Worship Wars

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Many churches are involved in what church growth experts have labeled “worship wars.” Not wanting to lose a particular style of music, many churches find themselves in a battle to maintain their preferential style.  It’s more than contemporary vs. traditional.  It has to do with instrumentation, volume, genre, layout, lighting, etc.  Unfortunately, many churches split over such things. Question: how …

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“Sex is Evil, Sex is Sin, God Forgives, So Let’s…”

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15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! 16 Do you not know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, 18 and having been liberated from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.
(Romans 6:15-18, HCSB)

New Management

I was in a restaurant in Colorado eating dinner on a mission trip. This restaurant was one of those joints where it was encouraged to write on the wall to inscribe your name or your wisest thought. Among the walls of inscriptions, my eyes caught a glimpse of a poem that someone had penned: “Sex is evil, sex is sin, God forgives, so let’s begin.”

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Knowing His Gifts

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What a fun Sunday as we kicked off our December series, “Jesus Loves Me (This I Know)” as we started trekking through the 1st section of Ephesians.

Knowing His Gifts (Eph. 1:1-14) – We know that Jesus loves us based upon the gifts he has given us.  Through his work, he has reconciled all creation to himself and has united the church.  His immeasurable gifts are more than what we ever deserved.

Today, we worshiped to:

We are doing a really fun opener each week, and this week was the ladies’ week to get after a great gospel number.  They tore it up!  Next week, the guys are up.  All I’m saying is don’t be late…

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My Problem with David Platt’s Radical

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Like many people in the last year, I have read David Platt’s soul-searching book, Radical. Make no mistake, I was a David Platt fan before being a David Platt fan was cool.  I got the privilege to hear him preach years before his name got real big.  Back in the day, he loved Jesus and was committed to his mission.

Here’s a video preview of his book:

Pretty intense stuff.  The book is even more intense.  He unashamedly calls the American church to wake up from their pursuit of the American Dream and live out the gospel in their daily lives.  Russell Moore’s endorsement is right on: “Sometimes people will commend a book by saying, ‘You won’t want to put it down.’  I can’t say that about this book.  You’ll want to put it down, many times.  If you’re like me, as you read David Platt’s Radical, you’ll find yourself uncomfortably targeted by the Holy Spirit.  You’ll see just how acclimated you are to the American dream…”

My problem with the book is this: David Platt is living this out in the context of an existing Southern Baptist church.

And people are forgetting that.

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“That Was ‘Good’ Worship”

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I’ve been so humbled by so many comments from Sunday’s worship services.  People have gone out of their way to say how impacting the time was, how we should have just kept singing for a few more hours, how tears of joy were flooding their eyes as we sang to our King.  Most of people commented, “that was ‘good’ worship.”

I’m not gonna lie.  I thought we were about to sing the roof off that place all 3 times Sunday morning.  I personally almost sang myself back into tonsillectomy rehab cause I just couldn’t hold it back.  But was it really “good” worship?

Sure, I loved the song selections.  The band was smoking and played the dynamics just right.  The singers nailed their parts.  The choir sounded like an angelic force to be reckoned with.  The congregation was outsinging all the microphones on stage.  It was loud.  It was engaging.  It was powerful.

But was it really “good” worship?

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Show Them Who’s the Boss

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12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under law but under grace.
(Romans 6:12-14, HCSB)

Show Them Who’s the Boss

As a father of two two-year-olds (no, that wasn’t a typo), I am frequently having the conversation about who is the boss in the house. It is amazing to me that someone so little can have such audacity to think that the world obviously revolves around him. As a parent, sometimes I feel that I say “no” much more than I say “yes.”

I will regularly look at my sons and say, “You’re not the boss. Daddy is the boss. You obey what Daddy says. This is not a democracy. You don’t even get a vote.” I’ll never forget that one day I was telling my oldest two-year-old, Obadiah, that he was not in charge and that I was the boss when he interrupted me and said, “No, Mommy’s the boss!”

He was on restrictions for the next week.

