Set List 08.09.09

Here is the music that we used for Sunday 08.09.09 - Week 2 of "Indescribable"

[Opening Song]
Creed - Rich Mullins (Third Day Version)

[Worship Set]
Desert Song - Brooke Fraser
My Savior, My God - Aaron Shust

[Sermon]
Rev. Steve Hogg

[Communion]
Communion - Third Day

[Closing Song]
Nothing But The Blood - Robert Lowry

Well this week, I was totally immersed in "Creed". We had practiced the song for two weeks or so and I had been struggling with the intro vocals a lot. So I just decided to listen to the intro over and over and over...You get the idea. And that is exactly what I did...ALL WEEK! Needless to say, I became a little tired of the intro to the song after about a hundred run-throughs of personal practice. And I guess that I had psyched myself up about how well the song was going to go over. Because I was hoping for more energy from the congregation, but I felt like it was a little flat. Don't know if I was expecting too much or if people just were not familiar with it or what it was. We are planning on kicking off the "REFRESH" service on Sept 6 with that song, so we may bring it back once more to remind REVEAL of it so that they can kick-start the energy that morning.

On a much more positive note: Stacy was supposed to sing "Desert Song" again this weekend. But Saturday morning she came down with some kind of head cold thing. She texted me and my wife, Lori, to let us know. Lori basically learned the song Saturday morning and led it in worship on Sunday and did a GREAT JOB! For those of you who lead on a regular basis, you know how hard it is to lead a new song on short notice. Thanks Lori, for all your hard work on that song.

Finally, I broke a string during the set this week, but thankfully it was on the last 4 bars of the last song - PRAISE GOD! It is really distracting to break a string and I am grateful that it lasted through the service.

As always, part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Manic Monday

At about 10:00am I started a blog entry that recapped yesterday. Then the phone rang. Twelve hours later, no new blog, no recap. A lot of things can happen when we answer the phone.

I spent the rest of the day 'putting out fires' which is really just another way of saying I was doing ministry, maybe unplanned ministry, but ministry nonetheless.

Also at some point during the day, I found out that a question I sent to Andy Stanley had been published in Outreach Magazine. So I guess you could say that I've had a conversation with Andy Stanley AND my writing has been published in Outreach Magazine.

You could say that. I don't think I will though.

Tonight, I had a planning meeting for Refresh (September 6 at FBC). I tweeted after the meeting that I'm pumped about the worship experience that is being planned. Two hours later, I am even more pumped.

Refresh is September 6 at 10:00am. Put the date on your calendar. You do NOT want to miss it.

Tomorrow, I will be leaving for Atlanta with our college group in the morning to go to the aquarium and a Braves-Natinals game. We won't get back until 2 or 3 in the morning on Wednesday. No blog post from me tomorrow.

I will try to get a recap of Sunday up then. It was a really good day at First Baptist and Reveal.

-- Peace, Jamie

PS - I misspelled Nationals above on purpose. This happened at the beginning of the season and PTI hasn't let them live it down since.

View From the Top

On Thursday morning, I headed out of Rock Hill with Elizabeth and Victoria to go to Crowder's Mountain State Park. Our goal for the morning was to take the Tower Trail up to the top of Crowder's Mountain. A couple of years ago, we had made a similar drive and hiked to the top of King's Pinnacle.

My confession is that while I am not much of a camper - my idea of roughing it is a hotel room without ESPN - I enjoy hiking a lot. I like seeing the wildlife on the trail. I love hiking beside streams and waterfalls. But my favorite part of the hike is getting to the top and looking down over the houses, trees, and cars and seeing the landscape roll off in the distance.

When we crested Crowder's, we walked past the communications towers and up a small path to a rock ledge that gave us a great view to the east. We ate PB&J sandwiches, drank a bottle of water and took some pictures.

