2008 Wrapped Up

You are not reading incorrectly.  2008 is all wrapped up. The picture above is of the whiteboard in my office.  On this whiteboard is 52 weeks of big ideas for teaching at North Side designed for 2008.  We spent a long time praying, studying, thinking, and talking about where North Side is spiritually and what the Bible says about those …

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Wow…Grand Opening…Wow (Not the building – God)

That’s about all I can say – wow. We helped design the building so that people would say “wow.” We wanted people to be intrigued by the outside and come inside. We wanted people to walk in and feel at home and desire to stay a while and build community. And today we saw all of that happen. But we …

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GRAND OPENING (for real this time)

The time of waiting is over! We are moving into the new worship center at North Side next Sunday, September 16! The new service times will be 8:15, 9:45, and 11:15. Please help us get the word out to all your friends, family, and neighbors. It will be an exciting next step in what God is doing at North Side. …

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From Wows to Vows

What a great day of worship! It was so exciting being able to worship as a family together this morning. I had a lot of people come up and ask about different songs or the videos we used, so I thought I would just post them all. Enjoy! Worship songs: My Savior Lives – New Life Worship Not to Us …

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The Wow Factor

At North Side, we’re starting a new series in the morning entitled, “The Wow Factor.” With a lot of attention going into our new building about to open, we feel like at the start of school we are going to have a lot of occasional visitors to come back to church. They are the people who live one “wow” to …

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Handel’s Solomon

My wonderful wife, Amanda, has slaved so very hard as of late and is about to graduate with her Master’s from USC in Music Education this Saturday. We are so very excited now that we will have Monday evenings where one of us is not in school and every free moment is not dedicated to some book to be read …

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Prayer: Steering Wheel or Spare Tire?

How do we view prayer? Do we see it as our steering wheel – it steers everything we do or do we see it as a last resort spare tire when we’ve done everything we can possibly do? It is very interesting that Jesus’ disciples never asked for teaching how to exorcise demons, preach, heal, divide food, walk on water …

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Spirit and Truth

After the message on Sunday on worship, Amanda and I had to jet to Columbia because she was singing in a concert. But I did get to steal away for a moment and do what I promised to do: I sought God and asked Him was He pleased in worship today? As I prayed and allowed the Holy Spirit to …

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Full of God

“We should be less concerned about making churches full of people and more concerned about making people full of God.” -C. Kirk Hadaway and David A Roozen

If Only You Would Have Listened to Me…

So, I gave a pretty exhausting testimony/message at North Side on Sunday. It had to do with my relationship with my dad and God teaching me what forgiveness truly means. I think the message is online now at the church’s website. While in some ways I was dreading speaking on this topic because I couldn’t be “preachery” but I had …

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The Heart of Worship

This Sunday, we will be singing “The Heart of Worship” written by Matt Redman. Many of you probably know the story behind the song, but if you don’t, I have it included below. Like Redman’s church, it’s so easy for churches to get into worshipping their worship. Whether it’s a style, a preference, a feeling, or whatever, we come describing …

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Worship All Week Long

I have been reading a book on worship by A. W. Tozer lately and I came across a quote that really challenged me. He was talking about how consumer-oriented we tend to become concerning worship. If we like the songs or if the message really connected with us, we equate that with “good” worship. But worship is not an event. …

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