I love the prayers of my children. There is something raw and honest about them. Occasionally, I will hear certain phrases that get on repeat, but usually, each day will provide something unique. The other day, my son, Eli, was praying over lunch. Something he said got my attention and caused me to do a double-take. “Thank you, God, for …
I loved having my birthday on a Sunday. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than with my family and church family. The day was just fantastic.
The worship service centered around the leadership of the church. As we were going to talk about elders, I wanted to focus on lifting Jesus higher and us getting out of the way. Christian leaders are called to decrease because Christ must increase.
Today, we worshiped to:
“Our Father” was the song written for “Knowing Jesus” to capture the essence of Jesus’ prayer life. In studying the gospels, you can’t escape from the fact that Jesus prayed a lot. And when Jesus prayed, stuff happened.
Unfortunately, for many of us, our prayer life can be characterized by the statement: “All we have left to do now is pray.” Can you imagine the Almighty God hearing such pathetic pleas as if He is a last resort? Prayer is not a spare tire. Prayer is not a last ditched effort. Prayer – communion with God – shakes heaven and earth.
Like the rest of the country, I’m attempting to obtain some sense of normalcy since the Newtown shooting. When Adam Lanza barged into an elementary school and killed 26 unsuspecting children and adults, the country is taken to a rightful standstill. The only person not engaged in the conversation in America is the one we would like to receive answers from – Adam Lanza.
In the ensuing moments, our minds linger elsewhere. For some of us, we thought of our children. For some of us, we thought of policy changes. For all of us, we naturally went to what what have fixed this situation.
Well, what could have stopped the Newtown Massacre?
We had a wonderful time being the church today. Whenever the service starts out with Jeff getting on the banjo, you know it is going to be a special day!
We actually sold out of our “Peace on Earth” CDs today, but we will have some more copies available for tomorrow night at the mall. So thankful for the encouraging response we have received. The time of worship was powerful, and I never knew how God was orchestrating the details of the service together.
We had a powerful time of worship and intercession over the people of Newtown, CT. And what I loved about it was the order of service was in play before the tragedy occurred. We had planned to sing the new song “Peace on Earth” during the service as a lead into the message, and was the song ever timely with our congregation yesterday. Pictures from Newtown filled the back wall as we sang, “There are wars in the streets, there are wars where we sleep, o, the wreckage it grows by the day. My soul can only take so much of this heartache, help me, Jesus, please don’t delay.”
As we sang, you could tell the amount of prayers going up in the room hoping that the people devastated by this tragedy will realize that the peace on Earth Jesus promised can be found in him even among such horrible times.
Today, we worshiped to:
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:
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:
The Press Secretary for the President of the United States has an intense job. Regularly, he is scrutinized on the administration’s activity and answers to the problems of the day. In each situation, he must be prepared to speak on behalf of the President.
The only way he can confidently speak for the one in charge is that he has spent a lot of time with the President. He is confident of his agenda. He knows how the President would answer the question, and therefore, he answers on his behalf.
Wouldn’t it be great if that could be said of you concerning your time with God?
Jesus instructed his followers that when they pray, they are to pray in secret. Read Matthew 6:6 and see how he tells his followers to pray specifically.
But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
In what manner does Jesus want us to pray? He wants us to pray in secret.
If we follow this instruction, what did Jesus promise? He will actually reward us?! What do you think that could mean?
Rick Via is an evangelist who has shared the gospel in over 40 foreign countries. Through his work in the United States and all over the world, he has seen many converts and equipped many saints for the work of ministry. While his ministry has been very active and busy for years, his greatest contribution to the Kingdom comes in a different arena.
Rick and his wife, Janet, have 5 grown children who are all “involved in ministry in one form or fashion.” They are also blessed to have an ever growing number of grandchildren through biological and adoptive means. While he has invested into countless lives around the world, he never stopped investing into his children.
I wanted to write a post for all of you overwhelmed mothers out there. I was blown away by the correspondence I received when I urged mothers to let mothers mother. Let’s face it: moms have a unique burden placed upon them. Many of you are overwhelmed with your wonderful calling because it is a difficult one. You can easily …
As we continue in our Christology, we have now come to the section focusing on the supplication of the Christ. This is the prayer section of Jesus’ ministry and reminds us of God’s faithfulness.
Who taught you how to pray? How did they teach you?
When Jesus was on earth, the disciples saw unbelievable things happen before their eyes. When you encounter Jesus feed 5,000 men, heal every type of disease, walk on water, or be transfigured before your eyes, you probably would develop a list of things you would want Jesus to show you. We would all love a course on how to do the miraculous.
Interestingly enough, with all the disciples witnessed, they asked for Jesus to teach them one thing:
Men are called to love and to lead their wives. You might desire to do this but unsure of how to go about doing it. Maybe you’ve never seen what it looks like for a godly man to love his wife. Maybe you have tried but feel like you keep finding resistance from your wife. No matter how your wife …
My prayer life has been divided. Not so much in a division of what I pray for, but I have experienced the complete opposites of the spectrum concerning how prayer actually works. We all say that prayer is important and that prayer works, but what actually happens during prayer? Do we change God’s mind on the issue at hand? Is it just a tool that God uses to draw us to himself? Here are some of the options:
One of my highlights last year was North Side Worship’s Overcome project. More than a simple album recording, our worship team really worked over and beyond to encourage those who were going through. As we put together a 16-song album (15 originals) full of hopeful themes, we prayed that it would be encouraging to many people.
