This morning, my Bible reading started out in Luke 7. I normally have a set quota I try to read daily unless something hits me hard that I need to process and pray about. I was done at verse 7. This is the story about Jesus healing the centurion’s servant. You may remember the passage because Jesus tells the centurion …
I was so excited to be back at North Side this week. I’ve been gone for too long, gone to other churches, and I was just ready to be back with our family. And it was a wonderful time today! Today, we worshiped to these songs (and boy, did the praise band sound great and led great without me today …
The time spent Wednesday and Thursday in class was unforgettable. My cohort was taught by Dr. Robert Coleman. If you don’t know that name, you should. Dr. Coleman has been a mentor of mine from afar since 2000. This week, I got to thank him for that face to face. Dr. Coleman wrote a book in 1963 entitled, The Master …
North Side U is starting this Sunday, and I’m so excited about the class that I am teaching: Hermeneutics. Don’t let the big word scare you, it’s about reading the Bible for all its worth. I mean it can’t be hard if I’m using stick people to teach it. Have you ever read a passage that you thought could no …
As I am continuing my week at seminary, I must say that this has been a busy week. After working through how to format my dissertation for a few days, we have now been in class talking about the history of our country’s revivals. At night, I change poopy diapers and try to get as much research in Southern’s library …
Yesterday’s quote of the day in class: “When revival comes, will you be the person leading it, or will you be the person needing it?” -Dr. Timothy Beougher Think about it. Deep question. If God was to move mightily in your city, would you be the one who was on your knees praying for it to come? Or would you …
Being away from North Side was a bit different today. I can’t remember the last time I “went to church” without serving. I showed up at a place. I parked in a visitor’s spot. And I had to go to the help desk for info. Very different, but I learned a ton. We went to Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, …
Best line of my week thus far at seminary was from Dr. Chuck Lawless yesterday morning: “If you were God, would you call yourself?” He had just read Eph. 4:1 and told us to think about living a life worthy of our calling. He said that, as ministers, sometimes we have gotten comfortable with the fact that we have been …
The family and I are in Louisville for the next 10 days as I take a class up at seminary. I am working on another degree through the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth and this is one of the segments I have to be up at school. We have to do a lot of work before …
We got to celebrate fathers today at North Side in a fun way. At the 11:15 Obie, Cory, Cory’s son, Nate, and me started the festivities with some Father’s Day Superlatives. We couldn’t select any winners for the “Loudest Snoring Dad” award because there were too many people pointing fingers at the fathers in the house. After our time of …
Today is our wedding anniversary. Amanda and I have been married for four years and counting! In some ways it has flown by and in some ways it seems like I can’t remember what it was like before we were married. Not that its been drudgery in any way, it just seems so right and I can’t remember what life …
As we are becoming engulfed in the summer months, our staff is also doing a whole lot of tweaking and long-term planning in the last two weeks. Someone asked me yesterday, “Is summer easier or harder on a church staff? Which is more busy?” I had to answer, “yes.” You see, they are two different animals. Both are extremely busy …
Continuing on in our series, Waiting on the World to Change, our church studied what it meant to do in the area of “Practical Service” today. When it comes to mission work, I think the church (universal) has always fallen on one of two ends of the spectrum (this is the case in almost everything Christian it seems). One one …
Just the other day, we were at one of our doctor’s visits for Mr. Obadiah and I happenned to see a certain magazine in the waiting room amidst other publications: Under the Reader’s Digest’s cover on the vitamin hoax and above Golf Digest’s cover on fixing your swing, you can see North Side’s publication, The Compass. We mentioned one Sunday …
Superbaby. Blue eyes for now… Happy baby boy. Funny face. Chillin’. Dad’s hand is about to eat me. Happy boy. Judo kick. Baseball star.
When we were at the Biltmore House, I did a little photo shoot of Obadiah when he was waking up. Hope you enjoy: Contentment personified. He looks either excited or scared. Singing away. What a stud. “Daddy looks funny.” Striking a pose. Green-thumbed Obie.
