I have never truly known the meaning of “bittersweet” until now. This morning, Rocky Creek Baptist Church in Greenville, SC called me to shepherd their congregation in the role of Senior Pastor. Our family is answering God’s call to serve the Greenville community with the gospel. This congregation is committed to making disciples that love, grow, and serve through intentional relationships, and we …
I can’t even begin to put into words what God was up to within our church family today. I felt like an army was receiving a set of instructions to go to battle. The eagerness in the room was noticeable. I cannot wait to see what Jesus does in the next 5 weeks. Service Order Scripture Reading – 1 Peter …
On a hill far away, stood an old rugged cross. Those iconic words compose the first line of a beloved hymn written by George Bennard in 1912. The words are powerful by themselves, but to know the story behind them takes the song to a deeper level. You see, George was converted by the gospel of Jesus Christ when he …
Anticipation is rising for this year’s Fall Festival! What will the special presentation be this year? We would love to have you join us for this year’s Fall Festival! Highlights Inflatable slide and obstacle course Pony rides Hay rides Bonfire Chick-fil-a box meals available for purchase Games for all ages Live music Candy, face painting, prizes, and more! This is …
In this North Side podcast episode, I got to share concerning my connection with the movie War Room and the curriculum from the Kendrick Brothers’ films. Beyond the story of how God brought some things together, Strutton and I give some tips on what we are learning about prayer. Hope it encourages you! By the way, you can get all podcast …
North Side Baptist Church exists to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Whether at home or abroad, we seek to fulfill the Great Commission by making disciples. We define a disciple as someone who: loves Jesus learns the teachings of Jesus lives those teachings out and leads others to do the same. While the ministries of our church seek to make …
Amanda and I had the privilege to teach 1 of the 4th grade groups at our Vacation Bible School this week. As we began the week, she stated, “We both are used to being in charge in these type of situations. This is either going to go great or not so much.” It went great. Amanda is such a gifted …
Have you ever wondered about the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses? Here is a summary of their history and beliefs. History Begun by Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916) in 1872. His family was a part of a Presbyterian church in Pittsburgh. Russell had difficulty accepting the doctrine of an eternal hell. This prompted him to deny eternal punishment, the Trinity, the deity …
I was overwhelmed at the lavish worship offering that our family gave to Jesus tonight.
Here are some pics & setlist.
Join me in January for a 2-week course focusing on Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormonism.
The Complex Spiritual Nature of Our World His name was Yohei. It was the year 2000 in Tokyo, Japan. He told our mission team that Jesus, Allah, or anybody else who claimed to be God was probably correct. They all led to the same place, and we had everything inside of us that we needed to reach God. Upon questioning …
“Knowing Jesus” this year was a very special night. While we have had the opportunity to lead this night of worship at North Side, other churches, North Greenville University, prisons, etc., this was a very special night. We kept to the script from the DVD that we did last year, but we did make some special changes to the night …
Happy Easter! Jesus is risen indeed! Coming off of a great Good Friday service, we had two incredible morning services today. Both services were full of eager worshipers celebrating Jesus. Jeff had mentioned how we weren’t going to do anything unique today, but just what we do every week – let the Word guide us and lift Jesus up. And …
A few weeks ago, I was trying to get a read on Jeff’s Easter message and asked him, “Is there anything unique or special that you want me to do for our Easter services?” Jeff replied, “What we do every week is unique and special: we let the Word drive our services and lift Jesus up. Do that. If we …
Tonight is the night! We are celebrating this Good Friday by our worship event entitled “Knowing Jesus.” You still have time to join us! Doors open at 6:30 and the service will start at 7. No childcare provided, but we would love for you to bring the whole family. The service will be piped out to the commons area if …
Join us on Good Friday as we celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ with a special night of worship. North Side Worship composed this music to help tell the entirety of the life and message of Jesus Christ. They have led this worship event before at North Side as well as other churches, college campuses, and even …
The Christmas Eve service at North Side has become one of my favorite times of the year. While we have had many memorable moments worshiping together in that room, this year’s Christmas Eve service may have been one of the most special. I don’t think I have ever heard the volume from the congregation be as loud as it was …
On Sunday, we surprised Jeff and Sandy Lethco with a banquet after morning services to celebrate their 15 years at North Side. We shared testimonies, gave 15 gifts, and thanked God for their influence in our lives. I spoke to many who were excited about this time, but who got very emotional during the service. They had the intention …
I just sent out the final preparations to our band for The Gathering. I am so excited for these coming 4 days at North Side. It is a time to seek the Lord. The times together are going to very special. We have been praying and planning a lot.
