Ministry

“Psalm 150” – Storytellers

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We are so excited to share that you can now get your copy of “Enter His Gates” on iTunes today!  This project developed into a focus on psalms and other scripture passages of worship.  It contains 16 tracks, 3 of them are instrumental selahs, 2 of them recorded live at our church, some of them new arrangements of old tunes, and the intro track was begging to be something special.

I had this idea months ago about a way to introduce the entire album, but I put it on the backburner to see if we could get everything else done.  With a day left before deadline, I couldn’t get away from the thought and so we went with it, and we had to go for it very quickly (so quickly that unfortunately, Jamie Strutton isn’t given trumpet credits on the album notes, because it wasn’t recorded before the artwork was done).

So, let me explain to you the story behind “Psalm 150.”

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Enter-ed His Gates

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What an incredible, busy, jam-packed, God-connected, worshipful, missional week last week was!  We had the privilege for our worship band to play out in the community.  Back in January, we prayed for opportunities to play outside the church walls, and God so happened to drop two in our laps at the time we were planning on releasing our 2nd album of the year.

Here’s a rundown of the week:

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I Go to Prepare a Place

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What a special day day of worship!  With a full week of events associated with our “Enter His Gates” release, it was great to be able to celebrate it one more time with our church family.  In addition to the new 16-track CD, we also had some new t-shirts and such.  I have already received from very special encouragement concerning the new tunes.  We are very grateful.

Today, we worshiped with songs from the new CD:

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Enter His Gates

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Enter His Gates is an in-house recording where we worked on a few different types of songs: 1) Psalms – Many of the songs are taken directly from the Psalms or other passages of Scripture, 2) Instrumentals – We have 3 instrumental tracks which are proving to be some of the people’s favorites as we took the psalmic idea of the instrumental selah pauses in …

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Updates from the Frontline

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Last night, I shared a quote in our community group from a book I’m reading entitled Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis.  Interesting read about what these guys are doing with The Crowded House network of home churches in the UK.

Here’s the quote that woke me up concerning missions:

“If someone was being sent as a missionary to a hostile context overseas, our attitude would be something like this: We would expect to pray often for them.  We would expect progress in building relationships and sharing the gospel to be slow.  We would be excited by small steps – a gospel conversation here, an opportunity to get to know someone there.  We would thrive on regular updates from the front line.  But the truth is that the lives of many Christians in work, and play, are just like the life of that far-flung missionary!  They are lived out in tough environments where progress is often slow and many factors make evangelism extremely difficult.  The challenge is to make news from the staff canteen as valued as news from the overseas mission field.”  –Total Church, p. 36

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Betraying One Another

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What a powerful day!  Love, love what is happening in our church right now!

Loved having Lee commission our students to Charleston missions this week.  The message on Judas’ predicted betrayal was unbelievable.  I loved Jeff’s honesty and faithfulness to the biblical text.  As believers, we are called to be faithful to one another, and yes, betrayal among God’s people happens and it is painful.  What an incredible call!

Today, we worshiped to:

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The Centrality of the Home (Unbelievable Message)

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On February 7, 2006, a group of more than 1,000 pastors and church leaders gathered for the Southern Baptists of Texas State Evangelism Conference in the Dallas Metroplex. During the second night of the conference Voddie Baucham, who had preached at the previous year’s conference, was called upon to stand in for Dr. Tim LaHaye who had become ill a …

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“Enter His Gates” Track Listing

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We are thrilled to finally be able to let you worship alongside something our team has been working ever so diligently on – our latest worship album, “Enter His Gates.”  This project consists of 16 original worship music from our North Side Worship family.

A few neat features about this recording: 1) Pslams – Many of the songs are taken directly from the Psalms or other passages of Scripture, 2) Instrumentals – We have 3 instrumental tracks which are proving to be some of the people’s favorites as we took the psalmic idea of the instrumental selah pauses in worship and put them to practice here, 3) Remixes –  Some of these songs are remixes or complete re-workings of an old worship song from a previous North Side or solo recording, 4) Live Tracks – The last two tracks feature none other than our North Side congregation singing along at some services months ago – hearing the worshipers has been breathtaking to me, and 5) New Songs – Some of these brand new songs have been some of the most quickly accepted and sung at our church that we have ever done.  So exciting!

Here’s the “Enter His Gates” track listing:

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Ministerial Exhaustion

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Years ago, our pastoral staff took a retreat.  I can remember we really didn’t talk a bunch on the van ride up.  We were all very tired, and honestly, we were very drained with our jobs.

I remember spending a long time on our face before God.  These weren’t bold prayers concerning the health of our church.  These were pastors who were exhausted and tired and pleading to God for help.

What we talked about those few days was how we were overwhelmed with the pace of ministry.  The programs and events of the church were booming, yet we were exhausted and unsure if our efforts were actually assisting any real life change.  From that week, a lot of things at the church changed for the better.  Our entire staff got fired and rehired.  We changed jobs and really started focusing on people over programs.

Two weeks ago, our pastoral staff took another retreat.  We were all very tired yet again, yet this time we were overwhelmed for another reason.

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Foot Washing

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The only problem with today’s services is I could have done that a few more times.  Incredible time with Jesus today.  Absolutely incredible.

The above picture was taken during soundcheck today by one of our vocalists from her phone.  The boys normally go to soundcheck with me.  Today, amazingly enough, both of them had to go poo-poo during it and yelled it out really loud after we had finished a song during soundcheck.  I love being a dad.

After everyone was out of the bathroom, it was a very special day indeed.  Jeff’s message was powerful.  He explained that Jesus’ example of washing the disciples’ feet was an expression of unity, acceptance, and service.  What if every church, every home was full of people who applied this example?  Still processing.

We had a great ensemble do a dramatic reading of the foot washing to setup the message.  It was incredible.  Every time that Laurie started saying, “You can’t wash my feet, I should be kissing your feet,” I couldn’t help but get weepy.  Strutton did a great job of making a Last Supper table that will stay with us during these weeks of Jesus’ teaching through John 13-17.  Amazing what he can do with stuff he got from Big Lots and the Dollar Tree.  Love creativity on a budget!

Today, we worshiped to:

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