Book of the Week: Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God

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This week’s book of the week is C. J. Mahaney’s Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God.

This short read is full of great scriptural insights into romance within marriage.  What I love about the book is that it is not crass but it is also not fuddy-duddy.  It speaks of marriage, sex, and romance in a practical, engaging manner and gets its boldness from the Word of God.

While it is geared primarily towards men, his wife also provides some chapters at the end.  So practical and so God-glorifying.  A great reclaiming of the joy of romance for Christians living God’s way!  Great read!

Top 5 Ideas:

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Lift Schedule

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Details are coming together for Lift, and our team is getting more and more excited by the day!  People from Greenwood to Summerville or planning on making the trek for this Saturday worship training session, and we could not be more humbled to partner with others to lead churches in worship.

I wanted to provide you with the schedule so you can make your plans.  It’s a funnel type schedule focusing on music, tech, and host teams that work in worship settings.  We start large, go to medium size, smaller groups, and then back all together.

This workshop is for seasoned worship team members and also for those who are just curious if they have the skills needed to join.  It’s free lessons, so nothing to lose!  Not only will we have a lot of information, we are going to have a lot of fun!

Here is our promise: we are teaching principles, not models.  We don’t want you to copy what we are doing, we are going to teach principles that we have been learning that can be applied into any context.  Please list any questions you might have.  You can register here.

See below for details:

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Caption Please: Pigeon Suit Guy vs. Bird Feeder

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I came across this video this morning and it made my day.  The quality is bad, but it is well worth 18 seconds. The sign reads: “Warning: Due to Overfeeding Some Pigeons May Become Aggressive.” If you were reporting on this story, what would you say?  Caption please…

Why God Might Be Out to Get Your Church

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Your church bears the name of Christ.  Most likely, your church was founded for his glory, was organized the way it is for his glory, but churches can get off track.

Our assumption is that God is for every church.  The very fact that it is called a church automatically receives God’s blessing, right?

What if I told you that God was actually against certain churches?  What if I told you that the most powerful being in the world actively opposed certain bodies?

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Your Job

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Great day at North Side as we are nearing the end of Ephesians.  Today’s big idea: Your Job (Eph. 6:5-9) – For most people, a job is something you endure rather than enjoy.  When we choose to see our performance in our job as an act of worship to God, it not only changes our perspective but probably our level …

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Book of the Week: The Multi-Site Church Revolution

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This week’s book of the week is The Multi-Site Church Revolution by Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird.  Multi-site churches are growing by the day.  That term means a whole lot of different things, but fundamentally, it means being one church in many locations. Some of these congregations show videos of their preacher in different locations.  Some have campus …

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Platform Ministry Can Never Replace Relational Ministry

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Platform ministry can never replace relational ministry.

This week’s worship training consists of the worship value: availability – leading with presence.

When people are gifted in the arts, oftentimes, they are put on stage to perform ministry.  While time on the stage may be an outlet for ministry, oftentimes, the time off the stage validates the ministry.

Someone can get up in your church and raise the rafters with their vocal pipes.  It will provide emotion, goosebumps, and a positive experience, but it cannot compare with a talented worship leader who is involved in the lives of the people in the church.

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“Boy, Don’t You Know That There Are Orphans in Africa…”

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Eli came home on May 1st.  It is hard to believe he has only been home a year, because I can’t remember what our family was like before he was here.  I can honestly say that when I look at those two boys, I see my two sons.  I don’t see one biological and one adopted, I see the two Agnew boys.

Yet there are still moments when I say something that reminds me how much he is mine.  Sometimes if he gives me a look or I have a flashback of our time in Ethiopia, I remember for a moment what it was like when we were strangers.  More often than that, I find myself forgetting that he hasn’t been with us all the time.

Which brings us to what happened last week.

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Your Church’s Best Days Are Not Behind You

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I was talking with a friend the other day concerning the future of his church.  As a pastor in another state, he is working with a congregation that has seen some incredible moments in their history.  The problem is – that’s all they think about.

“Remember when pastor so-and-so did this…remember that revival years ago…remember when all those young families started coming…”

His dilemma was that they had seen God move in the past, and all they wanted to do was to tell of the glory days.

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True Love (In Sickness and in Health)

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mcquilkinOn this Valentine’s Day, I want to introduce you to one of my heroes.  I’ve never bet Robertson McQuilken, but his life has had a huge impact upon me.

