Merge and My Hero of the Week

I went to Merge's kick-off tonight at the Mission. It was really cool! The band rocked out some classic 90's hits, as well as Marvelous Light and Here is Our King. They sounded great! Chip did a great job casting the vision for Merge, in that it will be a place for 18 to 30 year olds to connect with God, despite their background with church. The turnout was somewhere between 60-70, pretty awesome! I'm pumped about this new ministry at TNC and to see what God is going to do with it!

To close, I'd like to bring back the hero of the week thing and say that my hero this week is Laurie. Last night, I decided to help her out by letting her rest and I'd take care of making dinner and watching the kids. I have a new appreciation for her! To have to feed an infant, keep a toddler and a 4-year old entertained, help our 1st grader with his homework, cook meatloaf, mash potatoes, and cook some veggies...WOW! I will not be quitting my day job any time soon!!! (At this very moment, I can hear the sound of mothers everywhere joining in a mighty AMEN!) So, baby, this ones for you. YOU ROCK!!!!

It's BAAAAAACCCKKK!!!

Merge

Tomorrow night at the Mission in downtown Augusta, we start our new college/career ministry called Merge. It's a one of kind night geared toward college and 20-somethings. Hope to see you there!

Merge
Tuesday @ 7:44P
The Mission (12th & Broad)

Behind the Song: There Is Joy

We recently introduced a new song I wrote called "There is Joy" at TrueNorth. The response has been overwhelming as more and more start catching on to it. So I thought I'd do a little "behind the song" and let you know how it came about.

I got the idea middle of last year to do a song about joy. I'm not really sure why except that I have never written a song on joy. As I got to thinking about it, I started reflecting on the environment of celebration and worship at TrueNorth on Sundays. And it hit me: there is joy in this place. But why? Most songs I've seen on joy talk more about the fact that I have joy, but not much on why we have joy. And there came the next little bit: it's Your love, it's Your grace, it's You.

And that was where the song started and stayed for quite a few months. I heard Matt Redman say once that a song has to brew like a good cup of tea. (of course, he's British, and Brits are the masters of tea!) I would compare it to a good gallon of sweet tea. You've got to boil the water and let it steep for at least 24 hours to really get the flavor going. And then, you add sugar and water to produce the truly great southern drink we all know and love! In other words, these words, this half chorus, brewed in my heart for some months before the song flowed out one day.

It all has been inspired by the environment of praise at TNC. I am so blessed to be apart of this church. Not many churches have such a dynamic worship experience every week. So, thank you TNC for inspiring this song in my heart!

Can you feel it in the air, it's thick in here
It's the Presence of the Holy One
Can you hear the sound of voices singing out loud
All this for our One and only King

There is joy in this place
It's Your love, it's Your grace, it's You, it's You
Hear our praises now resound
We're lifting up a joyful sound for You, for You

Make a joyful noise and shout (yeah yeah yeah)
Clap your hands and shake the walls in here

There is joy in this place
It's Your love, it's Your grace, it's You, it's You
Hear our praises now resound
We're lifting up a joyful sound for You, for You

Slammed Video

Well, we've heard so many great comments on Sunday's return of the "Slammed" Video, that I thought it would be a great idea to upload it to YouTube. And speaking of YouTube, TNC now has it's very own channel! So you'll be able to watch Slammed videos, Dunk'd videos, testimonial videos and anything else we decide to post. Good stuff!

So, here it is:

Random Thoughts

Just a couple of random things to start the week...

*the simplify series is rockin' along at TrueNorth...it's definitely rockin' my world!
*if you missed it, walt and chip (our new college guy) morphed into wayne and garth today in the slammed video. party on!
*for those of you who have been reading along regularly, you know that GOD has me parked in the book of Colossians for a while now. what an amazing book! He's shown me some really cool things lately, which i hope to post on later this week.
*i've posted the new song we've been doing at church (there is joy) on my purevolume site as well as my myspace page. check it out!
*merge (our new college ministry) is kicking off next tuesday night at the mission in downtown augusta. keep them in your prayers as they start this new, exciting ministry!

i think that about empties my brain...

Prayer Request

Today and tonight is the Staff / Lead Team retreat Steve has mentioned recently in one of his messages. Please pray for us as we look toward the future and seek what God wants TrueNorth to do as we continue pursuing the mission He's given us to reach the unchurched in our area.

American Idol (Minneapolis & Seattle)

Well, Season 6 is off to a bang. Honestly I think they should have skipped Minneapolis and Seattle. Wow, they were bad! I love this show...the beginning of the season is all about the funny stuff. I've almost convinced myself that they pay some of these people to be that bad. Can anyone be THAT bad and believe they can sing? Can we say delusional?

So next week they come southward to Memphis. Now they'll get to hear some "sanging".

For those of you who missed it, here's a link to see a recap of the first night in Minneapolis. Enjoy!

A.I. is Back!

American Idol starts back up tonight. Good stuff!!! Laurie and I love the early rounds because you get to see some really funny stuff. I mean, who could ever forget about William Hung????

Tribute to MLK

Having been in full-time ministry the past year I've come to discover the many different approaches to church there are. As a matter of fact, my head starts spinning after a while in any effort to keep up with all of them. And you can imagine how they conflict. You've got Calvinists vs Armenianists, which boils to down to key theological differences that, in the grand scheme of things, don't matter a whole lot. Then you've also got the newer debate over HOW to do church: traditionalist, contemporary, and emergent.

Then I ran across this. It put things into perspective. I confess I've never watched all of Dr. King's famous speech until now, and it is very moving. The message is simple. He had a a dream of an America without racism. That's it. He didn't get caught up in debates of how to end racism, he just made the call for whites and blacks to be treated equally (and that spills into so many other ethnicities today).

So it's spurred a thought in me that sometimes we can get so caught up in the "new thing" of church that we forget the basics. I'm convinced that it doesn't matter your presentation, as long as you speak relevantly to people today and constantly grow an authentic community for people to connect in. The presence of a band or a choir or an organ or none of the above doesn't matter if you don't have the heart of Christ beating throughout your church. It's all smoke and mirrors if you don't.

So on this day, I'd like to offer a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. and say thank you for being an inspiration. If you never watched his speech, I would encourage you to click on the link above and watch the whole thing.

Simplifying Life

We've been talking a lot around the Bradford house this week of how we can simplify our lives. One huge thing is not eating out. We've officially gone on strike! We got to thinking about the money that we waste on food (it hit me that for the same price of a large Coke at Mickey D's, we could get a 2-Liter!), as well as how it really does complicate our lives. We don't spend as much time as a family and stress levels get higher because we have four kids to get ready. (There have been times that we decided to stay home once we got everyone ready because of the craziness!)

Another way for me personally is to limit the amount of time I spend on small things so that I can be more efficent on the big things. For example, I LOVE reading blogs. I could waste an entire day reading blogs. But I would definitely consider it a small part of my day. So I'm going to limit the amount of time I spend on reading them. That's just one example.

I think the Simplify series is going to do a lot to help me get a better grasp of life!

Images of Worship

Sometimes the best thoughts of worship are brought through seeing God's creation. (Photo courtesy of Mike Adams, Final Vision)

Facedown Pics

Thanks to Mike Adams for capturing the night!

iPhone

For those of you that don't know me very well, I'm a huge Mac-user. (Hi, I'm Kevin...and I'm a Mac-a-holic.) Apple announced today what I've been waiting on for a long time now...the new iPhone. This thing looks awesome! You can check it out here.

All I can say is SWEET!!!!

You Go Girl!

This is a picture of my beautiful wife (right) and our friend, Andra (left). Last night, Andra celebrated 5 years of sobriety and we had the privilege of being there.

Andra and her husband Jay came into our lives a little more than two years ago. They started coming to TrueNorth in the fall of 2004, just a month or two after we launched. In December, Jay prayed to receive Christ (Andra had already done so before). And then in January they visited our Journey Team. And since then our friendship has become increasingly more like family. We have had the joy of watching both of them grow in Christ.

It has been through Jay and Andra that Laurie and I have had our eyes opened to the real world. You see, we both have been pretty naive and sheltered through our lives. So we started asking lots of questions. We learned about drugs and alcohol like we never knew before. We also learned about the struggle of recovery and the importance of groups like A.A. And as we did, we started meeting new friends in recovery, welcoming them with open arms. We grew a lot during that year.

Jay and Andra stepped out in the early Spring of 2006 to be Journey Team leaders. My eyes well with pride whenever I think about it. This guy does a hero of the day often on his blog. To steal from him a bit, I'd like to say that Andra is the hero of the day for me. Overcoming addictions to drugs and alcohol and dealing with the highs and lows of recovery, she has earned where she is today.

All I can say is, "You go girl!"

