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.  I heard Jeff’s message on …

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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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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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Does Prayer Really Work?

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My prayer life has been divided. Not so much in a division of what I pray for, but I have experienced the complete opposites of the spectrum concerning how prayer actually works. We all say that prayer is important and that prayer works, but what actually happens during prayer? Do we change God’s mind on the issue at hand? Is it just a tool that God uses to draw us to himself? Here are some of the options:

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Bad Church Sign: It’s Not That Bad

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This week’s bad church sign comes from The Potter’s House.  The tag line reads: “You should come, it’s not that bad.” Before I comment upon this statement (there are a few angles to look at it), I want to hear from you.  What does this statement say to you?

Revival Through Worship

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We had a great night last night at our Revival service!  We had a great time worshiping together.  I pulled out one of my favorites (“Shout to the Lord”) and some other great songs.  Our band worked out some intricate “Amens” at the end of a new arrangement to “All Creatures.”  The above picture is a snapshot of some of …

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Major in the Minors: Habakkuk

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What a great day at North Side!  We started off our “Finding Your Place” campaign.  The picture above is our gigantic need wall where we are taking volunteer recruitments.  This is how the wall looked this morning – empty!  But once I left after services, it was filling up quickly!  We still have some more spots to go.  The Pendleys did a wonderful job sharing how they serve once a month on the tech team even with 3 kids 5 and under and 1 more on the way.  They love giving back to the church that has given so much to them!

Today, we worshiped to:

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Book of the Week: Raising a Modern-Day Knight

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Knight-boyI finished reading Robert Lewis’ Raising a Modern-Day Knight this week.  Lewis is the author of the Men’s Fraternity curriculum that has really impacted the men in our church.  I highly recommend this book to anyone raising boys!

Lewis teaches that most people have a poor definition of manhood in our society.  As fathers, our responsibility is not only to teach our boys what it means to be men, but to actually affirm that and call out the man in our sons.  He uses a lot of symbolism from medieval knighthood practices.  You may or may not copy his ideas, but what I walked away with most of all is that boys don’t become men by accident.  And they also remember what we celebrate and invest in.

He incorporates family crests, weekend ceremonies, and a whole lot of creativity.  He has some great theological and biblical teaching on manhood.  Coupling these two together makes a quick and idea-spurring read.

Top 5 ideas:

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What’s Your Family’s Motto?

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I’ve finally finished a book this week that I’ve skimmed a bunch.  It’s Raising a Modern-Day Knight by Robert Lewis.  The goal of the book is a father’s role in guiding his son to authentic manhood.

In it Lewis has some great points, but he uses a lot of symbolism tied to medieval knighthood ceremonies.  One of the things he utilizes with his sons is the family crest.  The family crest was put on shields or artwork and was the “logo” for the family.  It was a symbol of what the family stood for.  In his book, he shares how he has used the crest at different rites of passages for his sons (in a frame, in a ring, etc.).

I looked up the Agnew family crest and this is what it looks like:

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The Next North Side Worship Recording

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North Side Worship has been working pretty hard behind the scenes as we have begun another worship recording project.  The focus of this next recording: hymns.

Last year when we worked on Overcome, we had many conversations concerning where we would go after the next project.  During that summer, we began talking about doing a hymn project celebrating some of the most enduring songs of our faith.

Little did we know what God would be doing in our church in the coming year concerning unity and bridging the gaps among all of our generations.  We didn’t know it, but God did.  So as North Side moves forward to a united worship in the near future, God has seemed to ordain it that we celebrate the songs of some of our spiritual fathers and mothers.

Few songs endure for generations.  A rare few endure for centuries.  Many songs that we sing today will not be sung in 5 years.  So if a song has been a voice for many generations as God’s people has proclaimed worship to him, that’s something special.

Now, when it comes to arranging and recording hymns, there is hesitancy involved.  t’s a dangerous thing touching a classic.

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How to Stop Having Frustrating Practices

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If you’ve played in a group, you can remember those long practices where everyone leaves more tense than when they came in.  It seems like everyone got frustrated, eyes were rolling, side conversations were happening, and little good came from it except when it was all over.

