When we decided that the series and church emphasis was going to be entitled “Now,” I wanted to write a song that could serve as a sermon intro video, a recap song, and an intro on the CD. I didn’t want to write a song that was cheesy. I didn’t want to force the song. But I knew I wanted …
The song, “Make Me Holy,” is a song that I wrote probably a year and a half ago. It was one of those songs that was birthed out of my personal quality times with God. In my own desire for holiness, I felt like I kept coming up short. I wanted two specific things in my life: Consistency Obedience By …
What a Sunday. I am still thinking about things that God was teaching me yesterday. It was truly an incredible day. Highlights: Peak – Being led in worship by our Peak band is always a privilege. They love Jesus and it shows. CD Release – I was so thrilled to hear that so many people picked up a CD yesterday …
As we were praying and planning months ago over the Now Campaign, we knew that our church was going to address aggressively a few issues, but one of those issues has a special burden on our staff’s heart right now: the family. As we began to look at what our staff addresses most weeks – the counseling sessions, the ministry …
The story behind the song “All Things New” is very different from many songs that I write. In one way, this song idea has been developing for a long time, but in other ways, this song took a short time to actually finish. When I had a weeklong class up at Southern Seminary back in January 08, I took my …
My family and I had a great time at the Harvestfest this Saturday night. I heard there was something like 3500 people there. Todd Agnew was great. David Little and his crew did a fantastic job putting it all on. Dave Wright and his crew did a marvelous job taking care the A to the V to the L. Wonderful …
Yesterday was another incredible set of services at North Side. 2nd week of Now proved to be an impacting moment in the life of our church. Highlights from today’s services: Free Prisoner – Jerry Rentz has been going to the McCormick Correctional Institute for many years. In the last few years, some other guys from the church go on Monday …
This week is busy. Its busy with good stuff though, but alas it is still busy. Here’s just a rundown of the stuff that’s keeping me alert this morning: CD Duplication – The company mastering our CD and duplicating them is deep in the process of it now. North Side Worship “The Time is Now” album is in mass production …
For the upcoming worship CD (out next Sunday), there are four originals coming out of the songwriters at North Side. I thought it would be helpful for you to hear the story behind the song. So, stay tuned for this “Storytellers” segment. Today’s edition features a guest blogger, none other than the uber-talented, John Kennerly. John wrote a song a …
My buddy, Jamie Parler (community pastor, drummer, Jenn’s husband, Elliot’s dad), left yesterday for the next couple of weeks to serve on a mission trip to Moldova. It’s kind of weird not having my office neighbor here today. I normally can hear his music through the wall (which could range from Truth ballads to Bon Jovi hooks), and I can …
Our campaign logo was plastered all around the church on Sunday and you will probably be seeing it a bunch around town via the Compass. While Cory and I worked on it a long time to make sure it was eyecatching, did you also know there is a hidden meaning in the logo? You dedicated blog readers will be privy …
We kicked off a new series this week, entitled, Now. Our staff has prayed and planned more for these next few weeks than any other emphasis I can remember. I don’t think that my mind can wrap around all the work that went into this day and leading up to this day. North Side is blessed to have a talented …
This Sunday is going to be a special one for many reasons. One of those reasons is that we are making our Spiritual Life Notebook available in the bookstore at North Side this Sunday. Here’s the reasoning and info behind it: Discipline without direction is drudgery. Most Christians are told that they need to incorporate spiritual disciplines into their lives. …
I know you get tired of me saying this, but I am sorry: wow, what a Sunday. I must say it again, because it just seems like week after week, our congregation is getting together to show Jesus how much we love him and it is overwhelming just to be in the room with it all. Jeff warned that yesterday …
Most Southern Baptist churches give a percentage of their offerings to the Cooperative Program. Established in 1924, Southern Baptist churches decided to collaborate their financial resources in order to bring about more Kingdom impact. This financial program funds missionary salaries, church plants, seminary training, gospel publications, Bible translations, and so much more. As our passion increases to see the Kingdom …
Yesterday, I was so thrilled to be in attendance at the 2008 State of the University Speech at Lander University, Dr. Ball presiding. He spoke of where Lander is going, all the accomplishments of the last year, and some recognition of some special people. One such special person that was recognized was Scott Smith. Scott and his wife, Judy, have …
Today we started a new emphasis at North Side. The next few months are going to be pretty critical times – we really feel that God is leading us to do some pretty big stuff, and the only way it can happen is if a sovereign God steps in and shows up! Jeff’s message was on “The Harvest.” We have …
In selecting a partnership for a church’s mission’s strategy, on what priorities do you focus? The first three were finding the greatest need, the greatest match, and the greatest impact. But what is the fourth? Greatest Team What is the greatest team your church can assemble to evangelize with this particular partnership? The goal for a mission trip is not …
That’s right! North Side’s worship CD is officially in the mail on its way to be mastered and duplicated! I feel such a sense of relief to have that task done, but even more than that, I am extremely happy with the way it turned out. Anthony, the band, and the singers made this project even better than I imagined …
Yesterday, we finished our 12-week Experiencing God series at North Side. It was a great finish to a great series, even if I haven’t heard the message yet (I was working on getting power for our bluegrass band at the YMCA). Yesterday, our church was truly offering sincere worship to Jesus in all morning long. The songs that you sang …
