some situations, it never promotes divorce.
Jam up day with the church family! Jeff, now a grandpa of 4 grandchildren, gave an incredible message out of John 8 on the Light of the World. We were also blessed to hear from our own Carl Burrell concerning the Gideon’s ministry with which he is involved.
We had a great group of worshipers in the house today as we got rowdy in Jesus name. While we always have a great crew, it was great to have Gary Funderburk back among us to blow that saxophone for us. During practice, I had to remind the band to keep playing and singing and stop listening to him because he was doing such a great job!
Today, we worshiped to:
We are now less than six weeks away from Gloria’s due date. We are rounding the corner and realizing that the time is coming quickly now. As we finalize preparations in the home, we are constantly talking about her arrival with the boys.
They love to sing and talk about their baby sister, but I almost fell on the floor laughing the other day when I heard what came out of Obadiah’s mouth.
Continuing on through our Christology, we arrive this week at the Temptation of the Christ. This event reveals Christ’s holiness. He was set apart, and while he was fully God, he was full man, and he never sinned.
In his 33 years of life, he never rolled his eyes behind his mother’s back. He never kept more money than he should. Never had one lustful thought concerning a woman. Never used his words to demean another.
After his baptism by John, Scripture teaches that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the Devil himself. It also seems a test like Job’s in that God is leading Christ to the wilderness to prove to Satan his undeniable holiness. What’s interesting is that while Satan is a worthy adversary, his tricks have not really changed. He’s not the most creative of sorts. His temptation to Christ was the same as the temptation in the Garden of Eden: “Are you sure God’s Word says…”
He still uses it today, doesn’t he?
Here are some things to note:
Mothers, let mothers mother. I’m a guy. I know I shouldn’t weigh into things of which I cannot empathize with, but I feel like this word is necessary. It is absolutely astounding the pressure that mothers put on other mothers to raise their children the same way they do. In our years of parenthood, we constantly run into other mothers …
North Side is blessed with some wonderful musicians. I’m blown away I get to even be a part of this talented and godly group.
We also are blessed with some wonderful songwriters. While different members have written songs, we have never written songs together.
Until Saturday.
I hauled everyone up in our house. Split everyone into teams. And then I was amazed by how the Holy Spirit led our time together. Here was the secret to our time together:
Money is a tool. Money is not moral or immoral. It is amoral. It can be used for good or bad. Money in of itself is not evil. The love of money is the root of all types of evil (1 Timothy 6:10).
In fact, God is not against you making more money. It’s actually a good thing. Read Ephesians 4:28 and find out why:
What a wonderful day to be a part of North Side! Services full of some excited worshipers is always a great way to start a Sunday morning! Jeff’s message on John 8:2-11 (The Woman Caught in Adultery) was absolutely incredible. I learned a ton, but I was just reminded yet again concerning God’s amazing grace. So, so good. Make sure to check it out online.
We want to remind everyone about the Marriage Getaway. We need to know today if you are going with us or not. Sign up here on the City.
Today, we worshiped to:
This week in Bible study, we focused on the consecration of the Christ. This stage shows off Jesus’ immensity. This period, spans age 2 to age 30. This time period covers the largest section of Christ’s life with the least amount of information, but it mainly focuses upon Christ growing and John the Baptist pointing towards him.
Info to remember from this Christology section:
Happy Valentine’s Day! For all you married fellas out there, I want to let Scripture remind us of some truths to help us love our spouses better.
You need to focus on your wife more. She needs your undivided attention. In order to focus on her properly, you might be interested concerning how she focuses on you. While, hopefully, she is physically attracted to you, she also is attracted to things other than merely your impressive physique.
What is it about you that your wife would say was most attractive?
Sunday was a full day of ministry with the highs and lows. We had great services, I had a wonderful group time, got to preach at Lander’s FCA, and so much more even in between. While we had many great moments yesterday, we also had 2 of our members pass in the night. Working in a church, you deal with so many different issues in a day.
That’s why Sunday morning when I’m leading worship is one of the most unique times of my week. My unique vantage point reveals so much of where people are. As I invite people to stand and worship the living God, different levels of engagement are present. Our passage we studied in C-Group last night reminded me so much of every worship service. Because in every worship service there are Pharisees and tax collectors present:
It was a powerful time together as the church this morning! We started off our services with a rousing reading of Phil. 2:1-11 and went straight into the worship set focusing on the words: “every knee will bow and every tongue confess.” We used a 5-piece acoustic group this Sunday which was a fun, percussive setup.
Today, we worshiped to:
We also promoted the Marriage Getaway through a fun means. Here is the video we shared:
Oh, be careful little eyes what you see.
Amanda was picking Obadiah up from church nursery the other week and we realized that they really pick up and kids say the craziest of things.
We never saw this one coming.
dI’ve been asked by a few people lately: “So what do you think about Newspring coming to Greenwood?” Normally, it’s also been followed by other phrases to express their thinking. I’ve heard: “Do you think ya’ll will lose members?” “What kind of church do you think it will hurt the most?” “I heard they take your bank routing number when …
I’ve mentioned in the last couple of weeks some pretty exciting stuff coming up for North Side Worship this year. I’ve talked about how we plan on discipling our church through our worship ministry. I shared with how I felt the Holy Spirit was leading to a pretty big initiative and our team jumped at all the opportunities. Let me now share our 1st offering coming your way very, very soon.
In many of our previous recordings, we have included a spoken-word track. On Overcome, it was a message that was trimmed down from 40 minutes to 4 minutes with some music written for the piece. The sermon served as a catalyst for the entire album and really summed up a lot of how God was leading our church at that time. Jeff was originally against the idea because he didn’t want to have a lot of focus upon him. I was able to talk him into it, and since we have released that album, I have heard more encouraging words concerning the track “Don’t Give Up” over any other track on the entire project. It is powerful.
And I’ve always wondered: what would it be like if an entire project was dedicated to a sermon remixes?
We’ve been remodeling our home recently which has had me out getting different needed things for the house. One day, as I was rushing through an aisle, a sign grabbed my attention. I do believe that it is the worst sign I’ve ever seen. It is unfortunately honest for many men, but it makes me want to vomit.
And it reads:
“I’d rather be lost at the lake than found at home.”
Does it make people chuckle as they go by? Sure. Do we know men who this sign (or a variation of this sign) should belong to? Probably, and that is why it is so tragic.
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:
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 asked, “Did ya’ll adopt him …
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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