Here are some details on the week:
I’m teaching the Old Testament at Lander University and I am also teaching it at our church this Fall. As I prepare, I am noticing many things about the Old Testament that are misunderstood. One of them is that Noah and the Ark is not a children’s story. It’s a story for all of us. It’s deeper than rain and animals. It has to do with the fact that God takes sin seriously.
Adam and Eve sinned and were banished from the Garden. Their son, Cain, killed their other son, Abel. After this event, God blesses them with another son. When Eve births another son, Seth (Gen. 4:25), solemnity is slowing taking over. Seth’s birth gives a subtle indication of deeper things transpiring with Mankind.
While the first people were made in the image of God, Seth is curiously described as a son in Adam’s “own likeness, after his image” (Gen. 5:3). On the external level, this reveals that Seth’s appearance is similar to that of his father’s. This phrase possibly also acknowledges the fact that these following generations are more and more marred by the curse of sin first seen in the father Adam.
This sinful nature and Adamic likeness grows. Sin continues to pervert, distort, and destroy what is good in God’s creation. Evil increases greatly, and God becomes evermore grieved over Mankind. God begins to impose an age limit of 120 years (Gen. 6:3) except for a few unique exceptions (Abraham lives to 175, Gen. 25:7).
Further, God declares that he is going to destroy his Creation which was good before sin corrupted it. “‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD'” (Gen. 6:7-8). The fact that God feels “sorry” does not indicate that he is now aware of something he didn’t see coming and he wish he would have never done it in the first place. God foreknew all that had transpired and all that would transpire. The actualization of enduring Mankind’s sinfulness produces a different type of grief within God than previously described.
Noah is the exception here. Chosen by God for a specific task, Noah “was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” (Gen. 6:9). God’s wrath was coming for earth ever so filled with violence and corruption (Gen. 6:11-12). To save himself, his family, and a remnant of animals, God instructed Noah to build an ark that could sustain the coming wrath of God (Gen. 6:14-22).
Noah and the Ark was never intended to be a mere children’s story.
This weekend is a pretty special one for me. On Sunday, I celebrate two events:
First, I am turning 32. Just seeing that number is kinda crazy to me. It’s not a depressing thing, but it just represents a lot of life that God has allowed me to live. I am very grateful.
Second, I am celebrating 1 decade of being a pastor at North Side Baptist Church. In a time when some stats say that ministers stay at a church for an average of 2 years, it seems hard to imagine staying somewhere for 10.
10 years ago on my birthday, I began moving my books into an office in the Family Life Center to serve as a full-time yet part-time College and Missions Pastor. I had just finished up a summer serving M-Fuge in St. Louis, I was engaged to the best girl in the entire world, and I had a hopeful disposition to what was awaiting at North Side.
Things have changed in the last 10 years just a little bit:
The Greenwood Family YMCA High Hopes Program in partnership with North Side Baptist Church’s Project Love, is thrilled to announce that Papa Joe Bradford and the Unity Choir will be in Greenwood on Friday, August 2nd to perform and worship with all of us! The event will be held at North Side Baptist Church at 7:00 pm.
Papa Joe holds the rare honor of having his triumphant life story inspire a major motion picture,Unconditional. Joe Bradford is one of the country’s most respected leaders and advocates for at-risk and fatherless children. As an author, co-producer, teacher, speaker, and program developer he serves through his unique ability to unite teams for active service and love to the least fortunate. He is known as “Papa Joe” in all circles of influence he touches.
“I was so touched by Joe’s story and by the youth choir,” stated YMCA’s CEO Gray Stallworth after seeing Joe and the Unity Choir at an event near Nashville, TN.