The Agnew clan got to experience our first family vacation over the weekend. A newfound friend of mine called needing a fill-in minister to officiate a family member’s wedding this weekend (the original minister had emergency surgery). The only hard thing about this wedding was that it was at the Biltmore House and our family would have to stay on …
Shake-n-Shine is coming around the corner! Below is a message from our Project Love guru, Rick Hendricks. Read to see how you can help out: Hello: Shake N Shine, our camp for children in Greenwood, will take place July 14-18, again this year at Erskine College, and we need your help. We’re asking C-groups, Sunday School classes to assist us …
Our world needs some changing, and God intends to change it through the family. The most critical spiritual environment is the one in which you live. As we look at these up and coming generations, we must realize that trained church professionals are not the answer to our children’s spiritual needs. Our children need their parents to live for Christ …
I am getting back into the swing of things here at North Side since my time off. I loved being at home with Amanda and Obadiah, so it was a little hard getting back to the grind last week. I was getting used to a weird sleep schedule when I didn’t have to work, but now I am slowly adjusting …
What a great Sunday. As our church continues to heal, it was great to come together today and sing words like, “You are my shield, my strength, my portion, deliverer, my shelter, strong tower, my very present help in times of need.” In times of need like we are going through, it is comforting to know that he is presently …
Here is some more information concerning the Chapmans’ tragic loss: Maria Sue Chapman, adopted and youngest daughter to Mary Beth and Steven Curtis Chapman, was killed Wednesday night in a tragic accident in the family driveway on Wednesday evening. She was LifeFlighted to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital but for only reasons God can explain she went home to Him… not to …
I get a weekly analytics of our website which shows how people found North Side’s website, how long did they stay, how many pages they visited, and what the top viewed pages were. Very interesting. North Side’s Top Web Hits – Staff Page – 9.28% of pages visited Blogs – 6.44% of pages visited Photo Gallery – 5.05% of pages …
Today was a special day at North Side. It was exciting on one end due to our youth praise band leading in worship. They did a fantastic job. They sang the following songs: Salvation is Here – Hillsong United Awesome is the Lord – Chris Tomlin Mighty to Save – Hillsong How Great is Our God – Chris Tomlin I …
I’m a little over a week experienced in the art of fatherhood and am learning many things. I have learned how to swaddle, change diapers, get sprinkled on, constantly smell poop, rock, live off of no sleep, and other great things. I took the week off to be with a recovering mama and an adjusting-to-the-world little boy. Many times I …
How your baby’s growing: Your baby’s waiting to greet the world! He continues to build a layer of fat to help control his body temperature after birth, but it’s likely he already measures about 20 inches and weighs a bit over 7 pounds, a mini watermelon. (Boys tend to be slightly heavier than girls.) The outer layers of his skin …
Today was our second week in Credit or Debit? where we focused on “The Mind of Investment.” Every spending decision is a spiritual decision. If we are to develop a mind of investment, we have to realize that everything belongs to God – even our finances. And if all our finances belong to God, we must make sure that how …
I’m sorry for the absence in the blogging world. This has been a busy week in the life of baby arrival, church activities, and life in general and haven’t had a chance to blog. So, in my absence I thought I would let Madea talk to you about the Bible.
Every financial decision you make is either a credit to your spiritual life or a debit from your spiritual life. Money is one of those areas that cause many headaches in our lives, but God has many commands concerning your finances that actually are meant to free you. The heart of stewardship begins with you realizing that everything you have …
Here’s a quick rundown of what’s going on in life and in ministry: Pancake Breakfast – all you have to do is eat pancakes to support our summer missionaries. O’Charley’s on Saturday from 7-9 at $5/plate. I think what I am so excited about is that we have non-rush North Side time. We can eat a plate and just have …
Since my last post on Fusion, I’ve had some good feedback concerning future ministry plans. I’ve even had some people say they were sad that we weren’t doing college ministry anymore. But that couldn’t be further than the truth. If anything, we are going to do more college ministry than ever before! We’ve just got to figure out what that …
This may be one of my favorite church signs I have ever collected. I found this one on the internet a few years back and it reads, “Baptism by Fire! Enroll in Preschool.” It doesn’t take too long to see why this one is so fantastic. First off, the whole concept behind fire baptism is scriptural. In Matthew 3:11, John …
How your baby’s growing: Congratulations — your baby is full term! This means that if your baby arrives now, his lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though your due date is still three weeks away. Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel …
In our last week of God’s Believe It or Not, we focused on one last unbelievable claim from Scripture: believe it or not, Jesus is coming again. Concerning Christ’s Second Coming, Christians either try to figure out all the details concerning his return or forget about it altogether because it is too difficult to understand. While we will never be …
It’s true. It appears if Fusion is going on a sabbatical, restructuring, or altogether closing. Our college/20-something worship gathering and Bible study has reached a fork in the road, and we are going to have to take the next steps in faith. Before explaining why we are changing, let me tell you why Fusion started: Back in 2004, college students …
A couple of weeks ago, I conducted a theological survey of our adults at North Side. This is for a requirement for my next degree, but I tailored the questions to help our staff discern teaching and directional needs for our church in the area of evangelism and missions. Concerning conducting this survey, I was hesitant. A number of our …
How your baby’s growing: Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. He now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. He’s shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered his body as well as the vernix caseosa, the …
At North Side on Sunday, Fred mentioned his support of an upcoming film entitled, Expelled. Ben Stein, who I thought was just that funny looking, boring sounding guy who played as random cameos in TV shows and movies, turns out to be a very involved figure in American classroom and political circles over the last few decades. He is very …
Today was week 4 of God’s Believe It or Not life focus series at North Side. We talked about whether or not Jesus truly stated if he was the only way to God. This issue is one of the most sensitive in our culture at this time. With so many different paths to God, people are very hesitant to claim …
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