Preparing for Worship: August 29th, 2010

Looking forward to worshiping with y'all this weekend! It's kind of amazing all the people that have walked through our doors the past couple Sundays! We're fast running out of room, so get to church early this week, and better yet, come to first service!!

I'm finding it easier not to be redundant and type out the same sentiment that I talk about in the video blog, so I'll just continue to post the set list with links so you can be sure you know the tunes. I'll also post the sermon text and link it to an online Bible so you can read the passage before Sunday so you can get the most out of Pastor Todd's sermon (it's like going back to college!)

Sunday's Worship Set:
1) "Let Your Kingdom Come"
2) "Jesus Messiah"
This set is for us to "refocus" the worship that we offer towards other things during the week like our jobs, our families, or ourselves (all good things, but sometimes they can take away from the Lord!)

3) "O Church Arise" (NEW SONG!! Check out the previous blog post!)
4) "Our God"
This set is a call to the church to engage in the spiritual warfare that rages around us as souls hang in the balance. The second song reminds us that the outcome of that battle is already certain because of the God we serve!

5) The Stand
We'll close with this tune as a response to the work that the Spirit will hopefully do in our hearts as Pastor Todd teaches and preaches God's word to us. He's preaching from Nehemiah 11 & 12 which you can read by clicking HERE. And he's talking about how to put ourselves in a position to receive true joy that is not dependent on circumstance or "happiness." Like the last part of "The Stand" says, we know true joy when we stand in awe of Christ and fully surrender our will and soul to him!

That's the plan, see you Sunday! COME EARLY or COME TO FIRST SERVICE!!

New Song: O Church Arise

Hey Crossroaders!

We're going to be learning a great new song this week by Keith and Kristyn Getty called "O Church Arise!" This song comes right out of Ephesians 6 where the apostle Paul is talking about the armor of God. This song is an epic call to spiritual warfare where the souls of the lost hang in the balance!

Check out this video and the lyrics below:

O church arise, and put your armor on
Hear the call of Christ our captain
For now the weak can say that they are strong
In the strength that God has given
With shield of faith and belt of truth
We'll stand against the Devil's lies
An army bold, whose battle-cry is "Love!"
Reaching out to those in darkness

Our call to war, to love the captive soul
But to rage against the Captor
And with the sword that makes the wounded whole
We will fight with faith and valour
When faced with trials on every side
We know the outcome is secure
And Christ will have the prize for which he died
An inheritance of nations

So Spirit come put strength in every stride
Give grace for every hurdle
That we may run with faith to win the prize
Of a servant good and faithful
As saints of old still line the way
Retelling triumphs of His grace
We hear their calls and hunger for the day
When with Christ we stand in glory!

Preparing for Worship: August 22nd, 2010

Hey guys, I'm going to leave you in the care of the video blog and the set list this week as I'm trying to finish up today's work and head down to the rehearsal dinner for my brother's wedding tomorrow! Pray that his wedding is God-honoring, and that it's a BLAST! See you Sunday!

Sunday's Set:
"Because of This" - Paul Hoover (from "Resurrection Songs" available for free by clicking HERE)
"At The Cross" - Hillsong
"How Great is Your Faithfulness" - Matt Redman
"Confession Song" - Paul Hoover (available for free download HERE)
"Give Us Clean Hands - Chris Tomlin

Preparing for Worship: August 15th, 2010

Pastor Todd's sermon this week is ominously entitled "The Day of Confession." I think when most of us think of confession, we think of confessing our sin to the Lord, knowing that he is faithful to forgive us when we do. This is a vital connotation of confession, to be sure, but in addition to this sort, the Israelites also practice another sort of confession in Nehemiah 9. This other kind of confession is also immensely important, and it has to do with declaring who God is, and what he has done. It's a unified, public declaration of their belief in God, and the confidence that they have in him because of his great and mighty acts throughout their history.

I wanted us to mimic this confession of God's character and acts closely this week through the songs we're singing, so I've chosen songs this week that are heavily focused on reciting specific character traits of God, and allow those truths to fuel our spiritual and emotional response to him.

We're starting the service with the old hymn "How Great Thou Art" which consists of four meaty verses reciting God's greatness as expressed in his creation, the cross, and the second coming of Jesus. The chorus (or refrain as they used to be called) ties the verses together by crying out, not just from the lips, but from the very soul: how great Thou art!!

Then we're going to learn a new song called "How Great is Your Faithfulness" which sounds like a magical combination of "How Great Thou Art" and "Great is Thy Faithfulness" and aside from having different music and different lyrics, it sort of is! It's a tune from Matt Redman, and has a super singable chorus...well, why don't you check out the video below and you can see what I mean...