Robertson and his wife, Muriel, were married in 1949.  As a young missionary couple, they spent 12 years in Japan before returning to the United States.  He became the  president of Columbia International University in 1968.  In the early 1980s, his wife Muriel was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  Through the gradual worsening of his wife’s condition, he eventually decided to resign from his post as president in 1990 to care for his wife full time.  This video is a brief summary of Robertson’s love for his wife, concluding with an excerpt of his resignation speech before the student body at Columbia.

It’s one thing to make a vow on a wedding day saying, “In sickness and in health”, but it’s another thing to keep that vow when it’s put to the test by something like Alzheimer’s disease.  I don’t know what your picture of love is on this Valentine’s Day, but it’s more than cards, flowers, chocolates, and physical attraction.  Maybe it’s something like that:

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10 Things I Would Have Done Differently as a Father

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What a great day with North Side!  While I was hobbling from my foot and stuffy from my sinuses, our congregation carried the worship today as we gave it all we had.

Today, we worshiped to:

To setup the message on fatherhood today, I shared the story of my involvement in the curriculum associated with the upcoming movie, Courageous.  After that and watching the powerful video below, people were ready to sing out, “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

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End Human Trafficking

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At Passion 2011, I had the opportunity to give to some great mission organizations.  Passion does a phenomenal job at their “Do Something Now” center making awareness and giving engaging again.  Each station has you experience what you are giving to before you give to it.  One example is by giving to build wells in impoverished areas, they have you tote a jug of water the length it takes someone to get water in their current situation.

One need that has been really disturbing me as of late is the issue of human trafficking.  Some of the stats you hear are overwhelming.  Children all over the world are being forced into prostitution at a very young age.

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Your Marriage

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Today, we started our 3rd section through Ephesians.  These final four Sundays, we will see that God still has the whole world in his hands, including your marriage, family, job, and spiritual protection.  This week:

Your Marriage (Eph. 5:22-33) – God has a plan for your marriage.  No matter how far out of control you believe it to be, God’s Word has direction to bring peace into a chaotic situation.  Biblical love and respect can set a broken marriage right again.

Today, we worshiped to:

Loved our time of worship as a family today.  So great to lift our voices and sing such biblical truth as presented in these songs!  Jeff’s message has massive implications.  Whenever you talk about submission, headship, and marriage, you always have everyone’s attention.  If you didn’t hear the message, you need to listen to it.  Many sermons on marriage talks about fixing problems, this sermon was about the purpose of marriage, and once you hear it, it fixes ALL problems.

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Overcompensation with My Ankle (And Your Church)

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I am still in crippled status.  After 2 weeks in a hard cast, my ankle is still broken from the infamous basketball game.  I am in the boot for 4 weeks gradually applying some pressure on it.  Still on crutches.  Obie said this morning, “Daddy, your crunches go squeak, squeak like a mouse.”

They sure do.

As you look at this picture above, I will ask you, by the look of it, which ankle is hurt?  Of course you would say, the ankle on the left of the picture is the one hurting.

And you would be wrong.

The ankle in the boot feels fine.  No pain, no real discomfort, it’s just annoying to have it confined to a boot.  The ankle that is hurting more is the ankle on the right side of the picture.  I have experienced a real pain deep inside that ankle not confined to the boot.  When talking to my buddy who is a doctor, he said what I’m experiencing is called overcompensation.  Having to put more weight and pressure on the uninjured ankle oftentimes causes more long term damage than the injured ankle.

I firmly believe the principle of overcompensation is happening in your church right now.  You’ve heard of the 80/20 rule.  20% of the people do 80% of the work.  You look at the other 80% of people as if they are broke and so you start putting more pressure on the 20% that isn’t broke.  The problem?  Overtime, you can cause more damage on the 20% if you burn them out.  From the outside, you still can identify those that are not working in the Body of Christ.  Spotting them is as easy as spotting a broken ankle in a cast.

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Courageous Deadlines Have Been Met

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I am happy to report to you that I submitted my last work for the Courageous Bible Study today! I am way humbled to be a part of this great ministry endeavor, but I am also very tired.  It has been a lot of work to do in a short about of time. The movie comes out on September 30th, …

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10 Things That Will Kill Your Men’s Ministry

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Recently, I was talking to a buddy about why or why not men’s ministries work in certain churches.  I tried to condense what we talked about, so here is a list of 10 things that will kill your church’s men’s ministry:

