March Madness

It's been a few days since I last posted. I have to start off by saying that the Merge Band did an amazing job leading us in worship Sunday! And Steve did a great job looking at Students Gone Wild. Good stuff!

This Sunday we start a new series called March Madness. In this series, Steve is going to look at what every team has to have to be successful...vision, leadership, teamwork, unity, and the ability to ward off criticism and negativity in order to stay focused. It will be a great series that you won't want to miss!

Lastly, Dunk'd is coming up March 25. Dunk'd is an exciting time to experience the life-changing love of Jesus as people are baptized. We'll be having one service of celebration that day at 10:45. It will be a day to remember!

Group 1 Crew

For some time now I've been frustrated with the hip-hop scene. I've been longing for something good and CLEAN, but unfortunately, there aren't many groups out there that combine quality with family-friendly lyrics. (My kids like hip-hop too!) Anyway, I was on iTunes yesterday checking out new releases and came across this group to the left here: Group 1 Crew. I'm sure there are some out there that don't like hip-hop, but for those that do, I highly recommend these guys. The music is well done and the lyrics are great. A lot of times Christian rap and hip-hop groups have a lot of cheese-whiz in their lyrics. There's no cheese here! For those parents out there with kids that like Black-Eyed Peas and similar groups, this is a terrific alternative.

Check out this video for a sample...

Power

I read this yesterday in a devotional email I get from the writings ofA.W. Tozer:

The continued neglect of the Holy Spirit by evangelical Christians is too evident to deny and impossible to justify....

It is not, however, the frequency of the Spirit's mention in the Bible or in other writings that matters most, but the importance attached to Him when He is mentioned. And there can be no doubt that there is a huge disparity between the place given to the Spirit in the Holy Scriptures and the place He occupies in popular evangelical Christianity. In the Scriptures the Holy Spirit is necessary. There He works powerfully, creatively; here He is little more than a poetic yearning or at most a benign influence. There He moves in majesty, with all the attributes of the Godhead; here He is a mood, a tender feeling of good will....

The only power God recognizes in His church is the power of His Spirit whereas the only power actually recognized today by the majority of evangelicals is the power of man. God does His work by the operation of the Spirit, while Christian leaders attempt to do theirs by the power of trained and devoted intellect. Bright personality has taken the place of the divine afflatus.

I think Tozer's onto something here. I read a book years ago by Charles Stanley called The Wonderful Spirit-Filled Life. In it, Stanley introduced me to the Holy Spirit in a way I never thought of or realized. He presented the third person in the "three in one" aspect of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit). It blew my mind! I came to understand that the Spirit is not some magical thing that happens by coincidence. No, He is as alive and active as Jesus the Son and God the Father. Check this out in Romans 8:26-28 (MSG):

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

I'm starting to see how little I believe in the power of the Spirit. I'm beginning to realize that my life is lacking the wonderful spirit-filled life. And I look around and realize I'm not the only one. What would our world look like if we would start to see the Spirit for more than a warm fuzzy feeling we get when we sing a song? How different would our lives be if we did more than just talk about the Spirit changing our world and actually believe that He WILL change the world?

Father- help us to see that there's more to the Trinity than just Father and Son.
Jesus- thank you for sending the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Spirit- come and pour out Your power in my life and those around me. Let us see You for who You are.

TNC Hero

I'm going to try and post periodically to recognize someone at TrueNorth that goes above and beyond...a TNC Hero if you will.

Today, I'd like to look at a man many know as our drummer Justin's dad. But those of us that know him know him as Jeff Benson. Jeff is one of those behind the scenes, not looking for any glory kind of people. This guy loves to give and give and give! When you drive up to TrueNorth every Sunday you may notice the signs that are posted that say "Welcome to TrueNorth" or something about first time visitors and where they should park. Those signs are put up by my man Jeff. He also helps set up stuff on the stage, particularly the entire drum kit and anything else that needs it. And then there's teardown. After he finishes with the drums and the signs, he's helping collect trash and locking up the school.

The thing I love about it all is that he does it because he loves the church and believes in the vision of TrueNorth. Every once in a while he'll make the comment to me about how what we do is so good for people that don't like church. It makes it easy for them to come and see that God loves them and that He wants to have a relationship with them that transforms their lives.

So, hats off to Jeff Benson. You'll always be a TNC Hero in my book!

Worship Across the World

I've been reading more and more about worship around the world...and I have to say that it's very exciting! It's made me realize that the world is a very small place. Check out this video from a church in southeast Asia...



Worship, but more specifically music, is a universal language. It doesn't matter what language you speak. I am excited about this video because it comes from a country that we are focusing on in our missions efforts. God is moving and I believe music is going to lead the front! More on this later...

Gone Wild

We started our new series, Gone Wild, on Sunday...and Steve talked about Chicks Gone Wild. It was a great message on what a women gone wild for God would look like. He focused on Deborah, a judge in the nation of Israel. It was a very good message, encouraging women to focus on how God sees beautiful, which is on the inside going out, and not how our society sees it, which is skin deep.

