Preparing For Worship: June 1st

Wow, Sunday June 1st, we're nearly ready to move into our new building! Speaking of that, if some of you buff, burly men want to come help us move our offices tomorrow morning (Sat. 5-31) at 9:00, we'd really appreciate it!

As we prepare for Sunday morning, we read in Ecclesiastes 6 a "part two" of sorts from last week's passage. King Solomon continues to reflect on the vanity, or pointlessness, of having "stuff." This "Myth of more," as Pastor Todd named it last week, deceives us into pursuing material possessions in this life, thinking that the objects themselves will bring us fulfillment.

It is God who alone is fulfilling, and who alone enables us to enjoy the delights of life. We must be careful to remember that everything we enjoy is a gift from God, and it must be enjoyed in light of his graciousness and goodness, and not unto themselves.

This Sunday we will join our hearts together as we corporately declare to God that we want to know him more by singing "In The Secret" as our call to worship. Then Darren Utley will share some important announcements of various things going on within our church body.

We'll have a special time of prayer and commissioning for some of our people who are going out to various places to minister this summer in a variety of ways, including Erin Axline, John Book and family, Mallory Smith, Holly Stark, and Andy Toy. Please join us as we send them off to do God's work in the places they are going!

We'll continue worshiping as we sing our new song "Everlasting God," and then "Mighty To Save" which both remind us of the calling we have to live faithful lives that are pleasing to God, that he might be glorified in us, and that the world would see that we are "singing for glory of the risen King, Jesus!"

Pastor Todd will then teach us from God's Word as we worship by humbly submitting to its authority in our lives, and seeking to apply its truth in a practical way.

We'll transition to a time of communion and remembering Christ's death on the cross, during which we'll sing "When I Survey The Wondrous Cross" and then be dismissed as we sing "We Trust Your Will" declaring to God (and to ourselves) that we recognize and trust in his sovereignty in all things, and echo the apostle Paul's words to the Roman church: "If God be for us, who can be against us?"

New Song: Everlasting God

Hi everyone, we are doing a new song together this week that you may have heard recorded by Chris Tomlin.

It's called "Everlasting God" and here are the lyrics, followed by a video with the song.

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord

Our God, You reign forever!
Our Hope, our strong Deliverer!

You are the everlasting God!
The everlasting God!
You do not faint You won't grow weary!

You're the defender of the weak
You comfort those in need
You lift us up on wings like eagles!

By Brenton Brown and Ken Riley
Copyright 2005 Thankyou Music
CCLI License 2915685

Good Christian Music: Run Kid Run

For fans of: Fall Out Boy, Paramore, Hawk Nelson

I like a little "bubble gum punk rock" every now and again, and this band really fits the bill when you want a simple, upbeat, catchy sound with a good message.

Good production from the same guy who produced Dashboard Confessional, Further Seems Forever, and Underoath gives this album a very clean presentation, and sounds good when you blast it loud!

I thought this section of their song "Fall Into This Light" was especially good, in light of our study of Ecclesiastes:

Yeah to you my life belongs
A fleeting vapor holding on
Until the race is won
So strange and beautiful to me
Heads turn to think they were possibly meant to be
Love connects our brokeness shows
A pair needs one to lead and one to follow

Check out their Myspace HERE

Preparing For Worship: May 25th, 2008

The countdown is on until our first service in our new building!! Two more after this week! Praise God for his provision and for opening doors that only he could!

So we cherish these last few weeks of meeting in our beloved cafeteria, and we thank God for where he's brought us in the last 18 months as a church (I say that even though I haven't even been there for all 18, but you know what I mean!!)

This Sunday, Pastor Todd resumes our study in the book of Ecclesiastes, picking up in chapter 5:8-20. Be sure to prepare by reading the passage and asking the Holy Spirit to illuminate its meaning to your heart and mind, and that he would help you to apply its truth to your life.

We'll start the service with a reminder of the terms on which we come before God by singing "I Am A Friend Of God" which is true because of the atoning death of Christ on the cross!

Darren Utley will remind us of upcoming events and ministry opportunities, and we'll transition into a time to greet each other, and especially those who would be visiting this week!

We'll sing some more together as we start to focus our thoughts and minds on what God would have for us in his Word. Pastor Todd will be talking about "The Myth Of More" and, as Solomon calls it, the "vanity of wealth and honor." We'll consider the idea that true, and complete fulfillment is found in God, and he's orchestrated it that way! So we'll sing songs that remind us of that: "Beautiful One," "Enough," and "Better Is One Day."

Pastor Todd will then come and teach us from the Word, and then we'll have a chance to respond, and worship God as our ultimate goal and fulfillment by singing our new song "Be Unto Your Name" and "Draw Me Close." May the words we sing always come from an engaged heart, and active mind, and not as a vain repetition of words and tunes we've memorized!!

See you Sunday!

