Preparing For Worship: August 2nd

This week we are excited to hear from one of our elders: Darren Utley. He will be preaching from God's Word this week, as Pastor Todd and his family get away on vacation. Next week we'll welcome Joe Keller, dean of students at The Master's College, as our guest speaker for the morning. I'll be heading out Monday night to attend the Worship God Conference put on by Sovereign Grace ministries out in Maryland. My brother, Donny, will be leading worship on August 9th for me. Lots of fun stuff going on!

This week is also the first Sunday of the month, which means we'll celebrate the Lord's Supper together, and partake of the Bread and the Cup in symbolic remembrance of Jesus' sacrifice for us on the cross.

We'll start the service with "Beautiful One" as we focus in on our glorious God. This is one of those songs that describes a physical response to the beauty and character of God: "the beauty of Your majesty awakes my heart to sing...Beautiful One I love...I adore...my soul MUST sing!" Psalm 95 and 96 are wonderful commandments to lift our voices to the Lord in praise:

"Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;

let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;

let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise..."

"Oh sing to the Lord a new song' sing to the Lord, all the earth!

Sing to the Lord, bless his name' tell of his salvation from day to day.

Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!

For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods..."

So come ready to obey and play your part in our "choir" of worship! After our first song, Darren will welcome everyone, lead us in prayer for the morning, and dismiss us to greet each other, and to welcome new visitors.

Then we'll sing the new (it's really quite old) hymn we're gonna learn together: "Crown Him With Many Crowns." Click the song title to go to my previous post with a video of the song and all the lyrics. We'll go right out of that song into "In Christ Alone" which brings the glorious majesty of God into full focus in the person of his son: Jesus Christ. As believers, when we think about the love, justice, mercy, forgiveness, and grace of God, we can't help but be pointed and drawn back to Jesus. He is the culmination and pinnacle of all of those characteristics of God; and that gives us great joy and hope!

Then Darren will come and preach to us from Joshua 10:1-15, and build off of Pastor Todd's sermon from last week. If you didn't get a chance to hear it. CLICK HERE and give it a listen!

We'll transition to a time of sharing the Lord's Supper, and we'll sing "Jesus Messiah" as we pass the elements and meditate on the price he paid for our redemption. Darren will come up again and lead us all as we take it together.

We'll close our time with "Lord Jehovah" as we commit to live our lives bowed before the throne of God bringing him glory and honor and praise in all that we do.

That's what's happening on Sunday; hope to see you there!

New Song: Crown Him With Many Crowns

Okay, so this isn't really a "new" song at all. It's an old hymn written in 1852. This hymn celebrates Jesus' divinity and kingship. Each verse talks about a different aspect of Christ: "The Sacrificial Lamb," "The Lord of Life," "The Lord of Love," and "The Lord of Heaven."

It's a simple and memorable melody that is full of energy, and I know we'll enjoy singing it together.

Here's a video of the song from the Resolved Conference that I played at in June with the band Enfield.

Here are the lyrics:
Crown Him with many crowns
The Lamb upon His throne
Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns
All music but its own
Awake my soul and sing
Of Him who died for Thee
And hail Him as thy matchless King
Through all eternity

Crown Him the Lord of life
Who triumphed over the grave
And rose victorious to the strife
For those He came to save
His glories now we sing
Who died and rose on high
Who died eternal life to bring
And lives that death may die

Crown Him the Lord of love
Behold His hands and side
Those wounds yet visible above
In beauty glorified
No angel in the sky
Can fully bear that sight
But downward bend His wond'ring eye
At mysteries so bright

Crown Him the Lord of heaven
Enthroned in worlds above
Crown Him the King to Whom is given
The wondrous name of Love
Crown Him with many crowns
As thrones before Him fall
Crown Him ye kings with many crowns
For He is King of all

Preparing For Worship: July 19th

"When we can't see Your plan, Lord help us understand: though we can't see Your purpose; we trust Your will is certain."

These are some of the lyrics to my song "We Trust Your Will" and they really address an important issue for each of us: Do we trust that God knows what He is doing?

As Pastor Todd preaches from Joshua chapter 8 (which you can click HERE to read), he's going to talk about trusting God's plan. God delivered the city of Ai to the Isrealites, and they "struck them down until there was left none that survived or escaped." Why did God do this? Pastor Todd will help us think through this together.

Here's what we'll be singing together:

"Here I Am to Worship"

"Indescribable"

"Forever"

"It Is Well"

"Be Thou My Vision"

"We Trust Your Will"

I hope you'll come ready to sing loudly, to encourage and fellowship with each other, and jump in to God's Word so that we might know him and love him a little more than when we came in!

Happy prepping!

Preparing For Worship: July 12th, 2009

Hey everyone, looking forward to a great time worshiping with you all this Sunday! Don't forget that we have our Sizzling Summer Spectacular at Northbridge Park this Sunday night, so if you haven't signe up yet, do it this Sunday!!!

This week Pastor Todd begins a two part series called "The Ache of Sin" as we continue to walk through the book of Joshua. Read Joshua chapter seven this weekend as you prepare to come learn from God's Word with the body.

Musically, we'll start the service with a call to worship that really extends to all creation: All Creatures of Our God and King, and shoot right into Friend of God since that's the only reason we can really come and worship; since because of Christ we're no longer enemies of God, but friends!

We get to officially welcome and recognize our new Crossroads members during our greeting time this Sunday; if you're wanting to become a member, you can still sign up for our 1-day class coming up...

We'll jump into more singing with Open The Eyes of My Heart. This song asks God to open the eyes of our hearts that we might SEE HIM. When we see God (know him and understand him better through the ministry of his Word, and the illumination of his Spirit), we become more aware of his holiness and majesty, and that makes us more aware of the wretchedness of our sin, and our helpless condition without Christ. That's why I chose Overwhelmed next, because we need to constantly marvel at how the Lord almighty bids us come to him, despite our wretchedness, through Christ.

Then Pastor Todd will preach through Joshua 7, and we'll have the chance to respond in song as we sing At The Cross and Give Us Clean Hands.

That's what's happening this Sunday! Happy prep!