The Problem with Christian Music

Leading worship is an honor.  Leading worship beside the incredible people that I get to lead beside is even a greater honor. One of the things I have loved about this team is their commitment to musical excellence but also doctrinal integrity.  Not only do they take what we lead seriously, but they have also …

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Christ Was Never Meant to Be Part of Your Life

It has been so good to see our college students rolling back into town and getting back into connecting with the church.  Can’t wait to reconnect in the days to come! As a college student, you will begin to understand the necessity of the Waffle House in your life.  When you have procrastinated studying so long …

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1 Peter Worship Album

I’m excited to share with you a new project for North Side Worship.  We are writing an album based upon 1 Peter.

Our church is going through a study of 1 Peter.  It is entitled “Stand Firm.”  We started it last Sunday, and if calculations are correct, we will be finishing the end of January 2014.  The book is all about standing firm as believers during difficult times.  It’s a pretty timely message these days.

Since we would be spending so much time in this book, we wanted to cement these biblical truths in the ears of our church.  Ever since we started focusing on discipling people through worship, we have been amazed at how people are growing through this ministry.

Our band got together and studied 1 Peter one day intensively.  We studied and we studied.  After really understanding it as a book, we then broke it down into about 12 songs that we wanted to write.  That day we started on some of them.  We have a goal of about 4 songs a month.  We have 4 complete, and we are in the process of the next 4 as we speak.  We hope to finish all the songs by the beginning of October.

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Thankful – Week 1

We started a 3-week series today at North Side entitled “Thankful.”  We will be studying Colossians 1 and it is such a great passage and I thought today was full of powerful services.  Starting each service out with baptism is always a great way to begin.  Always so humbled to be a part of these moments as Christ changes lives among us!

I came into the 2nd service still dripping to help lead in worship, but it was worth every bit of it!

Today, we worshiped to:

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Just as Christ Forgave You

It’s Passion week.  It’s the week we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus.  It’s a week when we should be reminded the great level to which Christ forgave us.

And we, in turn, are to forgive others in the same way.

This subject matter is pretty intense. Dealing with past hurts in which we were the victim or the culprit are never fun to visit.   It is extremely hard to forgive those who have hurt us

Read Colossians 3:12-15 to see how we should forgive:

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Discipleship Through Worship

I mentioned recently that our worship team is embarking upon some pretty exciting stuff.  I’ve struggled with how to share our plans – in parts or all at one time, but for right now let me give you a couple pieces of the puzzle.  As our team has met together, our time has focused on one verse in particular.

Colossians 3:16 says: Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

I am very big on reminding people worship is all about God.  And that is true.  But in that glorification of God process, there is also a discipleship element.  This verse is shocking to me in some ways.  As Paul reminds his people to let the biblical message abide within oneself, he reminds us that we are called to teach one another – through worship!  Our worship should be so biblical and so memorable that it makes theology more portable.

That is why we are going to focus in 2012 that our worship ministry is going to focus on: discipleship.

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Don’t Misrepresent Christ

As you can tell from the picture, the Agnews have been hard at work.  Recently moving into another house, we are getting things ready for Baby Gloria’s arrival.  The boys have been a huge help with their tool belts on removing floorings, sanding, and cleaning up.  For some reason, Eli likes to take his shirt off when he really starts working.  Love this kid.

From the entire process of selling our house, buying another one, and working with everyone from bankers, insurance agents, construction geniuses, and servicemen, I have learned a bunch this time around.

While I am learning a bunch about fixing up a house, I am learning more about the witness that I am in Christ.

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2 Evangelism Extremes

Our C-Group had a great conversation about intentionality concerning sharing our faith last night.  Amanda and I continued to talk about it last night.  I thought I would share with you 2 evangelistic extremes that may not be the best models: In college, I saw two extremes of the outreach.  The first extreme was the …

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Do We Really Need Homegrown Worship Songs?

I’ve been a songwriter since I started playing guitar.  I love it, but when I became worship pastor, a dilemma arose.  If I have the choice to lead with a song that I have written or Chris Tomlin has written, if I defer to quality, we would always play Mr. Tomlin.  I love his songs, …

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