Preparing For Worship: July 4th, 2010

I am so glad to be back with you this weekend at Crossroads! I was away serving at the Resolved Conference in Palm Springs last weekend, and although it was a wonderful weekend of stellar preaching and gospel-saturated, moving worship singing, it was not my church family!

I'm blessed to have Dan lead you when I'm gone, and I'm thankful for the great job I hear he did.

This Sunday is the fourth of July! In case you missed the memo, we're only having ONE service this Sunday at 10:00am.

We're starting off with "Before the Throne of God Above" to help wake us up the the reality of the gospel, and what it means to have true freedom, not just from governments or nations, but from sin and death; as the song says "my soul is purchased by his blood, my life is hid with Christ on high..."

Then Pastor Todd will come and lead us in corporate prayer and welcome any Independence Day visitors we might have. Then we'll show a quick video recap of the two VBS programs we held last week at the URM and over in Newhall. I was able to be at the URM for two of the days, and what a wonderful, and exhausting time of ministry!

Next we'll sing a couple songs that remind us of the free gift of salvation that we have been given through Christ; a timely reminder in the wake of the VBS programs where several children gave their lives to Christ. "Alive in Christ" and the new song that Dan taught last week: "By This We Know Love."

These songs both touch on the sin that held us in bondage, and had indeed rendered us spiritually dead. Pastor Todd is preaching from Nehemiah 3-4 this week where the Jews encounter significant opposition to their efforts to rebuild the city. They continue to trust God, and pursue his will for them, despite the despair and hopelessness that they suffer. This is such an important truth about the Christian life, one where we daily fall short of God's holiness and struggle with sin, but are called to walk as children of the light, and be holy as God is holy. We encounter discouragement when we fall to sin and fail to eradicate it in our lives, but when we faithfully confess that sin, we are confident that God is faithful to forgive it because the cost has been paid by Christ's death on the cross! Our sin causes us to cling to the gospel more tightly!

Pastor Todd will come and preach God's word to us at this point. Something I've been realizing lately, is that no matter how many people hear God's word preached on a given Sunday, or how deeply they understand and interact with it, God is still honored and pleased when his truth is expounded, and that is reason enough to do it, and Pastor Todd is so faithful to do just that. I'm thankful for his commitment to the Scriptures. CLICK HERE to read Nehemiah 3-4 as you prepare.

Then we'll celebrate communion together and I'll share a song I shared a few months ago, and have been burdened to have us sing together since then. It's called "Confession Song" and really deals intimately with the struggle of feeling like sanctification isn't taking place quickly enough, and our sinful nature still rages within us. You can download the song from the Crossroads website by CLICKING HERE.

Then after communion, we'll revel in the fact that though "a thousand times I've failed, still Your mercy remains. And should I stumble again, I'm caught in Your grace!!!!!" with the song "From the Inside Out." I hope that in my own life, these songs and God's word will affect the way I live after participating in them with you all!

That's what's going on, happy preparation! See you Sunday for ONE Service at 10:00am.

New Song: "By This We Know Love"

My keyboard player and friend, Dan Kush, is leading worship this week for me as I'm away at the Resolved Conference in Palm Springs. He'll be teaching this song so check out this great video and get acquainted with the words and the melody so you can belt it out right away when the body sings it together on Sunday!

"By This We Know Love" 
by Judah Groveman
Copyright 2009 Sovereign Grace Praise


God of all creation, Lord of heaven's light
Descended into evil's darkest night
Infinitely holy; Your perfections know no end
Selflessly You died my rightful death


By this we know love: that He laid down His life
God's very own Son came from heaven to die
Suspended He hung as He shed His own blood
What grace in His pardon; by this we know love


Forsaken Man of Sorrows, hated by all men
You willingly surrendered for my sin
Scornfully derided, yet in silence stumbling on
Bearing wrath for all that I've done wrong!

Preparing for Worship: June 20th, 2010

Happy Father's Day! It's another great "secular" holiday that has so much more meaning for Christ-followers. We are certainly thankful for the dads in our lives, and it's wonderful to show them the appreciation they deserve, but what a great reminder that our dads here are meant to help us understand the heavenly Father, who is God over all.