1.  Hypocritical Leadership – You won’t find perfect men to lead your men’s ministry, but you better find men who are consistently striving towards godliness.  Men can spot fakes easily and provides easy excuses for them.
2.  Getting Too Close and Personal – You need to allow them to get close, but don’t force them to act in a manner against God-given manliness.  Your group can be spiritual without group hugs.
3.  Not Getting Close and Personal Enough – While you don’t force men to be something they are not, don’t also settle for anything less than biblical community.  They need to be close enough to push each other to love and good deeds (Heb. 10:24-25).
4.  Cliques – When men come to your church’s functions, you need to remove the clique factor among them.  Make sure to get men with the gift of hospitality (that just means they make people feel welcome) at your doors and get men connected with others in the room.
5.  Trying to Copy the Church’s Women Ministry – Just because your church’s women ministry has a hanging of the greens doesn’t mean you get your guys to decorate the church too.  It works cause it is for women.  Let guys be guys while always challenging them to be men of God.

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Imitation is the Sincerest of Flattery

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“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.”  -Ephesians 5:1

Last night in our C-Group, we dug in deep into Ephesians 5 and sought to learn what it meant to imitate God.  One of the guys made a great point at how his son wanted to imitate him because he looked up to him.

I could relate.  It amazes me that these two wonderful boys, Obadiah and Eli, look up to their father.  Over the last few weeks, they have hopped around like they were on crutches  tryinb to be like Daddy.  Obie keeps telling me has a boo boo on his foot like me.  On Christmas morning, when they both got guitars, they stepped up to the microphone, stomped on foot pedals, and said, we are “playing and singing like Daddy.”

If imitation is the sincerest of flatteries, then I am a flattered man.

During group last night, I realized something with massive implications: they imitate me because they want to!  You may be thinking that is obvious, but do you get the spiritual implications?

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Walking in the Light

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I wish I could have hobbled closer to the choir for this picture, but my cast kept me at this distance.  The picture is of 80-year-old Mama Barnes leading the Faith Home choir today at North Side.  Before the service, she told me she didn’t want to lead the choir because she didn’t want to be a distraction.

I said, “Mama Barnes, the choir sounds great, but your dancing is amazing.  Get up there.”

And boy, did she ever!  Her energy and the choir’s passion in worship changed the room for sure!  I can’t even begin to tell you how loud, not the band, but the congregation was this morning worshiping!

We were so honored to have our partner in ministry join us for this special day.  The Faith Home, 4 decades into ministry, has cared for over 20,000 men and women in the area of Christian recovery for alcoholics and addicts.  When they sang, “If he can make a change in me, he can make a change in you,” such hope and passion came out of their mouths and their souls.  Amazing!

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Small Group Values

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Following up from yesterday’s post, I want to share the 4 values on which my small group focuses.  There are many great lists out there, but this is my attempt at trying to maintain focus within the group I lead. Small group values: AUTHORITY Make sure each member knows that the authority in the study is the Bible.  The teacher, …

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Bad Church Sign: Independent Old Timey…

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This week’s bad church sign is seen on many church signs across the Bible Belt. This sign states: INDEPENDENT OLD TIMEY HELL-FIRE BRIMSTONE KING JAMES PREACHING” Wow.  That’s a mouthful. Let me break it down and tell you what it is saying: Independent – We don’t agree with the stances of larger denominations, so we remain independent from everyone else. …

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5 Things You Didn’t Know Fathers Do

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I wanted to share with you a list concerning fathers I found the other day.  As I have been studying and working on Courageous, I’ve been gathering a ton of information concerning the impact fathers have on their children.  Here are 5 things you didn’t know fathers do: Fathers Teach Empathy – A 26-year study published by the American Psychological …

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A Different Look

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Week 2 of leading worship on crutches.  If that poor stool can make it through today, it can make it through anything!  This cast has made me realize I’m a bit more of a dancer than I realize I actually was 😉

Today, we continued on through Ephesians as we studied:

A Different Look (Eph. 4:17-32) – As a Christian, we are called to lay aside the old self and have a completely different look.  We are no longer to live in our former ignorance, but we are to shine differently than before.

Today’s message was great.  Amazing how God’s Word, written years ago, still has so much power for us today!  The point Jeff ended on was so powerful.  He taught how Paul taught in Ephesians that we are to get together before we try to get holy.  You would think you should get holy before coming to church, but this progression teaches us to get around each other in order to make us holy.

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We Are Worshiping On the Wrong Side of the Table

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I’m a struggling worship leader.

I’m not poor or unable to find places to lead worship.  I just struggle with the tension in worship leading.