One main reasons bands and worship teams have frustrating practices is because members come in unprepared.

Here’s a common progression of what happens:

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Revival Through Adversity

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Last night, we picked up our Revival series during the summer months.  It was July 4th eve, a storm was brewing, and we still had a great turnout of worshipers!  I have loved this time together. We worshiped to: All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name – North Side Worship Blessed Be Your Name – Travis Agnew Band Made Me …

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Major in the Minors: Nahum

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We had a great morning at North Side!  Even on a holiday weekend, we experienced three great services as we focused on Nahum.

Jeff’s message on Nahum was powerful.  3 themes he pointed out:

Our God is a sovereign God.  Our God is a righteous God.  Our God is a good God.

Today, we worshiped to:

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Happy Birthday, Dear Mommy!

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We’ve had a great time celebrating Amanda’s birthday today!  The boys had some special surprises for Mom, and I had some too.  All 3 Agnew men are crazy about her! This morning at breakfast, I told the boys, “Years ago, Daddy was a young little fella who looked out at the state of the world, and I wondered if there …

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Worship Can Happen Before the Service Starts

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At the end of May, we had a united youth worship service that I am still recovering from.  The collaboration from area churches and the unity in the Body of Christ that night was amazing.  The students were such loud, passionate worshipers that night.

We started the service in a unique way that night.  I’ve used this at a camp years before, so I’m sure this idea was stolen from someone, so if you can use it, steal it from me.  The idea all centers around the verses from Psalm 100:4:

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!

I love that verse for what it doesn’t say.  It doesn’t say enter into his gates, then start with the thanksgiving.  He doesn’t say get settled in a comfy seat in his courts and start the praise.  The process of entering is is worship.  While we are entering into the presence of God, we should be worshiping already!

That verse spurned this idea.

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When I Die, I Want People to Remember That I Was…

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  I think about my funeral from time to time.  I wonder how people will remember me.  Will I leave a legacy or will I have just taken up space?  Will the world be any different from the time I spend here? I want to hear from you.  Give me a one word response to this post: “When I die, …

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Biblical Songwriting Tips

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As the Worship Academy has been progressing through the summer, we have studied many different roles of the worship leader.

One of those roles is that of a biblical songwriter.  I made a lot of mistakes when I first started writing songs.  I’m still learning so much with each attempt, but I’ve found some things to watch out for when you write a worship song.

Here’s a list of biblical songwriting tips that I shared with the group a couple of weeks ago:

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The Fellowship of the Unashamed

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  I first read this writing when I was in college, and it had a profound impact on me. Stories are disputed upon who is the original author. I have heard that a pastor in a hostile country wrote it on the walls of his house before radical militants came in and killed him.  I have heard other people say the …

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Major in the Minors: Micah

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We had another great week in our study, “Major in the Minors” as we got to the prophet Micah.  Micah prophesied to a people who believed to have a covenant but did not have the conduct to prove it.  In his book, he shows what mature spiritual living really looks like.

Today, we worshiped to:

Since we had a big choir concert this evening at church, we had the stage set for an orchestra, and I couldn’t let those wonderful instruments go to waste!  So, we had a mini-orchestral feel for this morning’s worship.  It was wonderful hearing our people sing out to our God.

In addition to a wonderful message, our church also worshiped through a church vote.  

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Ooh Child, Things Are Gonna Get Easier

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One of my highlights last year was North Side Worship’s Overcome project.  More than a simple album recording, our worship team really worked over and beyond to encourage those who were going through.  As we put together a 16-song album (15 originals) full of hopeful themes, we prayed that it would be encouraging to many people.

Just recently, I got a note from a church member who has had a difficult year.  That’s an understatement, it’s been downright awful.  She sent me a letter and told me that she had listened to that CD every day of the last year and how it had reminded her over and over that she would overcome.

Mission accomplished!  That’s what our prayer was for the project.  In fact, the album artwork was more than a simple design.  We had spent a Sunday morning filling out prayer cards by completing this sentence, “God, if you would only…”  As we lined the stage with those cards, our staff prayed over them that entire week.  The hurt in our congregation was staggering.  As we prayed, I decided to use our prayer cards for another purpose.  Check out the video below to see what we did with them (if you can’t see the video, go here):

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Bad Church Sign of the Week: Loving the…

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Someone sent me this church sign this week.  Theologically, I understand what they are trying to convey, but I am curious in your thoughts. Was this a wise phrase to put up on their church sign?

