Preparing for Worship: February 28th, 2010

I'm thankful for the many encouraging words I heard back regarding worshiping with my friend Dan last week at Crossroads! It's so great to know that when I won't be here, that I can be confident that there will be biblical, joyful, genuine worship singing taking place. Thanks again to Dan for his leadership.

This week I'm back and rested after a lovely weekend away. I'm looking forward to our time together, and I hope you are too. Here's what's going on this weekend so you can prepare to come and be a part.

We'll start with the fun and easy "Friend of God," which is always a good tune to wake up and get in the groove for the morning. Ya know, with this tune I've wrestled with the theme being about how WE are God's friends, like it's bragging about ourselves and how great we are or something, so I just wanted to point out that we sing it not because of how great it makes us, but because of how in awe we are that we could actually ever be called friends of Almighty God! So yeah, it's simple, but it's profound; I like how the bridge of the song says it: "God Almighty, Lord of glory, You have called me friend!"

We'll then have the chance to worship through some announcements and opportunities coming up at Crossroads. How do we worship through announcements? As we hear of upcoming opportunities to serve or build community, we listen for the Spirit's guidance and illumination of how we can edify and build up the body of Christ, whether it be by participating in, or praying for said events. Allow your heart to be moved for those in pain, such as those still suffering in Haiti, or when we minister at the Union Rescue Mission; pray for outreach events, or Bible studies, that God might build His church through His Spirit to bring glory to His name; etc.

Then we'll sing the old hymn "How Great Thou Art" which talks about how all creation declares God's glory, and how His glory was perfectly displayed in His Son and through His death on the cross! We'll go from that into a song about the cross "This is Love." In our culture today, "love" is fickle. It's based only on romantic feelings, and there's so little depth to it. The Bible tells us that God so LOVED the world that He gave His only Son. True love is sacrificial; it's HARD. Christ didn't have the easiest time going to the cross. He prayed in the garden that His Father might accomplish His plan another way, but was obedient unto death.

Then Pastor Todd will come and preach from Ephesians five, as we continue our series: Sovereign Grace. The passage is Ephesians 5:1-7 which you can read by CLICKING HERE. It's about living as imitators of God as a child imitates his father. It's a super-convicting passage, and I need the Spirit to teach me to follow its truth and apply it to my own life more so every day. You might not need the same thing (yeah right, we ALL do), but prepare your heart through prayer that the Spirit might teach you to be an imitator of God even better upon hearing this truth preached.

We'll respond with the tune "Majesty(Here I Am)" that recognizes that our hearts are wicked, and that only the Holy Spirit enables us to put it off and put on the new man which we've been reborn into through Christ's death for us on the cross. The line "empty handed but alive in Your hand" is such a good way to remember this truth as we connect our heart and mind and take in God's Word most fully.

We'll close with "Take My Life" (an old hymn with a little bit of a twist on the melody, and a new chorus) as a prayer of commitment to daily sacrifice ourselves to God's glory and submit to His perfect will for our lives.

So that's what's going on; happy prep! Leave a comment if you like! See you Sunday.

Preparing for Worship: February 21st, 2010

Well I'm headed outta town with my wife and some friends tomorrow, so I wanted to update the blog with what's going on this weekend so you can prepare for worship.

My friend Dan Kush will be leading in worship this Sunday in my absence. Dan is a passionate brother who loves the Lord, who has lots of experience leading worship singing, and who will be a blessing to have at Crossroads, as he and his wife, Arlene, have attended a Pastor's Coffee, and are confident that this is where the Lord has called them for this season of their lives.

Pastor Todd continues preaching from the book of Ephesians as we learn how to live by the Spirit. Todd even mentioned that he wasn't sure he could preach this passage any more straightforwardly than the apostle Paul lays it out for the Ephesians! CLICK HERE to read this "how-to" on living the Christian life as you prepare for the Spirit to teach and enable YOU to live this life!

We'll kick off the morning with the song "Beautiful One" as we refocus our eyes on the glory, majesty, and of course, beauty, of the God that has redeemed us from sin through His Son.