New Song: Be Unto Your Name

We'll be singing a new song this week called "Be Unto Your Name"

Check out a video with audio of the song HERE.

"Be Unto Your Name"
We are a moment, You are forever
Lord of the ages, God before time
We are a vapor, You are eternal
Love everlasting, reigning on high!

Holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!
Highest praises, honor, and glory
Be unto Your name!

We are the broken, You are the Healer
Jesus, Redeemer, mighty to save!
You are the Love Song we'll sing forever
Bowing before You, blessing Your name!

By Gary Sadler and Lynn DeShazo
Copyright 1998 Integrity's Hosanna! Music
CCLI License 2915685

Good Christian Music: Future Of Forestry

For fans of: Something Like Silas, U2, Leeland, Death Cab For Cutie, Jimmy Eat World

One reason this band shares a similar sound with Something Like Silas is that this is the new project of Something Like Silas' singer/songwriter Eric Owyoung.

Strong rock/pop textures that form a nice base for Owyoung's deep, cutting vocals, give Future Of Forestry a unique sound in the midst of the mediocre majority.

Owyoung is a creative and imaginative lyricist and his themes of redemption and forgiveness are epic and bring something new to an often cliche and overdone genre of themes.

Check out their myspace for a few songs, and catch their album everywhere, including iTunes

Preparing For Worship: May 18th, 2008

Looking forward to a great Sunday with you all this weekend, and I hope these blog posts are helpful to you as you prepare yourselves to come and worship with the Crossroads family!

I'm subbing at Village Christian today, so my post will be short, but here's what's going on on Sunday.

Ken Ruggles will be preaching on "The Character of God" from the book of Job. So we'll be spending the whole morning marvelling at the greatness of God. We'll start with the song "Indescribable" and then Pastor Todd will bring us some announcements.

We'll continue singing of God's amazing character with "Immortal, Invisible," "Mighty To Save," and "How Great Is Our God."

Ken will bring us his message for the morning, and we'll follow that with a time of silent response, as I share a new song with us that is based on Job's response to the character of God called "Shall I Attempt To Speak." (the song for which this blog is named)

We'll end our service together by singing "How Great Thou Art" as we go. May God's greatness of character cause us to have a greater love, fear, and awe of who he is!

Preparing For Worship: May 11, 2008 Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! What a great opportunity we have this Sunday to thank God specifically for his grace in the form of our mothers! Pastor Todd will be looking at the analogy of motherhood that the apostle gives to illustrate how ministry should work. What a perfect picture of gentleness, affection, selflessness, and sacrifice.

We'll start the morning with "You're Worthy Of My Praise" but I want to let you in on some changes I made to the song. I always felt that singing "you alone are worthy of my praise" and other lines within the song made it seem like our praises were a very valuable prize that God has won; that he's beaten out the competition, and we're bestowing his prize upon him. Adding to that, I never completely liked how every line in the song begins with "I will..." Don't get me wrong, I completely understand the sentiment of the song, and the commitment aspect it represents, but I think that it is more biblical to say those type of things in RESPONSE to who GOD is, and what HE has done.

So, I've written a new verse to the song with lines that begin with "You..." that focus us first on who God is, and what he has done, and THEN we respond "I will give you all my worship" BECAUSE of those things. The last line of the chorus will also declare "You alone are worthy of ALL praise!"

It may seem nitpicky, but in light of Pastor Todd's message last week, let us not be hasty to utter our own words before the Lord!

So here's the new verse (sung to the same tune and rhythm of the other verses):

You have shown us, Your marvelous works
You've declared that, You're of infinite worth
You redeemed us, through Christ on the cross
You have called us, to count this world as loss

So now you know.

We'll continue in worship with a time of announcements, and ministry opportunities, including our Baby Bottle Boomerang, where we'll take home a baby bottle and fill it with cash, checks, or coins, and then bring it back on Father's Day, at which point we'll give them all to the SCV Pregnancy Center! Very cool ministry.

We'll learn a new song, which I posted last week, called "Grace Unmeasured" as we consider God's grace to us, and then corporately respond to that grace with "Overwhelmed."

We'll have a short media presentation honoring our mothers before Pastor Todd comes and preaches from 1 Thessolonians 2:7-9.

Our children and fathers will then be able to present each mom and woman in the church with a flower to show our love and appreciation for them, as we sing "Humble King" together, savoring Christ's model of humility to us.

We'll go out as salt and light into the world singing "Marvelous Light" which reminds us of who we used to be, and what we've become since the saving grace of God took hold of us!

Looking forward to a great morning worshiping together!

