Preparing For Worship: February 10th

This Sunday Pastor Todd will be preaching on our misplaced affections from 1 Timothy 6: 3-10.

Giving ourselves over to false doctrine doesn't always have to mean a big, obvious heresy. Sometimes we try to fit God into a box that makes sense to our humanity. Like maybe we can't always understand how a God who's supposed to be sovereign and good, lets good people suffer, or lets people go to hell! Sometimes our sense of compassion is disturbed by that, and despite what is clear in scripture (that bad things happen to good people, and people go to hell), we try to soften this harsh truth by changing (ever so subtly) what we believe is true about God's character.

There's an old hymn called "How Like A Gentle Spirit" that puts this perfectly into words:

When in our vain pretension we conspire
To shape God's image as we see our own
Hark to the voice above our base desire
God is the sculptor, we the broken stone

I love how the hymn writer calls us to "Hark!" meaning "Listen!" to the voice above our base desire, and realize that God is the sculptor, and we're the broken stone, and we have no room to try and make God who WE want him to be.

So it's easier than you think to slip onto the slopes of false doctrine, and there are many more ways than the one I described, and Pastor Todd will help us learn discernment in this area.

I always remember an analogy that my old youth pastor used to use in regard to knowing when something is false. He talked about the training that workers at a US Mint go through, and how they handled so much real money, that when a counterfeit bill came through, they could instantly tell because they knew the real thing so well!

So that's a way we can combat false teaching and doctrines, by knowing the truth so well that we can't be fooled. That's what our worship singing will focus on.

We'll start the service with a song that may be new to some of you, called "I Am A Friend Of God" that reminds us that we come into the presence of God as friends, and no longer enemies because of our sin!

We'll worship through a few announcements for upcoming ministry opportunities: Hope Gardens, and Men's Relay. We'll also hear about our building plan for our new church home! Ken Ruggles will fill us in on some of the details so we can pray for things to go smoothly, and also continue to be thankful for God's goodness in giving us a home for the next few years. Pastor Todd will also explain what we'll be doing, as far as congregational involvement, to raise the finances for the building project.

We'll continue singing and thinking about how we want to place our affections only in God! We'll sing"Enough" which talks about how God is more than everything we'll ever need. "Here I Am To Worship" reminds us of the cross, and proclaims God as OUR God! We'll finish the set with "How Great Is Our God" as we prepare for the sermon.

Remember to read the passage as you prepare for this Sunday! 1 Timothy 6:3-10 (C'mon, I make it so easy to just click the link, you don't even have to get out a Bible! So no excuses!)

After Todd's message, we'll respond with "Surrender" committing ourselves again to die to ourselves, and live for the glory of God, and we'll end with a prayer that God would make us a people that seek his face, and his face only! "Give Us Clean Hands" I actually found a good video of the author of that song, Charlie Hall talking about writing the song, and teaching it to the viewers. So if you play the guitar, it's a cool resource, so check it out. If you don't, maybe you should learn! It's still a cool insight to the song, so check it out.

That's all for now, happy preparation!

Essential Doctrines Pt. 3

Pulpit Magazine just posted the third entry on Essential doctrines for salvation. Check it out HERE.

If you haven't, you should probably read POST 1 and POST 2 before you read the third.

Essential Doctrines Pt. 2

The second post in this series on Essential doctrines for salvation is up on Pulpit Magazine.

Click here for the first.

What Are The Essential Doctrines For Salvation?

Pulpit Magazine, one of the blogs I try to keep up with, just posted the first of a series about the "essential doctrines."

You've probably experienced frustration at some point in your Christian walk with the different interpretations of doctrine and theology exhibited in different denominations (a la Baptists or Methodists), or sects of the faith (a la Catholicism or Mormonism). At the end of the day, even if we get to heaven and find out we didn't quite figure out Calvinism vs. Arminianism (Predestination vs. Free Will), there's a certain "doctrinal requirement," if you will, that we ALL MUST agree on for salvation; so what is it??

Surely this includes accepting the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross for your sins as the crux, but what about accepting that Jesus was fully Deity(God)? If Mormons believe that Christ died for us, but that he was really Micheal the Archangel, are they going to heaven?