When someone or something tries to be in charge when they shouldn’t be, things get chaotic. In a home, it results in bad behaved children, in a spiritual walk, it results in bad behaved adults. Sin does not have the right to rule in our lives, yet it does rule when we obey sin’s desires. As Christians, sin has lost it’s authoritative power over us. It is gone. Yet we give sin the throne when we give up the fight and yield to sinful desires.

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One Worship Team’s Task

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“And he [Jesus] had to pass through Samaria.” -John 4:4

It was the shortest of ways for Jesus to travel. Traveling through Samaria would be shortest distance geographically, but most Jews would bypass that city because of their disdain for the Samaritans. Racial stereotypes kept most religious Jewish leaders out of that city.

But Jesus had to go through that way. He had work there.

In that city, he didn’t feed the masses or heal numbers of people, he spent time with a loose woman by a well. She had been married numerous times and was living with a man who was not her husband at the time. As Jesus was sitting by the well, she came his way, and she would never be the same again.

In this amazing passage, John chronicles Jesus’ uncanny knack for reaching people far away from God. As he draws her in, she begins to realize she is not dealing with your average passerby. When she realizes this fact, she begins to discuss one of Scripture’s worship wars. These feuds about how worship should be done didn’t start when drums were brought into a sanctuary; they’ve been around a while.

“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

“Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do now know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:20-24).

Did you catch it? She was more focused on when and where and how worship should take place. Worship happens when it’s in this location in a certain type of way and it doesn’t happen when it’s different than what is expected. Jesus reveals that worship cannot be confined to preferences. It is not manmade. It is not manufactured. It is a lifestyle. It is on God’s preferences and not our own.

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One Worship

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Today, we worshiped to: The Longer I Serve Him The Heart of Worship – Matt Redman Sing to the King – Billy Foote Amazing Grace – North Side Worship How Great is Our God – Bethany Dillon How Great Thou Art – Paul Baloche 3 services, 2 buildings, 1 flowsheet.  One worship. Today was incredible.  After Michael George gave us …

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Family Resemblance

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1 Look at how great a love the Father has given us, that we should be called God’s children. And we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know Him. 2 Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure.
(1 John 3:1-3, HCSB)

Family Resemblance

As a young boy, I would often hear from someone how one of my features resembled either my mother or my father. Some people could actually tell I was their child even if they had never met me. Now as a father, I always enjoy hearing from people who they think our boys look like. Sometimes I have left a room to have someone tell my wife, “I won’t tell your husband this cause I don’t want to offend him, but your children look just like you.” I always laugh at that. I’m not upset if my children look like their mother (I did choose to marry her, you know?).

It’s a fact of life: children share family resemblance with their parents. It might be the way they look, the way they talk, or they way they behave, but children often resemble their parents.

As children of God, we are called to do the same!

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Don’t Go in Debt on Black Friday

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Thanksgiving is this week and what does that mean for America?  We are already focused on Christmas consumerism.  We are getting ready to honor the incarnation of God himself by going into debt up to our eyeballs.  Dangerous stampedes will happen all over our country on Friday to obtain gadgets before others do on the cusp of a day to celebrate gratefulness to what we already have.

Maybe there is a different way.

Before going shopping on Black Friday, I want to offer you a few tips:

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You’re Not An Orphan Anymore

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8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, no longer dies. Death no longer rules over Him. 10 For in that He died, He died to sin once for all; but in that He lives, He lives to God. 11 So, you too consider …

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One Family

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Over the years, we have been blessed to see numerical and spiritual growth in our congregation.  We are at a place where we are not experiencing disharmony, but we are experiencing detachment.  So how can we turn this many people into one functional family? It was a great day all around as we focused on One Family during our One …

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The Popsicle Fiasco

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I have been going through family footage this week during my recovery working on an adoption video, and I ran across a video of Obadiah from back in April right before I went to pick up Eli.  This routine was happening about everyday after nap time.  It wasn’t staged, it just was regular. Hope you enjoy the popsicle fiasco:

Worship Vocal Workshop

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Due to me being unable to lead worship practice this week, we had a guest lecturer, Paul Baloche, to teach on worship vocals.  As we are focusing on worship value #3: capability – leading with excellence, Paul provides some great tips on leading worship as a vocal team.  Hope you enjoy!