I think it's a great song, and it fits in well with the idea of confessing God's greatness in specific ways.

Then we'll take a few minutes to highlight some really exciting things coming up at Crossroads, including our 4th Anniversary Celebration happening on September 12th! As is becoming our anniversary tradition, we'll have the In-N-Out truck parked in the parking lot ready to serve up burgers all morning long, so if you've been in and out of Crossroads all summer, plan to be back for the 12th!!

Then we'll jump into another set that follows a similar format to the first one. Leading off with "How Great is Our God" which again, recites attributes of God found directly in Scripture. It's like singing God's own perfect word back to him so we can be confident in what we're singing! Sometimes singers/songwriters can write songs in an abstract or overly personal way that becomes ambiguous and unclear when sung by a gathered body of believers, but when we sing Scripture, we know that God will be rightly honored because in a sense, he authored the song himself! We'll follow that tune up with "We Will Remember" as we recount God's faithfulness in sustaining our life, comforting us in trial, and giving us new spiritual life through Christ.

I hope you'll be struck by how incredibly faithful God is after we sing these things; I know I was!

Pastor Todd will then come and teach us from Nehemiah 9 and we'll see how the Israelites confessed in response to revival workings that sprung forth from the power of the declared Word of God in their presence.

We'll respond to the teaching of the Word with "Glorious and Mighty."

So that's what's-a-happening this weekend at Crossroads. Really looking forward to seeing you there, and offering our corporate praise to the Lord through song, study of the Word, giving, prayer, and community!

Happy prep!

Preparing for Worship: August 8th, 2010

Hello friends!

This is going to be a great weekend; I can feel it! This Summer has been full of vacations, and I think that many are finally back in Valencia, anxiously awaiting the start of school.

I hope to see all of you this weekend as we come together to obediently offer corporate worship to our God! I think it's great that there are so many ways that we're able to do this faithfully: singing together; studying God's Word together; giving of our money, skills and time; and seeking to encourage one another as the day of Christ's return approaches!

This Sunday has some exciting things in store, and around the Crossroads office, we've starting calling it "Announcement Sunday, with a few minutes left over for Worship and Teaching." Seriously, there is so much cool stuff coming up in the next few weeks that you need to know about. Ministry launches, exciting events and service opportunities all over the place, so I don't want to hear anything about you "not knowing how to get involved!"

I think we're going to have a good time worshiping through song this week, as some of our worship song arrangements actually tie into Pastor Todd's sermon this week. Pastor Todd will be preaching out of Nehemiah 7-8, where the Israelites gather to celebrate the completion of the wall by...listening to a scribe read out of the Law for several hours. (??????)

Seems like a funny way to say "hooray, we're finished building the wall!" This passage is really making a strong statement about the way that the Lord builds up his people. There is a strong emphasis on declaring his Word to the people, so that they understand his commands, and that they know him. God's Word must be the highest priority of his gathered people; not worship music, not lights or videos, not a really cool building. While all of those things are helpful and can God-honoring in their own rights, God desires us to KNOW HIM, and he has revealed everything he wants us to know about him in his Word.

Pastor Todd will be talking about this as he teaches from this passage, so we're changing up the music on some of the tunes we're doing, just to practically remind us that how we dress the words to the songs is of little lasting value; it's the content that matters more than the sound or style.

We'll start the morning with classic rock version of "The Solid Rock," the old hymn that helps give us a foundation for the morning, and really for our lives; that everything we are and do, is founded on what Christ has done for us. Then we'll sing the new tune we learned last week, "Our God," which is a country-crossover declaration of the awesome power and greatness of God that is meant to remind us that if our God is for us, who can be against us?

Then we'll have a couple of minutes to highlight some really important announcements for our Legacy class, Student Ministries, and Children's Ministry.

After a time for greeting, we'll sing a bit more with "All I Have is Christ" which we're going to do in a bluegrass style! Followed by a mellow blues rendition of "Before the Throne of God Above."

Then Pastor Todd will come and teach us, and we pray that God's Holy Spirit would be working mightily to illuminate our hearts to the power of the truth of Scripture, and teaching us to apply it in our lives that we might live in the light.

We'll finish with the song "Breathe," which we're doing in an ethereal, post-rock style, that reminds us that God's Word is to us as the very air we breathe in its importance.

Gotta cut this post a little short, time to run and get ready to setup for tonight's Kidz Kamp-In!