Being on a church staff is not exactly what you think it would be. Unless you have been a part of one, you can’t really appreciate the randomness that can happen in a week.
Sure there are the tasks that you might expect, but then there are the things they don’t train you for in seminary. In my first 10 years of ministry on a church staff, I wish I would had been trained how to subdue a violent person, unload a handgun, helping someone who is confident their house is haunted, confront someone siphoning gas from the church parking lot, minister to someone in Jesus name who thinks he is Jesus, bats swooping down on people in worship, how to keep a straight face when people high on medication try to explain why they are in the hospital, and the regular weekly stuff like that.
So, I had this idea. It’s a great idea even though it will never work. Wouldn’t you love to see a church staff reality TV show?
What a wonderful day of worship at North Side! I got the incredible privilege to preach to finish up our 2-week series, “Through the Storms.” Ken Petrus did such a fantastic job sharing his heart last week, and it is an honor to follow his lead!
During his message last Sunday, I felt the direction to go in a different path than previously scripted. I feel like the Holy Spirit was guiding me to preach through the entire Book of Job.
From the perspective of Job.
I went into character for the message today. I even grew a beard for this message (that’s commitment ;))! I tried to convey what it’s like when you go through a storm and want to ask God why you are in it. Then, what it is like when he actually responds. As I traveled through the book, we would put up key scriptures to keep people moving along. At the end when God finally speaks, we used some really neat pictures of God’s creation to drive home the truth that God is in control. The band went right into “Indescribable,” which much of the imagery there comes straight out of Job 38-42.
Today, we worshiped to:
On Sunday, I heard my pastor say something that I’ve heard him say many times before. It doesn’t matter how many people are within earshot, he still says it. It doesn’t matter the size of our church or the busyness of his schedule. He had just preached this incredible message on the assurance of salvation. As he made a plea …
I am thrilled that NSU is starting up this Sunday, Feb. 10th!
North Side University is a 2-year intensive training for those interested in growing as a disciple-maker. The training is comprised of course information, practicum experiences, and intentional mentorship. At the end of the 2 years, a completion of this program would equip a disciple-maker to effectively carry out the Great Commission within his or her specific context.
THE 2-YEAR PLAN consists of:
There is something so strong when church worship is centered around the Word of God and not ourselves. While a commitment to and a love for the Bible has always been present at North Side, it just seems as if it grows in intensity each week. I am so thrilled with what is going on at North Side! In …
At the beginning of 2012, I huddled our worship team together to dream a bit. I started with the slide above. As worship leaders, I wanted us all to grow a bit. I wanted us to respond to God’s revelation through worship, but I also wanted us to begin to really pray how we could apply Colossians 3:16 in our church. How could our worship team better disciple and teach our church the truths of God’s Word?
Part of the answer?
Want to be a better father? Join me for the course Courageous: Honor Begins at Home.
Derek was a “good enough dad.” He provided for his family. He stayed faithful to his wife, never committed any of the “really bad” sins, and took his children to church. Most people would look at him and think he was a model father.
In his late 60s, something changed. As a retired grandfather, he become exposed to biblical teaching concerning a father’s responsibility to teach the truths of the Bible to his own children. Through the conviction of God’s Word, he began to seek out how exactly God had called him to live. As he watched the movie Courageous, he realized he too didn’t want to be just “a good enough dad.”
But it was too late. His children were out on their own, married with their own children. While all of his children were fine members of society, God was a part of their home and not the central piece. He realized that his children were simply repeating what they had seen.
His children were out of the home, but they were not beyond his influence.
Exciting stuff in the works with North Side Worship this year. As a worship ministry, we are really focusing our efforts this year to help disciple our church through worship. I have shared some of what that means, but I thought I would clue you in a little bit more today.
Today, you can pick up THE MANIFOLD WISDOM OF GOD: SERMON REMIX 2011 on iTunes or you can get a hardcopy at North Side. That is just the 1st step of projects that we are working on as a worship ministry this year. Months ago, I gathered the band together and asked them, “What would be better than 1 worship album this year?” Someone got bug eyes, and replied, “2?” The answer was correct as I shared what would be album #2 for us. But then it went to 3. And then even to 4.