A Church’s Barriers to Growth

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I was told it was a bad idea.

Honestly, I was told it would never work. Young men in the ministry normally don’t find success going back and working at the church at which they were raised. Regardless of those people telling me it was a bad idea, I couldn’t shake that I felt God’s Spirit leading me back to North Side to serve as a minister when I graduated college in 2003.

As a young minister, I was eternally grateful to this church for what they had done to help me grow in Christ over the years. I wanted to give back as much as I could. At the same time, I began my seminary training through extension work.

In one of my classes, the required reading was a book called The Everychurch Guide to Growth by Elmer Towns, C. Peter Wagner, and Thom Rainer. With a large reading load that semester, I intended to rush through this reading but it didn’t happen that way. As I read the pages, I felt like someone had been watching my beloved North Side during the years that I had grown up here and chronicled some of the challenges we had experienced and had overcome.

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So Long Tonsils

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I’m going under the knife this morning at 9:30. When I returned from Ethiopia, I brought back all kinds of special bugs and germs from my time in the orphanage.  It’s kind of hard to turn down all these kids reaching for the white giant who can rescue them from their cribs.  One of the bugs I brought back was …

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One Doctrine

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[This picture was taken before soundcheck on my phone.  The light hit perfectly catching my two youngins eating breakfast and getting ready to jam out with Daddy and Mommy.] Wow.  What a huge day to celebrate Jesus and focus on North Side striving together for one doctrine. In an increasingly biblically illiterate society, we must commit ourselves now more than …

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Bad Church Sign: Come Hear Our Preacher

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It’s been a while since I commented on a church sign, and many people have complained concerning that fact, so it’s that time again: this is my bad church sign of the week! This week’s sign reads: “DO YOU KNOW WHAT HELL IS?  COME HEAR OUR PREACHER” Now what they probably meant was that their preacher was going to give …

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Pass the Microphone

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You may or may not have heard, but I’m getting my tonsils and adenoids taken out next week.   I was reminded why on Sunday.  As I woke up, my throat was so dry and painful that I could barely sing by the time I got to church.

The good thing was I didn’t have to sing that much.

As worship pastor at North Side, I really never sing “lead” on every song we do.  I’m only the lead on a few songs of our worship CDs.  Visiting ministers have asked me why, that as the worship pastor, am I not leading all, or even most, of the songs and everyone else singing backup?

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Christian Sightseeing is Not Missions

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I’ve still been processing Sunday’s message and praying for the next step concerning our church’s involvement in the Great Commission.  Since we are studying missions this week, I have something that God has really been teaching me over the last year: Christian sightseeing is not missions!

Let me explain.  I think over the years, we have watered down missions so much that we classify doing anything that is overseas or with people of a different race as missions.  If you look at many job descriptions of mission trips these days, you will unfortunately see watered down weeks that ask Christians to do simple tasks in order that there is minimal exposure to the gospel.  Rarely do I see job descriptions that say, “Come and bring your church’s best evangelists to share the gospel.”  It is pass out this, pray for that, play with this, love on that – but we seem it extreme simply to share the gospel.

I think sometimes we get caught up in traveling the world in the name of Jesus rather than the Great Commission.

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Sex is a Gift from God

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Marriages are under attack, and one of the ways that many fall is that the intimacy fails along the way.  Scripture gives married couples lessons to follow:

Drink water from your own cistern,

water flowing from your own well.

Should your springs flow in the streets, streams of water in the public squares?

They should be for you alone and not for you [to share] with strangers.

Let your fountain be blessed, and take pleasure in the wife of your youth.

A loving doe, a graceful fawn— let her breasts always satisfy you; be lost in her love forever.

Why, my son, would you be infatuated with a forbidden woman or embrace the breast of a stranger?

For a man’s ways are before the LORD’s eyes, and He considers all his paths.