Just recently, I got a note from a church member who has had a difficult year. That’s an understatement, it’s been downright awful. She sent me a letter and told me that she had listened to that CD every day of the last year and how it had reminded her over and over that she would overcome.
Mission accomplished! That’s what our prayer was for the project. In fact, the album artwork was more than a simple design. We had spent a Sunday morning filling out prayer cards by completing this sentence, “God, if you would only…” As we lined the stage with those cards, our staff prayed over them that entire week. The hurt in our congregation was staggering. As we prayed, I decided to use our prayer cards for another purpose. Check out the video below to see what we did with them (if you can’t see the video, go here):
When we were little, adults taught us to pray with our eyes closed. I suppose it had something to do with eliminating distractions or focusing on the One that we can’t see physically.
My son, Eli, has a different approach.
And I don’t plan on stopping him.
My heart has truly burdened by the images across my TV screen concerning the Japanese. Serving on 2 different trips to this spiritually dark place makes the magnitude of this disaster even harder for me. But we serve a God who can bring salvation from such disaster! Here’s how you can help!
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 …
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:
On Tuesday, we had planned to work on artwork for the upcoming “Overcome” CD release. Cory and I started going through some design ideas that were going to look pretty good, but nothing was changing our world yet. I was talking with Jamie about how we could use this CD’s release as an impact to our community (more on this …
Sunday, we had a time when people could come down to the front in our services and fill out a card that said, “God, if only You could…” and they were to fill in the prayer request. This morning, our staff started going through the huge stack of prayer requests. When I got the stack from the stage, the one …
This second week in the “Dear God” series we heard Jeff’s 2nd prayer for our church: “Dear God, make us one.” In a church, truth, convictions, and preferences are always present. Unfortunately, we normally focus on our preferences or convictions more than we do the truth. If our church is truly to become one, we must lay aside our preferences …
As our church focuses on prayer in the “Dear God” series, our pastor has four prayers for our church that he wants answered. The first prayer is: “Dear God, I want to please you.” Too often, we come to God just to fix our problems. God wants to fix you, not your problem. In Colossians 1:10-12, Paul reveals four …
As our worship team strives to be available by leading with presence, this month we have focused on praying for different sections of your church. This week, I want you to continue to pray for church members, but I want you to do something unusual: I want you to pray for the ones you don’t know. I have given our …
Continuing in our quest to learn how to pray, I want to encourage you to pray for other church members this week. You might have a long list – there are a lot of people to pray for! But that doesn’t mean you can’t get started. Don’t pray: “God bless all the church members.” That’s good, but it’s hard to …
Continuing in this month’s focus for our worship teams to pray fervently and specifically, I have another prayer point this week: pray for the members of your worship team. Every Sunday before we lead worship, our team huddles up, grabs a hand, prays for the person on their right, then on their left. Prayer is a big deal, but it …
The prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon, was once asked about the secret of his success and he stated, “My people pray for me.” In this month’s worship team training focus, availability – leading with presence, I want to focus on being available to one another through prayer. Today, I want to challenge you to pray for your church staff. North …
Easter is this Sunday. Hopefully you have been thinking upon the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus a bunch. I pray you get overwhelmed with it yet again. But many people haven’t experienced the life that can be found in Jesus, and many of those people will go to your church this Sunday since it’s Easter. So how can you …
In 1 Peter 3:12 we are told, “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer.” What a wonderful privilege we have to be able to obtain the attention of our Savior! Prayer is a special component to the walk of any believer because it not only allows you to grow …
I was just driving away from class when I heard James Dobson talk on the radio about Tuesday’s vote. There was a pretty shocking vote in California where they overturned the right for homosexual marriage. Since most people would think that California would support it, I was shocked to hear that it got stopped. I was overwhelmed when I heard …
I know you get tired of me saying this, but I am sorry: wow, what a Sunday. I must say it again, because it just seems like week after week, our congregation is getting together to show Jesus how much we love him and it is overwhelming just to be in the room with it all. Jeff warned that yesterday …
Pretty disappointed to read this article this week: KIM WHEATLEY, CHIEF REPORTER August 22, 2008 01:10am PASTOR Michael Guglielmucci has been told by church officials to report to police, who will investigate what has happened to money raised during his cancer deception. The Australian Christian Churches told The Advertiser yesterday that it was auditing Mr Guglielmucci’s bank accounts, which included …
Today was another great Sunday at North Side. So much is happening around our church this summer, that every Sunday, it is like a celebration of what God has done in our midst the previous week (um…what an interesting concept, maybe we could do that each week…). Jeff’s message on prayer was fantastic. God has gifted him in such a …
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 …
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