Some have dads that epitomize love, consistency, patience, and strength in our minds; while some have dads that seem to epitomize the very opposites of those things. What a stronghold of truth to know and trust that our heavenly Father is PERFECT in all things, and that he cares PERFECTLY for his children, and LOVES to pour out good and PERFECT gifts on those that seek after him. Sometimes our idea of "good and perfect" doesn't always match up with the Lord's, but we know that nothing exists outside of God's sovereignty, and we rest in that.

This week Pastor Todd and his family left for vacation in Maui! They'll be enjoying Father's Day on the beach drinking fruit punch from a pineapple. At least the weather in Valencia has been really nice too; we won't feel too cheated!

That means we have a guest speaker this week. His name is Bob King, and he's one of the pastors of the Sojourners ministry at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley. Sojourners is an all-ages ministry group with a specific focus in Old Testament Studies. Bob will be bringing us a special Father's Day message entitled "Like Father, Like Son...Really?" which you don't want to miss!

Musically, we have our flautist, Jim Morris, joining us this Sunday which is always fun, and we're breaking in a new electric guitarist, Brian Baker. We're going to sing "Come Thou Fount" as an opener and an invitation to the Spirit to help us bring glory to God. Then we'll focus on our Father's Day theme and sing "The Father's Love."

Then one of our elders, Darren Utley, will lead in a time of welcome and greeting, and he'll also be giving us an exciting announcement/update for our Youth Ministries. Basically we have a strong candidate for the position who will be coming to Crossroads on the 27th, and will be teaching in our Youth Group meeting during 2nd service that day. Then Darren will have us all say a quick hello to our fellow Crossroaders, and then we'll be back to singing about our heavenly Father with "How Deep the Father's Love for Us" and "I Give You My Heart" which will be a fitting response as we commit our hearts and lives to honor and glorify the Father who adopted us into his heavenly household from the slums of death!

Then Darren will introduce our guest speaker and Bob King who will come and proclaim God's Word to us. I'm honestly not sure of which scriptures he'll be using in his message, so I can't link to any specific passage, but I found a great video clip of CJ Mahaney talking about God as Father which I recommend you check out by CLICKING HERE.

We'll close with the simple tune "You Alone" as we remind ourselves and each other that only God is truly Father over all, and good above everything!

That's what's happening this Sunday, so BE THERE or I will sprinkle jelly beans on your lawn!

Preparing for Worship: June 6th, 2010

Alright, this is going to be short and sweet. I spent all night at Disneyland last night with my wife's high school as a chaperon for "Grad Night." I have that "stayed up all night" gross feeling so I need to go and take a shower and a nap!

This Sunday is Promotion Sunday for our Children's Ministries classes, ages Kindergarten through 6th grade will all be promoted to their new grade level and classroom. You can find out where their new room is at the check-in desk in the front lobby. We're going to be rocking the bounce house all morning long too!

We're going to be commissioning some folks from Crossroads as they go out on Summer missions trips to: India, Haiti, Thailand, and Uganda! We'll pray for them that God would do a mighty work in each of their lives and that he'd use them and their teams to bring glory to his name all around the globe.

Here's what the morning is gonna look like: We'll start with "Indescribable" and then Todd will come lead in prayer and welcome new visitors and what not. Then we'll learn "Because of This" which is one of the songs I wrote for Resurrection Sunday this year and is available as part of a free (donate if you want) downloadable EP called "Resurrection Songs" that you can find by CLICKING HERE. Check it out!

Then we'll go right into "Offering" which is a great tune reminding us of how we come before God, and the awe and reverence that needs to characterize us as we do so.

Then Pastor Todd kicks off our new study in Nehemiah by setting up the historical context of the book and giving us a general introduction as we dive in to chapter 1. CLICK HERE to check out chapter 1 of this book as we embark on a new part of our journey through the Scriptures.

Then we'll celebrate communion together and sing through "Jesus Thank You" as we remember the death of Christ on our behalf.

We'll finish up with a song of new life and victory through Christ aptly titled "Alive in Christ."

That's what's happening; don't miss it! Happy prepping.

New Song: Because of This

I'm excited for us to learn one of the songs I wrote to celebrate the Resurrection at Easter this year! It's called "Because of This" and it focuses on the resurrection of Christ as the reason we can be free from sin and death.