I look forward to the rest of this series, as the men involved in the Shepherds' Fellowship (who maintain "Pulpit Magazine") are men that hold the scripture and its right interpretation in the highest regard.

Submission To Authority

Pastor Todd spoke last night at Foundation (Crossroads' 7th-12th grade student ministry) from 1 Peter 2 on submitting to authority.

Peter starts the passage by instructing the people to be subject to every "human institution" for the Lord's sake. This is a strong witness to the world around us, which, especially in light of current political campaigns, makes a lot of sense. It seems like you can't turn on the TV, or read the paper without reading about some discontentment with this or that candidate, or even more so with our President. Whether or not we agree with everything our current President has done, does not God's word instruct us to be subject? And I don't think that "being subject" includes grumbling, and complaining, and publicly bashing the things about him we dislike.

I'm not saying I'm his number one fan or anything, but the apostle Peter reveals that it is the will of God that we submit to their authority, that we may "put to silence the ignorance of foolish people."

Anyways, enough politics, submitting to earthly authority is done in the big picture of submitting to God in faith. We live as servants of God, or more accurately, as slaves. This means every area of our life is under his authority, and he alone is the one who is the master.

The youth were challenged with thinking about what areas of their lives they have not submitted to God. The guys and girls actually competed against each other to come up with ways that they could submit to authority, and ultimately, to God.

I think one of the greatest pictures of this struggle we have of submitting is seen at the driveway of West Ranch High School on Sunday mornings, when we're all leaving the campus after church. When you pull out of the main drive of the school, there's a sign that says "No Left Turn" (you know the one!), and the road is littered with those skinny posts. However, there's enough space between the posts to make that illegal left turn, and there are many (including myself) who go ahead and turn left on the justification that the law is meant to keep order during times of traffic in and out of the school, and not on a Sunday morning.

There are also those of us who read the "No Left Turn" sign, and feel morally convicted about turning left, so they turn right. I applaud that choice. What happens next however, is that those same people get to the traffic light, and realize that there is a "No U-Turn" sign on it!! At this point, I have witnessed many of those cars go ahead and make the illegal U-Turn!! The same ones who were morally convicted to not turn left out of the driveway! They must feel that there is some kind of quota for obeying street signs, and that they somehow fulfilled their moral obligation to do so, and thus are no longer required to!!

Occasionally I watch a car go all the way down to the end of the street and make the legal U-Turn at that point, but I must say that it is a small number of cars that do.

We submit as long as it doesn't inconvenience us don't we sometimes?? Is this truly submission? Submission shouldn't be dependent on how easy it is for us to do, but should depend on the conviction of the Spirit of the living God who is within us!

Just a little food for thought. :-)

Reflections on Sunday, 02-03-2008

When you're a part of church leadership, or any type of group that takes care of the logistics of making church happen. There's a certain degree of "programming" that takes place. Not the "seeker-driven," "7 ways to live a blessed life," style of programming, but the programming that makes sure communion cups are filled, PowerPoint presentations are put together, and tries to make sure the service begins and ends on time.

For me, every once-in-a-while, the millions of synapses that have to happen in order for those programs to all work together, fire a little slower than usual, or don't fire at all, and that's not always a bad thing. The point I'm going for here, requires some set up, so stick with me...

This is yesterday morning from my perspective:

First of all, the rain. Setting up church each week is hard enough, but pulling stuff out of our little trailer under a mist of rainfall is just plain annoying. Our "Temple Building Team" serves faithfully each Sunday, rain or shine, and we thank them for their commitment.

As we set up chairs, and curtains, and sound equipment, I'm constantly fighting the urge to cough, and popping cough drops continually.

As the worship team begins our pre-service sound check/last minute rehearsing, I break one of my guitar strings. I don't have a spare set with me because I just changed them this last week; frustrating. Frosty Gray graciously volunteers to go pick some up from my office where I keep my spare sets.

We continue rehearsing, and discover that my iPod has a wrong version of one of the songs' drum tracks, rendering that track unusable; frustrating.

Frosty returns, bringing two sets of strings. I change the broken string. We take a breather and a cough drop before service begins.