Yep, we are planning on releasing 4 worship albums this year through North Side.
I’ve mentioned in the last couple of weeks some pretty exciting stuff coming up for North Side Worship this year. I’ve talked about how we plan on discipling our church through our worship ministry. I shared with how I felt the Holy Spirit was leading to a pretty big initiative and our team jumped at all the opportunities. Let me now share our 1st offering coming your way very, very soon.
In many of our previous recordings, we have included a spoken-word track. On Overcome, it was a message that was trimmed down from 40 minutes to 4 minutes with some music written for the piece. The sermon served as a catalyst for the entire album and really summed up a lot of how God was leading our church at that time. Jeff was originally against the idea because he didn’t want to have a lot of focus upon him. I was able to talk him into it, and since we have released that album, I have heard more encouraging words concerning the track “Don’t Give Up” over any other track on the entire project. It is powerful.
And I’ve always wondered: what would it be like if an entire project was dedicated to a sermon remixes?
Saturday morning, leaders from North Side gathered together to continue on this journey God is leading us. We talked about discipleship. We celebrated the lives that are being changed, and yet we also focused upon those people who are still struggling to follow Christ.
We laid out a strategy that is a little different for a church our size. In fact, North Side would fail Church Growth 101 class if we were taking it. Let me explain:
Church growth these days is all about the large groups. Get more people in the seats and that means that you are winning. What we are finding is that it is easy to fill seats, it is hard to disciple people. And in our current church culture in America, people are church hopping, filling out commitment cards, getting baptized, and then dropping off the face of the earth! The parable of the Seed and the Sower should scare us enough to realize that we might be giving people false assurance of their salvation that way – they need to be discipled!
Here’s some things I took away from Saturday:
We had an incredible night of United Youth Worship last night. Still beaming from how these students worshiped Jesus. Love seeing the shift in the room last night. Below are some pictures taken by the talented Paige Stumbo. We will be posting some more pics on Facebook later.
You are more than enough for me, Jesus, more than enough for me.
Happy New Year’s everyone! We started out 2012 in a fantabulous manner at North Side this morning. I had the privilege of coming and worshiping with my family and being led by some wonderful people!
First off, Ben Hjalmer, our student pastor, preached for us on Jesus feeding the 5,000. He preached his face off! I love getting to hear Ben speak because of his genuine passion, but he took it to another level today. It was fantastic. I still got my bag, and planning on giving what I got and watch Jesus do amazing things with it!
We also were privileged to be led in worship by our student band. This group leads at the Peak on Wednesdays. At North Side, we always include our students in leading worship, but I can honestly say, I have never heard a group so polished and known a group more committed.
I told this to the group afterwards that it’s typical to hear people say: “That group did great for a bunch of teenagers.” Unfortunately, I can’t say that. They just did great period. Teenagers, adults, you name it, they were a great group of worship leaders all around. As tight as could be, as focused as could be, I closed my eyes and thought these guys could be musicians much older and experienced than what they were. They love Jesus and are committed to His Church. They were and are fantastic!
Today, we worshiped to:
In the recent weeks, I have learned that there have been 3 people very interested in the changes going on at North Side.
So, I posted on Sunday that Sunday was a great day, and it was. I believed it was going to be a great day, but I didn’t think it could have gone that smooth. But many people emailed me on Monday morning and said, “OK, you can tell me, how did the change REALLY go?” As if Sunday everyone would be all smiles, but then Monday morning, our inboxes would be overflowing with hate mail.
So, how did the change REALLY go?
What a wonderful weekend with the North Side family! We were blessed to have a bunch of college students worship with us yesterday from Lander, Erskine, Piedmont Tech, Presbyterian College, and much more. It was a blessing to connect with so many of them at our lunch yesterday and our dodegeball tournament last night. We want to make all …
On Good Friday (April 22nd), spend your evening at North Side with a special service spent remembering the cross. Baptism & Lord’s Supper. We will include baptism and an observance of the Lord’s Supper this evening. If you would like to be baptized on this date, please comment here. Your RSVP is helpful too as we prepare for the Lord’s …
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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