If you have not downloaded the free "Resurrection Songs" EP from the Crossroads website, please CLICK HERE. It's the second song, and the download comes with a digital lyric booklet that you can access right on your computer once it's downloaded!

Hope that's easy enough, and that you have a chance to listen to the tune and get a handle on it so you can sing it easily and confidently on Sunday!

Leave me a comment if you have any trouble. Thanks!

Preparing for Worship: May 30, 2010

Pastor Todd and I posted our fourth "This Sunday @ Crossroads" video blog this week, and I don't think we really expected it to be so hard to come up with ideas for our videos, so we just decided to be honest about it and ask for help. If you haven't watched it yet, please CLICK HERE.  It's a good thing we don't have to come up with new ideas each and every week for our worship services! We'd be in trouble really quick.

This Sunday is still notable however, because we are going to finish our expositional study through the book of Ephesians. Pastor Todd has been so faithful to study and prepare sermons each week that help us understand the heart of this letter from a loving pastor to a faithful church. Through this time each week, the Spirit has helped us understand the nature of the new life we've been given when we surrender to the Lordship of Christ. He's helped us to pursue love and unity within the body of Christ; the church for which Jesus laid down his life. He's taught us that day in and day out we're in a spiritual battle, and the importance of dressing ourselves spiritually.

So we're sad to end this valuable study, but we're excited to move ahead to our next study in the book of Nehemiah called "Arise and Build." So come hear the apostle Paul's final thoughts to his beloved church at Ephesus!

As for the rest of the morning, it's gonna be familiar to ya, so prepare yourself to come and contribute. Ask the Spirit to guide you as you engage in conversation, as you sing, pray, study, and give, that through your participation others might be built up in love, and God might be honored!

We're going to start with the song "Here I am to Worship" which might seem like we're stating the obvious to God: "Hey God, we've come to church this morning to worship." I've found that sometimes you need to remind yourself of the purpose of whatever you're doing in order to really do it well and with the right motivation. Why do we worship God?? Because he's "altogether lovely" and "altogether worthy" are good reasons to start. It's an older tune these days, but the truth is still just as real. AND you should know it by heart by now! ;-)

We'll roll right into the hymn "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" which is one of my all-time favorite hymns because it is just chock-full-to-the-brim-and-even-overflowing-a-little with rich doctrine and truth about God. Truth that, when it cuts to your heart and soul, is enough to weather any storm and persevere any trial. "SURELY his goodness and mercy here DAILY attend thee!!!"

Todd comes up to do his usual prayer and welcome shtick and I thought it'd be fun to have all you blog readers mess with him a little during this time (I'll do it too). Wouldn't it be funny if we were all like a little too excited for his "routine" welcome and instructions to visitors? Like if we all got up on the edges of our seats and opened our eyes real big like we had no idea what he was going to say, and that any moment he might choose one of us to receive $10,000? It has to be subtle, but if enough of us do it, I think it could freak him out a little. Leave me a comment at the end of the blog if you're IN. And if you don't want to, then FINE!

After a quick greeting, we'll sing some more as we learn the new song I posted yesterday "Exalted (Yahweh)" from Chris Tomlin. This is a cool tune that is right outta Scripture, and the way it builds up in intensity as it goes into the bridge is truly a superb musical moment; thank God for the marriage of words of truth and music! Then we'll take a scene out of Revelation where all the ruling elders of the world throw their crowns down at the feet of Jesus and cry holy, holy, holy with "We Fall Down."

Then Pastor Todd will come and share the "series finale" of Ephesians. As I expressed in the video blog, I closed the door on a significant chapter of my life this week as I watched the final episode of LOST. I think the writers of that show were tremendous storytellers, and though there were mysteries left unsolved, the finale was very satisfying to me. I hope Todd's sermon measures up! CLICK HERE to read Paul's final words to his friends in Ephesus.

We'll respond with one closing song, which is actually just going to be the same song we learned and sung earlier: "Exalted (Yahweh)" so you'll really have a chance to learn this one and belt it out with everyone!

That's what's happening this weekend at Crossroads so I hope you're not going away for the holiday weekend; we need ya! Happy prep!

New Song: Exalted (Yahweh)

Hey guys, we're going to learn a really great song from Chris Tomlin this Sunday, so I wanted to post a video of the song with the words so that you know how it goes and can come prepared to sing it loud and strong on Sunday!

Check it out: