Facedown's a-comin'

I've started turning my attention to our next installment of Facedown, which is October 29. I am so pumped about this one! I don't want to give anything away, but I can already tell you this is going to be one incredible night.

As each Facedown develops, they take on their own personality. That's what I love...each one is different. This one I've really felt God stirring in my heart that Facedown needs to go back to it's roots this time. What are those roots? Glad you asked!

Facedown is founding on Leviticus 9:23-24. In the Bradford translation (which means I'm giving a quick look at it) God's glory appears to all the people as He consumes their first offering with fire. When they saw it, the Israelites shouted for joy...but then, realizing that God had actually accepted the offering, they fell facedown with a holy fear. Those are the pillars of Facedown: shouting for joy and falling facedown. So, you could almost call this one getting back to the basics. We will encounter God that night through humbled hearts bent towards seeking His glory.

Stay tuned as things develop!

Let's Go Tigers, Let's Go

I know today isn't Thursday, but I had to post this. My Tigers (Go Mizzou) broke the Top 25 this week. Let's go Tigers, let's GO!

I realize that I'm probably the only Mizzou fan in the CSRA (except for my son!), but when your team starts 4-0 for the first time since Noah and the ark, you HAVE to celebrate!

You Never Let Go

So I decided after a few weeks of sporadic blogging that I'm going to put myself on a schedule (or a "shed-ule" like they say in the UK). So for those of you faithful readers out there (both of you), I'll be posting on Mondays and Thursdays. And that's that.

Reflecting on yesterday's services, the highlight for me was the new song "You Never Let Go". What a powerful song! It has hit me lately that people are walking around wounded all the time. And how powerful it is to know that God isn't letting go of us...that He's always with us, through the calm and through the storm. If the song hit you in a powerful way, do me a favor and put a comment here with this post about your thoughts on the song.

Well, have a great week and we'll blog at you on Thursday!

Blessed Be Your Name

Lately life has been a mess. The obvious is that 4 kids keeps us busy. So has the transition to the gym for the church. And not to mention my other duties as a husband, a father, a worship leader, a journey team leader, etc. So you can imagine the craziness of life!

Today it hit me when we were singing Blessed Be Your Name how God wants us to rely on Him despite our circumstances. If I can learn how to bless His Name regardless of what I'm going through, then I think I've taken a step closer to His heart.

It's been cool to watch the response to that song as we sing it at TNC. I have begun to realize that people connect with that song because life is messy and messed up! I'm so thankful for a God who cares about me...who loves me regardless of what or who I am.

Laughter is healing

Tonight our Jteam just had a social night. We started a new group with two awesome leaders (Jon and Jennifer Pruett), so we kept it simple tonight. After eating and doing some announcements, we played catch phrase. What a blast! I haven't laughed like that in a while.

I've always wondered what it is about laughing that can be so healing. Life has been so crazy busy lately, I needed tonight!

On another front, here's a picture of the gym on Saturday from TNC photographer Zaki Rucker:



Thanks Zaki! What a great start to a new season at TrueNorth!

We made it!

Well, we finally made it to the NAHS gym yesterday! After months of planning, purchases and preparation, we did it and it excited all expectations. God is amazing!!! I think the most powerful moment of the service was during the song "My Desire". God took over at that point and really spoke to a lot of hearts. He really worked in me through it.

So we have turned the page to a new era for TrueNorth. We've added a bunch more seats allowing more people to come in and experience the change. I'm so pumped at what our amazing God has in store for us.

To Him be the glory!

You Never Let Go

Matt Redman's new song, You Never Let Go, has been ringing in my ears this evening. There's so much hurt and pain out there...so much hopelessness and despair...so much loneliness and feelings of having no purpose...this song is a great comfort. Here are the words of the chorus:

O no, You never let go through the calm and through the storm
O no, You never let go through every high and every low
O no, You never let go, Lord, You never let go of me

I think we forget sometimes that God is with us. It's easy to feel abandon at times because we can't feel Him near us. I love the poem called footprints. The author speaks this very thought of abandonment by God...but then he realizes that God has been carrying Him.

It's interesting to me that, with all the excitement of TrueNorth moving to the gym this weekend, this would be the thought I blog about. But I think there are quite a few out there that feel this way. Those that are feeling this way have been near to my heart lately. So here's a shout of encouragement: God never lets go of you.

FryPod

Yesterday, Chuck and I went to Burger King (or as my 6 year old says, Booger King) for lunch. As I got to the register, I notice a new spin on Apple's iPod...the FryPod. I think it's brilliant!

I've seen a lot of churches do iPod type series...maybe we'll be the first to do FryPod. You never know!

Bye Bye Bye

Yesterday we bid farewell to the auditorium...or, as in the words of the immortal boyband NSync, "bye bye bye"...

It's been an amazing two years in the auditorium. God has done some incredible things through TNC in that building. To think back over these two years, I'd have to say some of my favorite moments were Facedown and Dunk'd services. Seeing people admit publicly their devotion to Christ is amazing, and we've seen a bunch do it in the auditorium! And then to see people engage their hearts with God's through Facedown worship has been equally as moving.

So now we embark on a new adventure...the gym. The setup is going to be quite elaborate. The capabilities to take production of our services to a new level has me pumped up and ready to go! And, more important than the bells and whistles are the number of seats that we are able to add so that we can reach more people with the life-changing news of Christ. That's what it's all about!

I hope you will make it a point to be there this Sunday for our new adventure into the gym and it's dunk'd! We get to see about 30 people confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of their lives!!!! That's good stuff!!!!

Blogger's Block

So I've been in a bit of a "bloggers block" lately...either nothing to write about or no time to write! As many of you know, we're moving to the gym on September 10. Waht an exciting time for TNC because we're going to be doubling our seating capacity. After seeing huge numbers the past two weeks (we had 521 in the 2nd service last Sunday, and the auditorium only seats 480!) this is a very timely move.

Other exciting stuff coming up is auditions on September 18 & 19. I'm always wary of announceing auditions because i don't think we get a true representation of what's out there. Most people assume that we would never use certain instruments because we are a guitar driven band. But that's just not true! As a matter of fact, my buddy Brian is playing trumpet for us on a song next week. I'm looking into using some strings soon. So, if you can play an instrument and you feel like you could contribute to the music at TrueNorth, sign up!

Lastly, Facedown is a month away! I'm so pumped! It will be on October 1, which is a Sunday evening service...and we'll be doing it in the gym. Good stuff! It's going to be powerful, so mark it on your calendars now.

Oh! One more thing. We've started a blog for our Creative Arts groups. Check it out at www.creativeartsblog.blogspot.com. We will use this a lot to communicate with those in the Artist Circle and the Writer's Fellowship.

Until next time...