Prov 5:15-21 (HCSB)

Many people imagine God as a fuddy-duddy in the sky who doesn’t want His children to have any fun or enjoy anything in this life.  People have a concept of God that says if something is enjoyable, He probably wouldn’t want us to partake of it. Those people have never read Proverbs 5.

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One Mission

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I firmly believe that today was the start of a whole new era of North Side as we began the One Initiative.  Today, we focused on what it would mean to have truly One Mission? Our church has always been faithful at engaging in the Great Commission.  But what could happen if we all focused in one direction to reach …

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Tis the Season to Be Involved

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Since Christmas decorations started going up in stores 3 months ago, I guess it’s time to start thinking Christmas time around the ol’ church house as well.  Our worship team has been doing some praying and planning as of late, and what we have realized is if we are going to pull off what we have in mind for the …

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Some Day Soon – Storytellers

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“Some Day Soon” is the last track on the Overcome album.  It is kind of a funny story how it came about.  One day, the power at the office went out.  We had no electricity, internet, or phone service for the day.  This was around the time we were trying to finish up tracking for Overcome.  I cleared the whiteboard and tried to finalize track listing.  As I came close to finishing, I realized there wasn’t a blatant song about the hope with Christ’s return and our trip home.  Elements were throughout the album, but it wasn’t explicit anywhere.

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The Difference 6 Months Can Make

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Today is a day to celebrate.  It is exactly 6 months since the day Eli and myself landing back at GSP airport.  6 months.  6 pictures (because a pictures says 1,000 words, right?).  Watch the difference 6 months can make: Ephesians 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, …

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The Pure: Joseph

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What a great day at North Side!  The picture above is of my two aspiring musicians during soundcheck this morning.  Obie walked in with his toy guitar today and said, “Play the guitar in the church house like Daddy?!”  Love my life.

Today, we worshiped to:

So humbling to hear and watch you sing out today.  It was great to see how a CD can lead in worship in that so many of you were singing out to songs we haven’t done on a Sunday yet but were recorded on the Overcome CD.  Love worshiping with you and pray that album is a blessing to you!

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Tolerating Mediocre Talent in Church

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We’ve all been there.  Sunday morning, the soloist gets up to perform the special music.  It’s not that it’s not your style, it’s the fact that it hurts.  This person simply cannot sing.  For whatever reason, they got the chance to sing a solo, and you are wishing they were singing so low you couldn’t hear them (sorry, I couldn’t …

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On Behalf of All Black Men…

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A few weeks ago, I was riding Obie and Eli in the Walmart buggy while Amanda was grocery shopping.  As I attempted to keep them occupied, we ran into some friends.  The boys started to hand out the high-fives to our friends when an older black man that I did not know came up and insisted on getting high-fives himself and then walked off.

One minute later, he came back and interrupted the conversation by pointing to Eli and asking, “Sir, excuse me, but are you mentoring this young boy?”

Before I got to respond to this funny question as this stranger pointed at my tiny 2-year-old, Eli looked up at me and tried to get my attention by saying, “Daddy?”

This man stated, “I’m sorry, is this boy your son?!”

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Present Help – Storytellers

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This edition of storytellers from the Overcome album focuses on a song called “Present Help.”  This is the 3rd recording project this song has been used on.  I actually wrote this song in college.  I started working on it in the piano lab around 1999 or 2000 (whoa, I’m getting old).

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The Pretender: Judah

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Another wonderful Sunday at North Side as we continued in our “Ancestors” series through key figures in Genesis.  I had planned a service based on Jeff preaching from Genesis 37 with Joseph and Potipher’s wife.  Instead, he felt led to go in a different direction:

For the sake of comfort, most people pass over Genesis 38, but Judah’s story is too similiar to situations today.  Many people are living for the moment without a thought concerning responsibility.  No matter how hard we try, our sin will find us out just like it did Judah.

I’ll be honest, when I saw what direction he was going, I just started praying that it would connect and not keep people’s mind in the gutters when he went to that passage.