When a church is looking at developing a partnership with a mission organization, what’s the priority? The third priority should be: Greatest Impact What is the greatest impact your church can have working with your strategic partnership? As we prioritize mission endeavors, we must also be intentional to select opportunities that have the greatest possible impact. By working with the …
When a church is establishing a strategic partnership in the area of mission or ministry, how do you pick ’em? With all the needs, how do you know which ones to get involved in? The second priority is: Greatest Match What is the greatest match with our church’s giftedness? When ascertaining the greatest need, we must also determine what mission …
Continuing our discussion on our North Side mission strategy, I now want to indulge a little deeper. Our mission strategy focuses on three things: personal evangelism, strategic partnerships, and cooperative program. For the next few days, I want to explain how we prioritize our strategic partnerships: In addition to the task of personal evangelism, North Side will also impact the …
This week is a busy week at North Side and at Lander, so here is a rundown of what is going on in my world: Worship CD – listening to worship CD today, possibly making some tweaks, and sending it off this week (woo hoo – go Anthony) AVL Extravaganza – Dave and I have some more work to do …
Another great Sunday today. We have one more week of Experiencing God after today, and this series has been huge in the life of our church. Each week, I hear more and more of all that God has been doing in the lives of people at North Side. People are truly living with their eyes wide open and God is …
Pretty disappointed to read this article this week: KIM WHEATLEY, CHIEF REPORTER August 22, 2008 01:10am PASTOR Michael Guglielmucci has been told by church officials to report to police, who will investigate what has happened to money raised during his cancer deception. The Australian Christian Churches told The Advertiser yesterday that it was auditing Mr Guglielmucci’s bank accounts, which included …
This book of the week is none other than John Mark Terry’s Evangelism: A Concise History. This book hits some of the greatest evangelists and the greatest evangelistic efforts since the beginning of the church. It’s one of those books that gets you excited about what God has done and what we can anticipate him doing again! Top 5 Thoughts: …
Third personal evangelism point: Invite that person to experience life with Christ. If all we do is pray for someone’s conversion and invest in them spiritually without sharing the gospel, we have missed the entire reasoning for the first two emphases. Evangelism does not take place without an adequate presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to reconcile …
For those of you who “came to church” today, I hope that God changed your mind. Hopefully, after today, we will stop coming to church and we will start being the church. As we have continued in this Experiencing God series, I thought today was so helpful to remember that we are the “called out ones.” I loved Jeff’s illustration …
Second point for a personal evangelism strategy: Invest spiritually in that person. One misconception of personal evangelism comes in the form of our role in the task. We are called to do more than transfer information. We are called to do more than leave a gospel tract. The biblical mandate calls all believers to invest spiritually into the lives of …
Studio work is going great. The North Side crew has been cranking it out with Anthony over at Addeybug and we are getting real close. All the instruments are tracked (unless we hear something else we need), and the majority of vocals are done. We went through five vocalists yesterday! We had already gotten three, and now we have four …
North Side’s entire mission strategy is only as strong as how active its members are in the area of personal evangelism. Since we know that everyone will not come to the doors of North Side to pursue Christ, North Side must go to the people of this community and beyond. Christ’s command was to go and tell, not come and …
If you weren’t aware of the Saddleback Civil Forum that happened on Saturday night, you missed out. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, wrote one of the greatest-selling books of all time, trying to take on all the world’s problems through his PEACE plan, and all around great guy, he decided to bring the two presidential candidates together for the …
I love getting together as a church on Sundays. Today was another great day! In our series, Experiencing God, we arrived today at the message, “Speaking Through Circumstances.” This is such a needed message. Overwhelmed with the circumstances in our lives, it is normally hard to decipher what God is trying to say. When you see a commercial on TV …
Sunday is going to be a pretty stupendous day for North Side. First, this is the Sunday before school starts which normally means that everyone comes off of summer vacation and comes to church all on the same day. Normally, this is the largest day attendance wise next to Easter all year. So, we look forward to seeing everyone together …
This next video chronicling the studio development for the upcoming North Side worship album is of JT himself, Eric Bryant. Eric is working on the arrangement and recording the acoustic track for “God of This City,” a fabulous worship tune penned by a band called Bluetree out of Ireland. I make a cameo in the video as well, and somehow …
My doctoral project rationale #2: The second rationale behind this project is the significant investment that is made in church ministries geared towards children and youth that are providing a minimal return. While these students are very active in church when they are at home due to sincere desire or parental prodding, once these students leave home for college, churches …
Another great Sunday at North Side. We talked about the Living Word today in the series, Experiencing God. Today, we worshiped to the following songs: Forever – Chris Tomlin Holy is the Lord – Chris Tomlin Magnificent – Hillsong There is None Like You – Don Moen We Fall Down – Chris Tomlin We were supposed to talk about experiencing …
Here is another video update from the studio for the North Side worship upcoming CD. Here’s Cory playing on “Friend of God.”
Whew. As I am continually working on my doctoral project, there is a certain time line you have to work through. And if you get held up at any place, it effects everything else! I printed and proofed chapter one which serves as the official project proposal. It has to be approved through three different layers, and once I get …
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