Jesus

Jesus & the Disciples

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What a special day as we celebrated the fact that Jesus prays for his disciples!  In today’s service, we tried to connect the original disciples with current disciples.  The call of Jesus is the same.  The prayers of Jesus are the same.  The goal is the same!

We were blessed to have Cassandra Erickson give us our 2nd installment of “Ni Zan Je” today as we continue to hear about our partnership with the unreached in West Africa.  Her story was powerful.  It was great to follow up her story with a new worship song our team has written called “I Will Follow.”  The song was written for our upcoming “Knowing Jesus” worship album which highlights portions of the life of Christ.  This song deals with Jesus calling of the disciples.

I played this song for Cassandra and some of the others this summer while we were in Africa during a power outage.  It was such a unique time as we sang this feeling connected with Jesus calling us just as He called the first disciples.  It was great to be able to share this song with the church as a whole today!

Today, we worshiped to:

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Jesus & the Father

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Loved being back with North Side this morning as we dove into John 17 and the High Priestly Prayer.  We focused the entire service on Jesus and the Father.  The key thought was giving glory to Jesus for His life and work on this earth.

We were blessed to have our first installment of “Ni Zan Je” (“I Will Go”) as Lacy Little shared with us some of the work Jesus did around her and through her in West Africa this summer.  I appreciated her honesty so much as she shared the roughness of the road Jesus called them to this summer.

Today, we worshiped to:

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Ask and You Will Receive

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At North Side, we focused on prayer this Sunday.  Instead of talking about prayer, we wanted to actually pray.  So the service was built around prayer.

We studied in John 16 as Christ taught to pray in his name, so our worship time focused on the name above all names.

Today, we worshiped to:

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Joy Comes in the Morning

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“Your presence is heaven to me.”

What a wonderful day to be the church.  I loved our time together as we focused on John 16 and Jesus’ promise that joy will come from sorrow.  As we worshiped today, I was so moved worshiping with our church family and seeing the authenticity in the room.  As a church, we share life together.  And so when one hurts, we all hurt.

As our worship service (songs, message, video, prayers, etc.) all focused on finding our joy in Jesus even during hard times, watching those who were hurting worship from the depths is an impacting thing.  Even in hard times, Jesus is good.

Today, we worshiped to:

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The Spirit & Salvation

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What a passionate and eclectic day of worship today.  We went everywhere from gospel to a capella and about everything in between.  Last week, we had nothing but an acoustic set from the floor, this week, we had about everything else!

We were very blessed to have One Heart help lead us in worship this Sunday.  Peggy is a part of our normal worship team, but she also sings with an a cappella group called One Heart.  Becky and Beth were gracious enough to join us for our worship this Sunday.  As we focused on the Holy Spirit, I asked them to do a medley of Spirit songs.  I don’t think they had ever sang that arrangement until this morning, and it was so fantastic.  What a way to welcome the Spirit’s presence.

Got to see some sights from last week’s Shake-n-Shine camp and hear stories from Jeff.  Such an incredible mission-focused summer (Africa girls get back tomorrow).  Jeff’s message on the Spirit was so refreshing.  Baptists need to “remember” the Holy Spirit.  Unfortunately, he is the often neglected member of the Trinity.  This message was a powerful reminder of the Spirit’s work in salvation.

Today, we worshiped to:

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Friends of God

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We planned today’s worship service all around the idea of being a friend of God and all that entails.  In addition to some great worship songs that share that truth, we were thrilled to have Jeff’s son-in-law, Scott Hill, in town to preach for us.  They are in the prep stage of serving as IMB missionaries.

Today’s worship list:

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Sermon Clip: “Jesus Wants the Rose”

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I always want to expose you to some great teaching.  Matt Chandler, is the Pastor of the Village Church, author, speaker, and survivor from a recent brain tumor.  Enjoy this clip from Matt Chandler from a Desiring God Conference and his powerful declaration that “Jesus Wants the Rose.”

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The Vine

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As we planned for today’s worship, we studied the passage of John 15 concerning our need to stay connected to Christ to accomplish anything.  So what we planned to highlight is to see the fruit of those who are accomplishing great things here in our church.

We highlighted some children’s and student ministry leaders.  We wanted to hear them talk about their commitment and the reward of service.

We then wanted to be led in some of the “fruit” of their work.  We had our student band lead worship for part of the service, and we also had some of our children lead us in worship.  They sang one of the songs from this year’s VBS.  When I heard them do it at VBS, I knew we had to use them.  Such a beautiful expression of worship.

Today’s worship list:

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The Holy Spirit

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What a great, unexpected, turn-at-every-moment day with North Side!  As we were gathering for soundcheck this morning, the power went out completely out in the worship center.  With flashlights going and people scrambling, it appears that all the AC units in Greenwood on non-stop decided to take out our air and electricity at 8:40 Sunday morning.

So, what is a worship pastor to do?  I got the right people working on getting it back on, and I gathered the worship team in the commons area outside the worship center.  I told them we would either do things acoustic in the dark or out in that open area with no AVL or we would try to setup up shop in the gym.  But in the moment, we just gathered round some acoustic instruments and began to worship.  I have actually planned for a more acoustic service later this month to worship like our family is over in Africa, and thought maybe God wanted it earlier.  In our prayers, we didn’t pray for the power to come back on, we just wanted to be obedient in however God wanted to teach us this morning.

At about 9:20 when people were gathering to go inside the doors, our team was singing “I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it, when it’s all about you, all about you, Jesus,” and then the lights came on.  We went into the room with people finding their seats, plugged in our instruments, got a camera feed up so we could watch our baptisms, and started the service on time.

I say this a lot, but today is one of those days I don’t think anyone truly understands how serious I am about this: our worship team is amazing.  They are incredibly flexible, no one was running frantic, no one seemed frazzled, no one was rude to one another, we just each did our part and God decided that we should have power back at that time.  And as everyone came prepared, the services went off great without anyone able to see anything that would have said there was no run-through that morning.  I am honored to work with such great people.

Today, we worshiped to:

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Greater Works

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What a wonderful day to be a part of North Side!  We still have the Last Supper table setup on stage.  Strutton did a great job recreating this scene for our stage.  For weeks, Jeff will be preaching from the teaching that Jesus gave all from the Last Supper table.  It’s surreal for me listening to this powerful Scripture and realizing that Jesus dropped all of it while he was eating a meal.  And his dinner conversation could be the content for weeks and weeks of sermons!

Today, we worshiped to:

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