We'll take a few moments to worship by ask God's blessing and guidance through His Spirit, as we seek to honor him in our time together. Then we'll talk about a few things that are going on in various ministries at Crossroads; specifically an update on our Haiti Relief fund, and our upcoming family outreach event: "Crossroads Live!"

We'll continue worshiping in song as we reflect on the glory and holiness of God. "Glorious and Mighty," "Be Unto Your Name," and "Holy, Holy, Holy" will all honor God through the words we sing, and will minister to each of us as we are reminded of who God is, and what that means for us! Those truths become our motivation and empowerment for living the life the apostle Paul describes in our sermon passage. Because God is almighty and glorious, he demands obedience and worship. Because God is holy and righteous, His own character required that he punish sin with His wrath. Because God is merciful and loving, He gave His Son to be punished in our place that we might be set free from death in sin!

Pastor Todd will then come and preach to us, and if you didn't do it before, you're going to forget if you don't CLICK HERE to read the passage right now, so don't put it off!

After the sermon, Dan will lead in "All I Have is Christ" which is one of my favorite new tunes; and which I will be missing singing with you! It's a perfect sum up of the morning, and of the sermon, as Paul ends the passage by explaining our motivation to live the way he's described: "forgiving one another as God, in Christ, forgave you." So we'll sing about that wonderful forgiveness that God offers us IN CHRIST!

That's the deal for this week. I'll be back with you the following week, so BE GOOD! :)

Happy prep!

Preparing for Worship: February 14th, 2010

How great that Valentine's Day falls on a Sunday this year!

How better to celebrate romantic love, than by praising and worshiping the One who created it and gave it to us??

I promise we won't go overboard with that though; I won't break out any of those "worship" songs that make it sound like Jesus is our boyfriend. I think having only one word for "love" in English makes it confusing when we think about how we are supposed to "love" Jesus. We tend to differentiate the types by saying we are "in love" when we mean the romantic, couple type of love, but sometimes even that phrase pops (or idea) up in worship tunes such as Matt Redman's tune "Let My Words Be Few" (Redman actually says he wishes he hadn't used that phrase in an interview HERE). "SO I'LL LET MY WORDS BE FEW: JESUS I AM SO IN LOVE WITH YOU"

The love we're supposed to have for our God/Jesus/Holy Spirit is a much more complex type of love that involves fear, awe, obedience, and sacrifice, in addition to those "warm fuzzies" you get sometimes (especially while singing worship songs!).

So yeah, we'll keep it biblical and rounded by placing God's glory, and not our feelings of love, as the highest priority. I'll save the phrase "in love" exclusively for my wife. :)

Glad we got that out of the way!

We're going to start our morning with "Ancient of Days" as we fulfill the very lyrics in the chorus by declaring God's glory and bowing at His throne in worship! If you don't have room to bow down where you are standing on Sunday, just be sure you have the attitude as one who bows! Or heck, just make your way to the aisle and bow down there; just be careful no one trips over ya!

Pastor Todd will come after that first tune and lead us all in prayer together, and then share some great ministry and outreach opportunities with us that are coming up really soon, so be sure you're at church on time so you can catch the vision for our Blanket Blessings ministry, and for Crossroads LIVE coming in April.

After those opportunities, we'll sing some more as we celebrate not just our love for God, but HIS love that captured us, and His grace that set us free when we sing: "Be Glorified." The bridge of that songs asks God to be glorified in US, and as John Piper says: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him!" What better way to be satisfied in God than to have our hearts formed, our minds transformed, and our wills conformed to HIS good and perfect will?? I agree, so we'll ask that He do those things by singing "Take My Life (Holiness)."

Then Pastor Todd will come and continue teaching us God's Word from the apostle Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Specifically chapter four, verses 17 - 24. CLICK HERE to read the passage and prepare your own heart and mind to be changed by the truth of God's Word applied to your life by the Spirit of God that lives within you. It's about putting off the old self, and putting on the new self that God created to share in righteousness and holiness ("set-apartness").