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Courageous Writers’ Conference

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Last week, I had the privilege of brainstorming with the Sherwood Pictures Team and LifeWay leadership for the upcoming “Courageous Bible Study” based on the Courageous movie coming in September 2011.  I was humbled when they asked me to be a part of the writing process, and I am even more humbled after spending a week working on this material.

I can’t go into too many details concerning the film or the curriculum, but I can share some things with you so you can make this a matter of prayer:

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The Little Engine That Could God

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[Yesterday, I preached on a message at North Greenville‘s Chapel I am loosely calling “The Little Engine That Could God.”  I wrote out the intro in manuscript form.  It was a message on the omnipotence of God.  I’ve been praying about writing a book on the attributes of God by looking at a negative image of God, then correcting it through the Scripture’s teachings.  Writing Freshman 15 for college students was very challenging but also very rewarding (you can learn more about the book here or order it on Amazon here).  Praying about it and would love you to pray with me about if I should go further.  Here is the intro:]

“I think I can.  I think I can.  I think I can.”

 

We all remember this iconic phrase from the children’s classic The Little Engine That Could.  This favorite tale recounts the story of a train hauling toys up the mountain to some needy children.  When the train is unable to make the steep trek, the toys try to chorale other passing trains to carry them up the mountain.  Either due to disinterest or inability, all the trains refuse the responsibility of carrying this load.  Eventually, a little blue engine comes by who is unsure if it is able to pull the load up the mountain.  Seeing the disappointment in the toys‘ eyes, the engine decides to give it a shot.  Repeating that famous phrase over and over again, the engine eventually musters up enough strength to help those out in need.

Many of us follow The Little Engine That Could God.

No one would readily admit to following that God, but we prove it by our actions.  When encountering difficult situations in our lives with what seems to be insurmountable odds, we look for the best and the brightest to come to our rescue.  We research and poll people concerning what they would do.  We seek direction from doctors, teachers, preachers, counselors, and every expert you can imagine.  Once we exhaust all of our human resources, have made meager attempts of our own, we address the King of kings and Lord of lords and utter one of the most tragic phrases resonating in our churches today, “All we have left to do now is pray.”

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Worship You – Storytellers

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  “Worship is a way to live rather than something to do.  Walking with the Lord makes us overflow with His praises!” -Angela McCall As lead vocalist on this track, Angela has really taken this song to another level.  She has brought so much passion and direction for the song. The song was written as a desire to write a …

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The Persistent: Jacob

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Another great day at North Side as we were in week 3 of “Ancestors” as we focused on Jacob. Jacob was born persistent.  While that persistence got him into trouble, it also paid off from him at times.  His wrestlings with God reveal a man who struggled in life but who never gave up on being blessed by God. Great …

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Immanuel – Storytellers

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Today’s storytellers is the song “Immanuel.” I wrote this song back in 2006 and recorded it in house, but rerecorded it on my “Coming Home” solo project released earlier this year.  The song fit too well with the “Overcome” theme not to include it.  So we remixed it and took away my background vocals and let Jodie Shirley add her …

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Don’t Give Up – Storytellers

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Our entire band’s favorite track on “Overcome” is one that none of them played on – it’s track #11, “Don’t Give Up.” This track, is a sermon remix to a message Jeff preached on May 23rd entitled, “The Hope for the Suffering Church.” On that day, a conversation between John Kennerly and myself solidified the “Overcome” focus for the album. …

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Never Seen the Righteous Forsaken – Storytellers

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While the “Overcome” CD is officially released, I wanted to continue to share some of the stories behind the songs. “Never Seen the Righteous Forsaken” was literally a last minute song to add to the project.  During the mix, we decided to remove one song from the lineup which provided a musical vacuum towards the end of the project.  Written …

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Overcome Recap

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Words can’t even begin to express my joy from Overcome last night.  God showed up big, and I was just humbled at how worshipful the event was last night.  Where do I begin to say thanks? Jesus – You are the true Overcomer.  You bring hope to the hopeless, and You were the guest of honor last night. We were …

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Overcome

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I am blown away by what God did tonight. I am humbled that I serve along such quality people. I love being a part of His church. We will overcome.

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