For years, I have learned how to set the table for people to come to worship.  Setup the right mood lighting, pick the right type of music, dress this way, talk that way, and people will come back to the meal you prepared.  It’s like you are setting the environment for a nice restaurant, and you are just hoping you can serve a course that is so unforgettable, the people will come back week after week.

But maybe in churches, we have been guilty of sitting on the wrong side of the table.  What if we stopped expecting to get your needs and wants met in every worship service we attended?  What if we stopped obsessing over the service we were receiving and started focusing on the service we are offering?

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Do Buffet-Styled Churches Honor God?

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For years, I have bought into the church growth principle that the more choices you give people in a church, the more successful the church will be.

To agree with that principle, you must gauge a church’s success by the number of people who stay at that church.  But is that true success?

Here are the courses that the American church is serving up:

  • Worship – traditional, contemporary, blended, cutting edge, emergent, ancient future, classic, golden, choir, band, hard rock, country western, southern gospel, chandeliers, go-bos, expensive organ, expensive guitar, etc.
  • Discipleship – Sunday school, community groups, small groups, Bible fellowship classes, on-campus, in-homes, co-ed, single, married, guys only, girls only, by hobby-interest, by age, by life situations, etc.
  • Preaching – coat and tie, jeans and t-shirt, podium, table, old, young, hip, wise, screen, video, sermon, message, talk
  • Family Ministries – discipleship times, creative programs, glorified babysitting, “community” sports programs with a side of Christ, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, single, divorced, newlywed, with kids, with small kids, with fussy kids, for fussy kids, puppets, Awanas, GAs, RAs, children’s choir

And the list could go on.

  1. Is God honored when we explain what church we belong to by describing the type of music we like?
  2. Is God honored when we defend our group’s methods within the church rather than celebrating the diversity of the whole church?
  3. Is God honored when we try to woo members from other churches because this program is better than that program?

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Be Fruitful and Multiply (And Boy, Did We Ever!)

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I want to show you two pictures.  The first was taken in the Summer of 2007 when four couples went on a beach trip together.  At that time, there was one baby in the group.

The next picture was taken in December 2010.  Same four couples, nine more children than the photo taken 3 and a half years earlier.

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Does Your Worship Team Need a LIFT?

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You know the feeling.  It’s worship practice, and there is something in the room.  Call it stagnation, complacency, hitting a wall, getting settled, or maybe something else, but you know when you work with your worship team and it just seems like you aren’t getting anywhere.  You’ve hit the bottom.

That’s why you need a lift.

On March 26th (UPDATED DATE: we had some scheduling conflicts, and pushing it back makes more sense) we will have a free worship workshop held at North Side Baptist in Greenwood, SC.  At Lift, you can bring your whole team and get equipped on how you can lift your worship, your team expectations, and your team’s abilities.

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Focused Lighting

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Great Sunday of being the church at North Side!  Today, we worshiped to:

It was the first time I have ever led worship in a cast, but I was so thankful to have such a wonderful supporting team who helped me to a stool and get my guitar and such.  For those of you who know me, you know I don’t ask for help often, so this next few weeks are going to stretch me in all kinds of way!  I did think I was going to jump off the stool a couple of times!

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John Piper’s #1 Leadership Tip

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The only problem with Passion 2011 was that there was way too much to process and apply.  I’m still going through lessons and trying to implement them into my life.

One of they keynote speakers at Passion was John Piper who recently took a 7-month sabbatical and came back into the public scene the week of Passion.   His message, “Getting to the Bottom of Your Joy” was huge.  Massive implications, but that wasn’t the best part of his involvment.

The next morning, he spoke to the leaders’ group.  He had planned one talk, but then decided at 6:30 that morning to change directions.

That morning, he shared with us his #1 leadership principle he has learned.

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What is the Age of Accountability?

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Much debate surrounds the issue of the age of accountability. When the disciples asked Jesus who was the greatest in the kingdom (Matt 18:1), he sat a child down before the disciples to answer their question (Matt 18:2). It would have been pointless for Jesus to exalt a child to hold the mantle of who belongs in the kingdom if …

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Moses the Snowman

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What a great day of snow with the Agnews.  Eli’s first real snow, and he did a belly flop into it.  Then when we got in a snowball fight, he loved it until he got some in his eye.  Here are some pictures of our snowball fight and work to create a very special snowman: We’ve been teaching the boys …

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Bad Church Sign: God’s Last Name is Not…

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I had to pull over on the side of the road years ago to get this one.  This unfortunate church sign states:

“GOD’S LAST NAME IS NOT ‘DAMN'”

I do agree with “the entire congregation.”  That is not his last name.  And probably like this group, I am bothered when I hear people use God’s name in vain by cursing with it.  “GD” bothers me, but so does when I slip up and say, “Oh, my God” and I am not actually calling on him.  Is this sign the best way to combat what people or doing?  Not sure.