After the sermon, we'll connect that knowledge to our hearts as we respond to God through song. The first tune after the sermon, I'm going to ask that you just let me share with you, and not sing with me (yet, maybe in the future!). It's a song I wrote just last week as I was contemplating the process of confessing our sins to the Lord. Being first grieved at our falling short of God's standards, and hating our sin so that we are eager to repent. Then we remember that we have the firm promise of Christ's blood shed for us so that we know that when God looks on us, he sees not our wretched sinfulness, but Christ's righteousness! And finally, we rejoice in our sure forgiveness, knowing that when we are faithful to confess our sins, He is righteous and just to forgive them (1 John 1:9)

So yeah, it's a song I wrote called "Confession Song" (I know, it's a VERY creative title!) and I hope that the Spirit will use it to both convict us and encourage us as we continue to strive DAILY to put off the old self and put on the new self as we confess our sins and seek after God.

We'll finish the morning by singing together about the reason we can even hope to have success in putting on the new self: God's grace. We'll sing "Grace Unmeasured" which reminds us that grace has paid for our sins, helps us do what is right, and will eventually lead us to our reward in heaven!

So that's what's going on this week! Hope to see you there, ready to worship, ready to encourage a brother or sister in the faith, and ready to watch the Spirit do his mighty work in our midst! Pray for God's will to be done!

See you there; happy prep!

Preparing for Worship: February 7th, 2010

Hey guys, sorry I didn't post last Friday to help you all prepare for last Sunday! I was out renting cellos, and helping pianos get brought in to our worship center, and putting our great cellist, Meghan Zeikle, up in our guest room.

I hope you guys enjoyed our special "Winter Cello-bration" last weekend, and that it helped to keep our ears and hearts fresh to all kinds of beautiful musical expression to aid in our corporate worship! I had a great time playing that big beast of a piano, and it's always a pleasure for me to worship with Meghan, as we have ministered together since our college days at Master's College in the Chorale, and for the last two summers at the Resolved Conference.

We will have another Cello-bration in the future, and for those of you that weren't able to be there this past week, you'll have another chance to worship with us with piano/cello accompaniment.

So we set our sights on this coming Sunday, and prepare to pick up where we left off last week in our study of Ephesians. Pastor Todd is preaching from chapter four, verses 13-16. CLICK HERE to read this week's passage about growing up in Christ as his body.

Since it's the first Sunday of the month, we'll also remember Christ's death for us as we take communion together after Pastor Todd's sermon.

Now onto the singing! We're gonna start the morning with a good waker-upper song: "Marvelous Light" which reminds us why we are there together, to worship the God who called us out of darkness and into light through the cross. We, who once were fatherless strangers with no hope have been given new life in Christ. Sin has lost its power; death has lost its sting! From the grave You've risen victoriously!

Pastor Todd will jump up for a few minutes of welcome and announcement stuff and we can worship together through prayer, welcoming visitors and greeting and encouraging friends we already know! We'll also see a quick video for the upcoming Financial Peace University class at Crossroads.

We'll start up the music again as we engage in revelation/response with God as He's revealed himself through His Word, and His Son. We'll sing of his great love for us in "The Father's Love" and contemplate our new life as sons and daughters, and the desire for clean hands and a pure heart; that we might seek God and seek Him alone in "Give Us Clean Hands."

Pastor Todd will preach the Word to us, and lovingly encourage and exhort us to grow up in spiritual maturity so as to not be tossed to and fro, but to speak the truth IN LOVE to one another so as to build up the body of Christ. Again, be sure you check out the passage of scripture, so you're prepared to glean the truth God would have you learn and apply to your life.

We'll respond to the Spirit's teaching by celebrating communion together after Todd's message, and singing "Jesus Messiah" which quotes 2 Corinthians: He became sin, WHO KNEW NO SIN, that WE might become HIS righteousness! It is absolutely astounding that we have inherited the PERFECT righteousness of Christ because of our faith in what He did on the cross!!!

We'll end our time together with the song "Stronger" that I hope will go with us as we leave the church "building" to BE the church in the world around us; that God is stronger than sin and darkness, and that through us, his name will be lifted higher and higher above all names in the universe!

Phew!

So yeah, that's what's-a-happening. Hope to see you there, ready to go! Happy prepping.