Simplify Series

We started our new series, Simplify, today at TrueNorth. If you weren't there to hear Steve's message, then you need to watch it on our website this week! This series is a must see for everyone in our fast-paced, busy society. Steve hit a homerun today to kick it all off! And we had our biggest non-holiday attendance yet with 1175! And it rained!

I'm pumped to see what God has in store for us throughout the rest of this series!

The Missing Generation

I read this on this blog today.

A growing body of research suggests Generation Y and Echo Boomers (age mid-20s and younger) are civic-minded and socially conscious as individuals, consumers and employees. They may be less radical than boomer activists of the '60s and '70s and due to the Internet are much more aware of the world. 61% feel personally responsible for making a difference in the world. 69% consider a company's social and environmental commitment when deciding where to shop, and 83% trust socially/environmentally responsible companies more. Many want to help their country by working for the government. Among Hispanics, the CIA, the State Department and the FBI rank only below Walt Disney (the #1 choice) as an ideal employer. Among blacks, the FBI ranked 2nd, the State Department 4th. The CIA rounded out the top 10. 66% of college freshmen believe it is essential or very important to help others in difficulty. Volunteerism by college students increased by 20% from '02 to '05.

This is a very important thing for churches to make a part of our DNA. There are two things that strike me here. First, I've been reading a lot this past year about how an entire generation is missing from the church, that being those in their twentys. And there are so many theories as to why this is. Some of these I agree with, some I don't.

The second eye-opener for me is the above paragraph...the fact that this same age group wants to be a part of changing the world. They want to be active in the world and in their communities, changing it for the better. They want to help others. Is it just me or does the church have a golden opportunity here? What other organization/mission is in a better place to make an impact on the world than the body of Christ?

It's sad to me that the very purpose the church was created for is the very thing people are hungry for, and the church abandoned it so long ago. Now, I do see churches being this all over the country. But unfortunately there are so many more that aren't. Many churches have homeless ministries, or they are reaching across racial lines, or they are providing father figures for the fatherless. It's awesome! But there's so much more to do.

When we had Facedown this past Sunday in downtown Augusta, I was amazed at the number of homeless that came. But why should I be? They are searching for something like the rest of us. And some of them found it. One gentleman had asked a church member for some money for food. The TNC'er told him to come to Facedown, the entire thing, and then afterward he would give him some money. Afterward, the gentleman was in the lobby and didn't seem to want to the money. His response was that he'd been feed in more ways than could be imagined! You see, that's what needs to happen more often. Meeting people's needs, showing them that we care about them. And through it all, showing them the love of Christ.

That's what it's going to take to bring back an entire generation...

Praying for others

I've started a journey through Colossians in my own study time recently. What an incredible book! I'd encourage everyone to read through this book.

Some verses that have struck me from the very start are in chapter 1, verses 3-14. These verses are a great model prayer for us in how we lift up our fellow Christ-followers.

Paul and Timothy begin by telling the Colossians that they have been thanking God for this pocket of believers. It occured to me that when I pray for someone, I should really stop and be thankful for that person. Here, Paul and Timothy are thankful for three things: their faith in Christ, their love for all the saints, and for the hope that is laid up in heaven for them.

They go on then to tell the church that they haven't ceased praying for them, and they begin a list of things they have prayed:

-to be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding;
-to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully and pleasing to God
-to bear fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God
-to be strengthened with all power, according to God's glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy

And then they give thanks for the their salvation, that God the Father has qualified the Colossians to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

I long to incorporate this in my own prayer life every day, to stop and give thanks, thoughtful thanks, for those I'm praying for. When I say thoughtful thanks, I mean to offer more than "God, thank you for George", but to stop and really think why I'm thankful for George. I can only imagine what this would do in my relationships if I would stop and really give thoughtful thanks for those around me! And then to pray all of these things above for my family, friends and acquaintances. They are powerful things. Imagine if each of those requests came to be in our lives what would happen!

So that's my two cents for today...

Radiate

It's finally here! The first TrueNorth CD is out and available. The whole thing turned out great. It's cool to finally have something that captures the spirit of worship at TNC!

So make sure you pick up your copy. You can get it Sundays at the Info Center for $12!!! Good stuff!

Indescribable!

Reflecting on Facedown last night all I can say is "What an amazing night!". What else can you say when 730 worshippers of God get together and raise the roof with His praises?

For those interested in getting your hands on a copy of the Louie Giglio message we showed, click here and then look under the section titled "Messages". What an amazing message!

So, another edition of Facedown has come and gone and now we move into a new year in 2007. I pray you have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!