How Would Your Children Describe You?

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I had a wonderful Father’s Day yesterday.  I am so honored to have such wonderful boys.  As part of my Father’s Day gift yesterday, the boys made me a card.

Amanda gave them a simple instruction: “Tell me about Daddy.”

Now, they are 3 years old, so who knows what might come out when you ask them for that.  She sought, they delivered.

Here’s what they had to say (look for the “E” and “O” to see which ones came from Eli and which ones came from Obadiah):

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Major in the Minors: Jonah

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What a wonderful day at North Side!  So much happened today that we can celebrate our God for!  Focusing on Jonah, we talked about accepting God’s call throughout the service.  We were so blessed to hear from Hope Brown, student missionary, who just returned with a bunch of other students who served at M-Fuge Charleston.

Today, we worshiped to:

I always love worship with a missional focus!  It was great to hear our congregation say, “Where You send us, God, we will go!”  In addition to those missional worship songs, I also included a new song I wrote for my boys called “Like Father Like Son.”  I wanted to make our Father’s Day focus impacting and not something Hallmark.  The words of this song have caused me to think lately and I pray it was a challenge for all the fathers today.

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Will the Southern Baptist Convention Make It?

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The Southern Baptist Convention met this week in Phoenix for their annual meeting. I was unable to go, but I tried to stay informed through Twitter and such to see what was going on.  It was the lowest attended meeting in years (possibly because Phoenix is a far way away from the Bible Belt and the economy).  SBC has had the lowest number of baptisms last year that they have had in 50 years.  Not a good sign.  Many are wondering if the SBC will make it.

I will say this.  I have never seen such a rejection of status quo in our Convention as I see right now.  When theologians who are normally stereotyped for the lack of evangelistic fervor are leading the call for a resurggence on the Great Commission, we are heading in a good place.  When young pastors are heavily involved rather than choosing to steer clear of the Convention, that is a good sign.  When a Convention fights for the nations, ethnic diversity, and a desire to trim the financial fat that has been accumulated, we are heading in a good direction.

I know there are controversies where all this is going.  Many reading may think that some things could be handled differently.  Maybe it could be led better or in a different direction, but I am at least excited about that it is going somewhere!

Highlights:

  • New IMB President Tom Eliff sharing heart for unreached people groups
  • New NAMB President Kevin Ezell sharing strategy for church planting
  • First non-white man elected to office, Luter will serve as VP, many already campaigning for him to serve as President next year
  • Passion to see ethnic diversity in our churches and our convention
  • Desire for a greater sense of unity throughout the convention
  • Great promotion for churches to get behind Courageous

A lot of great things took place, and one of them being David Platt’s message Wednesday morning (his message starts at about the 8th minute).  You can view that here:

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Holding My Son Down in the Hospital

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This picture was taken a few weeks ago.  Eli was having some minor surgery, but as many of you know, surgery for a 3-year-old is never minor.  When your child is taken from you, knocked out, cut on, comes back loopy with tons of chords sticking out of him, it’s never a fun encounter.

I prize myself on being a tough father.  I’m that “it will be alright” kinda dad who can grasp that bumps and bruises are learning tools.  I was not expecting the kind of emotional turmoil that I went through that day.  I don’t know if it was the first time that my son was out of our protective care or what it was, but it was hard.  It was hard holding my son down for strangers to do things to him that hurt.

When he began to wake up, he laid on Mom a good long while and seemed content.  Later, they needed to check on him and begin to remove connected wires and such, so he was handed to Dad (thanks, a lot!).  Eli looked up at me and said, “Daddy, I want to go home.  Take me home, please.”

“I will in just a minute baby, but you have to let these people make you feel better.”

When they started to work on him and I had to hold him down, the look in his eyes was something I had never seen before.