To kick off the message, Steve did a fun little video where he tried to catch a chicken. Fun stuff!!! Check it out...

Chasing Lions

I just finished reading probably one of the best books I've read in a long time. The book is called In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day by Mark Batterson. The purpose of the book is to help us realize that opportunities are meant to be seized, even when they are disguised as ferocious lion. Here are some of the things that stuck out to me...

-"God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time. But the right place often seems like the wrong place, and the right time often seems like the wrong time."

-"When we don't have the guts to step out in faith and chase the lions, then God is robbed of the glory that rightfully belongs to Him."

-"Lion chasers thrive in the toughest circumstances because they know that impossible odds set the stage for amazing miracles."

-"The more we grow, the bigger God should get. And the bigger God gets, the smaller our lions become."

-"Faith is unlearning the senseless worries and misguided beliefs that keep us captive. Faith is rewiring the human brain. Neurologically speaking, that is what we do when we study scripture. We are literally upgrading our minds by downloading the mind of Christ."

-"One of the greatest things that could happen to you is for your fear to become reality. Then you would discover that it's not the end of the world. Your fear is worse than the actual thing you're afraid of. And if you learn from every mistake, then there is no such thing as failure anyway."

-"We should stop asking God to get us out of difficult circumstances and start asking Him what He wants us to get out of those difficult circumstances."

-"Worship is forgetting about what's wrong with you and remembering what's right about God."

There is so much more that I wish I could share, but then I'd basically be typing the whole book out. It's that good! That last quote on worship is so powerful. How many times do I come into the Presence of God and worry about my short comings? I am very guilty of this. But the times when I focus on Him, my short comings fade away and I don't even remember what I was getting hung up on. That's a truth we need to drive deep into our lives. Because when we worship Him for who He is, all the lions start to seem like tame little "puddy-tats".

Jill Phillips at TNC

This weekend, TrueNorth is in for a special treat! Recording artist Jill Phillips will be performing and leading worship at the CHICKS retreat tonight and tomorrow, and then joining us Sunday morning at TNC. Jill is an incredible artist whom I'd compare to Norah Jones, Sheryl Crow, and Fiona Apple. Her husband, Andy, will be with her accompanying her on guitar and adding vocals. You can check out some of her music on her myspace page.

You won't want to miss this Sunday!

Burn For You

I haven't done this much on here, but I have to encourage you to get Steve Fee's new CD, Burn For You. Steve is one of the worship leaders at 7|22 in Atlanta. He's written quite a few songs, including TNC favorites "Glorious One" and "Madly". There are so many great songs on this album, and the way this album points the listener to the cross with honesty and passion is amazing! A very unique album both musically and lyrically, which can become rare in today's Christian musical landscape.

You can buy the album here. So what are you waiting for????

Link'd Up

If you haven't heard yet, we have an exciting ministry that is making an impact in our community in a huge way! Check out today's post on the Link'd Up blog for a letter from the Hispanic Ministry that they helped this past weekend. Awesome stuff!

A Simple Church

If you missed today's message, I highly recommend watching it via our website or downloading the podcast to listen to it. It was a very important message for our church! Steve recast the vision of TrueNorth Church with a message titled "A Simple Church". To give a Cliff Notes version, TNC exists to transform spiritual seekers into passionate followers of Christ. How do we do that? By helping people walk their way through the TrueLife Triangle, which has one of the following at each point: Lift Up, Love In, and Live Out. This is something you will be seeing a lot at TNC because this is the basics of who we are and what we believe truly transforms people.

So Simplify has come to a close and I must it was a fantastic series. I don't think there are many subjects more relevant to people today. If you missed any weeks, I'd encourage you to check out the podcast which is available on the main page of our website.

Lastly, you won't want to miss the next three weeks as we start our new series, "Gone Wild". You can see the artwork to the right here. Matt, our grahic designer, came with a fun design for the program. Nice! So what is this series going to be about? Well, we live in a world in which outrageous, rebellious behavior is often described as "gone wild". However, the Scripture gives a different spin to the term. We will discover the lives of individuals whose outrageous and radical behavior turned their world upside down for God!

There are lots of exciting things on the horizon for TrueNorth...you won't want to miss anything!

Robots

Ran across this on the Catalyst Blog...

"Robots may vote and be entitled to healthcare in 50 years. No, this is not intended as a joke. It is a serious prediction in a study commissioned by Great Britain’s Office of Science and Innovation’s Horizon Scanning Center. The predictions for developments by 2056 include an examination of the potential advances in artificial intelligence. The paper predicts a monumental shift could take place “if” robots develop the ability to reproduce or upgrade themselves, according to the BBC. If such advancement occurs, robots could be granted voting rights, be provided housing and healthcare benefits, and be required to pay taxes, and serve in the military."

All of a sudden I'm having Terminator and Matrix flashbacks!