Does it bother you when you hear someone breaking the 3rd commandment: “Do not take the LORD God’s name in vain?”

That is one way to break that commandment, but did you know that there is another one that people use much more frequently?

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Behind the Curtain

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The City has officially launched at North Side today! This is your way to stay in the know about all things North Side. This two-way communication street for North Side. You stay updated and you can also contribute your thoughts, prayers, needs, etc. Sign up today!

Thanks so much to all the help today signing people up.  Our volunteers were awesome getting people connected, and the host team does a fantastic job at connecting people to the life of the church.

I want to say an extra special word of thanks to Jamie Strutton and Jessica Wolfe who worked relentlessly to get the City up by today – you guys are amazing and this has already helped out so many people!

We had a fantastic service today!

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A Prayer for Downtrodden Fathers

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As I have been working on the Courageous material, I have really developed a burden for fathers who have messed up or are messing up.  I want them to finish strong so badly.  For whatever reason, I woke up with fathers on my heart.  You reading this might be the reason I penned this prayer below.  If you want to …

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Passion 2011 Recap

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Still processing all that Jesus did in me and around me at Passion 2011.  I needed to go a day late due to church responsibilities, but college students were texting me telling me how incredible everything was before I even got there.  Being able to worship alongside our students and join them in giving sacrificially to worthy causes was such a fantastic way to begin the year.

I could go on and on about the programming of Passion.  Who wouldn’t love to hear Louie Giglio, Beth Moore, Francis Chan, John Piper, Andy Stanley, and David Platt speak?  Who wouldn’t be overjoyed to be led in worship by Chris Tomlin, David Crowder Band, Matt Redman, Charlie Hall, Kristian Stanfill, Christy Nockels, and other special guests?  No one would deny the energy getting 22,000 college students together for lively worship with incredible, impacting media presentations.  Everyone was impacted by the profound presentations of the needs in the world.

All of that was great, but it wasn’t my favorite part.

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I Am Not the Best on the Team

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I struggle with pride when I work with others.

Since my mind is constantly evaluating how to improve areas in any level of ministry in which I am even remotely involved, I often lack patience for long meetings with people deliberating over certain options.  My prideful heart wants to inform people that I have a solution that is so grand that no one should even question my ideas.

I know, I have issues.

While I do not verbalize these thoughts, I can easily become frustrated in meetings that I view as time wasters and mentally disengage myself from others.  Even if the improbable chance of my ideas always being the best were true, my attitude needs to be one of service and selflessness (Phil 2:3-5).

As of late, here’s what I am learning:

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The Heart of Courageous

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I’ve been so thankful for the many prayers prayed on behalf of my work with the upcoming Bible study accompanying the movie Courageous. I can tell you that if Fireproof impacted you, buckle your seat belts for this one.  It speaks to one of the greatest issues in our country today. The state of fatherhood is in trouble, and this …

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Felton Burton: A Life Well Lived

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A dear friend and brother-in-Christ, Felton Burton, died on December 30th and will have funeral services conducted today at North Side.  The above picture is of Felton and his wife, Doris, attending a Date Night at our church 2 years ago.  They were standing as the couple married the longest in a group of hundreds of couples that night.  I remember thinking that night that they were such an example of dedication and faithfulness.

Felton has been an icon in Greenwood.  I could go on to list his accomplishments, but you can read about those in his obituary provided by his family.

I want to focus on one element in particular about Felton that I loved the most: his commitment to making his life count.

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Out of the Darkness

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North Side, 2011 has begun – get ready!  What a great day to start off the new year.  While we had a lot of our crew out of town or out of pocket, our team knocked it out of the park.  Woody even called in sick this morning (that’s why I attempted to play bass and keys – boy, I missed him), and we had to change stuff around, but we a great time this morning giving God praise!

Today, we worshiped to:

We started a new series called “This Little Light of Mine” as we continued through our study of Ephesians.

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My Favorite Posts of 2010

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  In an attempt to recap the year, I wanted to share with you the top 10 posts that I wrote this year.  2010 was a busy year for my family and our church, so it was hard to condense, but I tried.  I kept changing the posts and the order, and I finally just had to give up and …

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