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Voddie Baucham’s Problem with Worship Leaders

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When I was a senior at North Greenville, Dr. Voddie Baucham, Jr. was preaching at our weeklong Staley Lectures.  Our campus minister, Dr. Crouse, gave me the gracious opportunity to lead worship for all of the morning and evening chapels that week.

Hearing Dr. Baucham before, I was really humbled to be a part of this event and excited to spend some time with him.  In preparation for the week, I decided to check out his website.  On his FAQ’s page, I found something that scared me to death.

Q. Why do you place so much emphasis on who leads worship at the events in which you participate?

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Revival Through Repentance

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We had an awesome Revival service last night.  The picture above is of 2 of our former church members and 2 former members of my community group.  Jordan Wilson (left) and Brian Rackley (right) didn’t leave North Side because they were disgruntled members.  They left because they obeyed God’s call.  Both of them are on staff at Bethany Baptist Church in McCormick, SC and God is at work in their lives!

Brian, pastor of Bethany, came and shared his testimony last night to remind us all of God’s grace.  When he pointed up to a seat in our worship auditorium and said only a few years ago, he was running from God and now he is pastoring a church, I rejoiced in the gospel yet again!  He shared about leading an 85-year-old war veteran to Christ the other week in his church.  He shared about God using him and Jordan to unite churches together and hold a rally downtown this weekend.  It was amazing to watch God at work from transforming Brian with his grace and then allowing him to be used to change others by the grace of God as well!

Brian and Jordan, thank you for your obedience to Christ!  Your sending church loves you very much!

And that was only one part!  We worshiped to:

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Major in the Minors: Obadiah

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We had another great day at North Side as we studied a prophet that I am very fond of – Obadiah.  Jeff gave me the privilege to preach this message since I have a son with the same name.

The premise of the message was: Either you can humble yourself or you can let God do it.  It’s your call.  God specializes in humbling the exalted and exalting the humbled.  While this book is talking about nations uprising and falling, I gave 5 application points for this message that apply to every believer.

I carefully climbed a ladder during the message to illustrate some points.  I carefully climbed it because we have had 2 staff members fall of a ladder in that room.  We made it through with no more broken bones!

You can check out the message here to say you have actually heard a message preached from Obadiah.

Today, we worshiped to:

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The 7-Year Itch

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Today, I have been married for 7 years.  I have heard that, around this time, people who have been married began to reevalute their choice.  The 7-year itch begins to surface.  Supposedly, statistics say this is one of the hardest times of marriage. If this is as hard as it gets, I love marriage. And I don’t know if I …

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The Most Segregated Hour in America

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“We must face the sad fact that at 11 o’clock on Sunday morning, when we stand to sing…we stand in the most segregated hour in America.”  -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoken in 1963 Almost 50 years ago this line was delivered, and have we gotten any better?  Are more churches open to multiethnic congregations than before?  I think more …

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Revival Through the Valley

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What an incredible night of our 3rd Revival service for the summer.  We focused on Psalm 23 and God reviving our hope even when walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

The service was built around that passage and included Stacy Wideman’s story (pictured here with her daughter, Savannah, and son, Stephen).  After being born with Down’s Syndrome and a heart defect, Stephen fought gallantly during his time, but eventually, God brought about his healing in heaven and not on earth.

Stacy’s honest testimony was more than powerful.  Her desire to let God “heal the wound but leave the scar” was seen in her desire to share God’s faithfulness with others during this difficult time.  After her testimony, Stacy led us in singing “It is Well.”  I have never been a part of a time when that song was sung more passionately and honestly than it was tonight.  The commitment in the room to those words was breathtaking.

In addition to that song, we worshiped to:

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Major in the Minors: Amos

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Great time today of focusing on our 3rd prophet Amos in our series “Major in the Minors.”  With a full day ahead for our church body, I can’t think of a better focus than what God pointed us to this morning.

Today, we worshiped to:

I decided a while back to do an acoustic service this Sunday (the picture above is of the boys playing the cajon which was played today, well, they didn’t play it during the service, just after ;)).  I honestly didn’t have a reason to, I just felt like doing it.  I didn’t know at the time that God was going to lead Jeff to preach out of Amos concerning worship that God hates.

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