New Song: Grace Unmeasured

This week, we celebrate one of the greatest example of God's grace: our mothers. As we reflect on God's grace to us, I want to teach us this new song called "Grace Unmeasured." Here are the lyrics:

Grace unmeasured, vast, and free
That knew me from eternity
That called me out before my birth
To bring You glory on this earth

Grace amazing, pure, and deep
That saw me in my misery
That took my curse and owned my blame
So I could bear Your righteous name

Grace! Paid for my sins, and brought me to life!
Grace! Clothes me with power to do what is right
Grace! Will lead me to heaven where I'll see Your face
And never cease to thank You for Your grace

Grace abounding, strong, and true
That makes me long to be like You
That turns me from my selfish pride
To love the cross on which You died

Grace unending all my days
You'll give me strength to run this race
And when my years on earth are through
The praise will all belong to You!

Words and music by Bob Kauflin. Copyright 2005 Sovereign Grace Praise.

Sinful Nature

Really interesting post over at Challies Dot Com talking about Sin. His post is entitled "Sin: What we do, or what we are?" Check it out HERE. If you're familiar with Calvinism, and the acronym TULIP, this is the "T" in TULIP: "Total Depravity."

Challies concludes that

No one has properly apprehended God’s grace until he has understood his own sinfulness and knows that he fully deserves God’s just and holy punishment.

The evangelical church of our day is a wrathless church—a church that speaks often of God’s love and grace, but rarely of the deepest necessity of this love and grace. The church today needs an infusion of the gospel, the whole gospel, which speaks not only of God’s love, but first of our desperate need of reconciliation. The gospel portrays us as we really are—as sinners who sin because of our fundamental guilt, our fundamental hatred of God.

Only when we see ourselves as sinners can we truly see Christ as Savior. Only when we have identified ourselves as fallen in Adam can we truly and properly identify ourselves as raised up and set apart in Christ.

Have we fully come to grips with our sinful nature? II Corinthians tells us that God's power is made perfect in our weakness, and so the power and glory of the cross is most powerful and glorious when we realize the scope of what it accomplished.

Thoughts?

Preparing For Worship: May 4th

"Christians are mutually dependent on one another and they are collectively dependent on Jesus Christ for life and power. We meet together to benefit from the relationships and ministries we can share with one another. Yet, in drawing on the resources which Christ himself provides through other believers for the growth and development of his body, we are being strengthened in our relationship with him. The important concept of interacting with one another is not to be divorced from the notion that we come together to engage with God." -David Peterson, "Engaging With God"

The weekly gathering of the body of Christ is such a remarkable thing! People with a common faith, common love, common Spirit gathering together to encourage each other and interact as one entity with almighty God, creator of the universe!

I have been overwhelmed by the genuine spirit of participation and encouragement that I have encountered since coming to Crossroads, and it is my prayer and my exhortation to you to keep it up; never lose that.

As a worship leader, I've seen many ways that people express themselves during corporate worship, especially worship singing: closing eyes; lifting hands; bowing heads; quiet meditation on the words; dancing; crying; smiling; hugging; holding hands; "air" drumming/guitaring; and the like. The diversity and passion with which people express worship/thankfulness/joy to the Lord is such a unique and encouraging thing for me to see, standing where I do at the front. I'd suggest you take a look around sometime at those you worship with. It will encourage you, and drive home the idea that this is indeed "corporate" worship, and though some may shut their eyes, they are not shutting everyone else out (hopefully!), but they are treasuring the corporate worship experience, and responding to the presence of God's Spirit!

We want to cultivate an authentic expression and spirit of worship (whether it's singing, praying, studying, giving, or whatever), and that means each one of us must be transparent and vulnerable in the process. Some may feel that they "can't sing" (just sit next to Pastor Todd!), but that shouldn't stop them from making a joyful noise, and outwardly joining in the worship singing. Some may wholeheartedly agree with what's being prayed, and want to encourage the one praying with a "yes Lord!" but are worried about voicing that verbally because it wasn't what they were raised with, or they're worried about being a distraction.

I hope we continue learning together to express the range and depth of worship and edification within our church body. As David Peterson said in his book "Engaging With God" (quoted above), as we draw on the gifts and ministries of our body, we are being strengthened in our relationship with God himself!

So here's our chance to practice, as we look ahead to this Sunday.

We'll be celebrating communion together, and we'll start focusing our hearts and minds on the sacrifice of Christ from the get-go with "Nothing But The Blood Of Jesus." And have a time of welcome, announcements, and greeting led by Darren Utley. Here's some of the announcements we'll hear about:
-Shelter (College/Young Adult Ministry) meets Sunday night at the Toy's
-Women's Retreat coming up in September
-Grab a Bible/Visitor Welcome brochure/DVD

We'll sing the new song I put on the last post called "How Deep The Father's Love For Us," and then we'll take communion together and rejoice in the work of Christ on the cross by singing "The Power Of The Cross."

Pastor Todd will then teach us from Ecclesiastes 5 :1-7 about having the proper attitudes for worship. Be sure to read the passage!

We'll respond to God's word by singing "I Stand In Awe" and "How Great Is Our God" and go out as salt and light into the world!

New Church Website

We're proud to unveil our new church website! Go ahead and head on over to www.lifeatcrossroads.org and look around!