Service starts, and we all worship together; glorious. Towards the end of our newer song, "From The Inside Out," I break another string; the SAME STRING. Ultra frustrating.

I go out into the lobby and change the string again (good thing Frosty brought two sets!). By this time, we've cut Pastor Jeff's preaching time down considerably, and as a speaker that always a little frustrating. (Sorry Jeff!)

As we approach the end of the service, we're forced to cut our last worship song "O Great God," which as a worship leader, is always a little frustrating as well.

We sing "This Is Love" after taking communion together, Pastor Todd prays, and we are dismissed. Phew.

Here's my point:

The first thing I realize after the service ends, is that no matter how much we feel we've messed up in the programming aspect of church, God's will, and his Word is not frustrated by our mistakes. His Word says that his strength is perfected in our weakness, and some mornings, I feel especially weak, and that's when I really see the Lord's strength.

As I fellowshipped with people after service, and they thanked me for leading them in worship, I thanked God that the morning was not dependent on our putting together a flawless program, and that his Spirit was still at work in the hearts and minds of his people.

Does this mean we shouldn't strive to honor God with careful planning and execution? No, of course not. But it's a good reminder that God's will, and the moving of his Spirit is not dependent on us. He is a good and gracious God, and when his people gather together by the blood of Christ, and corporately worship him and seek him through his Word, he is faithful to bless, encourage, convict, and as we sang together: "draw us close" to him.

Thanks Lord!!

Preparing For Worship: February 3rd

Happy Super Bowl Sunday everyone!

We're looking forward to a great morning of worshiping the Lord together, and I KNOW that no one's planning to miss just so they can watch all the pre-pre-pregame shows RIGHT??

Good ;-)

We have a special guest speaker with us this morning: Pastor Jeff Noe from Oak Hill Bible Church up in Castaic. He'll be preaching from Mark 1:1-13 on "Preparing The Way" for the kingdom of God.

Be sure to welcome Jeff and his family!

We'll call our hearts together in worship with "No Other Name," a song that reminds us that we come together as the redeemed and justified by no other name than the name of Jesus Christ, who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life!

We'll continue worshiping through hearing about ministry opportunities at Hope Gardens on Feb. 23rd, and beginning a new wave of Men's Relay discipleship groups.

Last weekend we affirmed Steve Stark and Darren Utley as our first elders at Crossroads, and this Sunday we'll corporately commission them to their new leadership positions among us, and commit to keeping them in our prayers, them and their families.

I'll lead us in response by reading from 1 Corinthians about the responsibility of imparting the testimony of God in Jesus Christ, and him crucified, and treasuring this "secret" wisdom of God which he decreed before the ages for our glory! Then we'll all sing "In The Secret" expressing our desire to know and touch God, and hear his voice speaking to us through his Word and the prompting of his Holy Spirit.

That leads into our next song "From The Inside Out" which the worship team introduced last week after Pastor Todd's sermon. Be sure to check it out so you can sing along with us as we ask for God to consume us, that we may bring him praise from the inside out!

We'll end the set with "Draw Me Close" acknowledging God's sovereignty in all things, especially regarding his relationship to us as Redeemer and Sanctifier.

Pastor Jeff will speak to us from the Word and instruct our hearts and minds in "Preparing The Way" as we submit to the illumination and conviction of the Spirit in each of our lives. What power the Spirit has! He lives in each of us, and applies the objective, unchanging truth of God's Word to our subjective, changing lives according to the sovereign plan of the Father! The apostle Paul would most likely insert a joyful doxology here, so I will do the same:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
"For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?"
"Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?"

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

After the sermon, we'll all share in the Lord's Supper together, remembering how...

"...he was wounded for our transgressions;he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed." -Isaiah 53:5

During this time, we'll sing "This Is Love" as our prayer of submission to the Lamb who was slain for our sins.

As we end the service, we'll echo a prayer of the Puritans with the song "O Great God." We did this one a number of weeks ago, and it's still new, so be sure to refresh your memory on this one as well (maybe even splurge on the $0.99 to download it!) so we can end the service with all our voices raised loud to our God!