We'd been there about 30 minutes when I noticed that off in the distance I could see the skyline of downtown Charlotte. WOW! Thirty to forty miles from downtown and yet I could see the skyscrapers in the distance. In a few hours, we would be in the parking lot at the base of the mountin and not able to see the Charlotte skyline. We would drive toward Charlotte on I-85 and still wouldn't be able to see the Charlotte skyline. It was only from the top that we were able to get a different view on our surroundings, to see things in the distance, to see things that we wouldn't otherwise be able to see.

I don't get to the top of enough mountains. Life gets busy. Schedules get squeezed. I get too tired or lazy to make the climb. But when I do, I am always amazed by the view and awed by the perspective.

-- Peace, Jamie

PS - If you want to check out some pics from the top of Crowder's Mountian and you're on Facebook, go here.

This Weekend

Here's a quick update on Reveal for this weekend.

• We are in week 2 of Indescribable. Steve will be touching on the eternal nature and personality of God. God is much more than an impersonal force or idea. He is a personal God who desires a relationship with each of us. Some verses to check out to get ready for Sunday - Psalm 90:2; 102:12, 24-27; John 4:24; and Malachi 3:6.
  

• We will celebrate the Lord's Supper together. To me, this is one of the highlights of worship. Joining together as a community to remember and to celebrate the work of Christ should be both sobering and encouraging.

• Here are a couple of Scripture passages to look at to get ready for Sunday: Luke 22:14-20 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.I look forward to seeing you at Reveal this Sunday.

-- Peace, Jamie

Community

A book that I am reading has a quote in it that intrigued me: “There is a reason the word belonging has a synonym for want at its center; it is the human condition.”

The more I thought about that quote, the more I realized that much of what we are about in Reveal and in First Baptist is helping people find a place to belong, a group of people who are doing life together, a way of life that reveals to the world around us the fantastic, overwhelming, amazing love of the Father.

People in our culture are looking for connection. That's why Facebook and MySpace and Twitter have become so popular. But there is something lacking in those venues - the face-to-face interaction that brings with it a human touch. That's why we have small groups. That's why we do lunch once a month together. That's why it's so important for us to connect with one another.

-- Peace, Jamie

Set List 08.02.09

Here is the music that we used for Sunday 08.02.09: Week 1 of "Indescribable"

[Opening Song]
(F#m) - My Glorious - Martin Smith

[Welcome]

[Worship Set]
(B) - Song of Hope (Heaven Come Down) - Robbie Seay Band
(A) - God of Wonders - Steve Hindalong
(G) - Indescribable - Chris Tomlin

[Message]
Rev. Steve Hogg

[Closing Song]
(C) - Word Of God Speak - MercyMe

This Sunday kicked off our new series "Indescribable" - we are going to spend 5 weeks trying to describe something that we are telling you from the beginning is indescribable. (Insert laughter here). Actually, this series is about the Doctrine of God. I am so pumped about this series. I have been re-reading one of my systematic theology books from seminary (you know, just some light reading) and God has been blowing my mind and I know that this series will continue that trend. It has been my prayer for this series that the congregation will have their myths about God shattered and that truth will "flow down like rain" over them.

"Indescribable" was the only new song for us this week. All of the others we have done before. Once again we had a great crowd for the summer. Like I said before, I was really thinking that we would be doing good to be around 35-40 for each week during the summer. Boy did God blow that one out of the water. We have been averaging 55-60 each week. We have a ton of momentum going in to the Fall and hopefully with another marketing push, Winthrop students coming back, and a great relationship series coming up (Marriage for Dummies) in September/October we will be poised to get our average over 100 for the fall.

Lunch was great. We had subs from Wal-Mart, and it was good to chat with some of our peeps after the service. This has been a great time of fellowship for our group and I continue to look forward to what God is going to do in our church and our city through our people.

As always part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set Lists.

Dream Big...Pray Bigger!

Will

Sunday

Yesterday was week one of our new sermon series, "Indescribable." Steve was back after a well-earned vacation. The goal of Indescribable is to help us know God and what He is like so that we can experience life-change through His transformation and shaping of us and also so that we can explain more about Him to others so that they can experience life-change through knowing Him.

Because I was signed up for childcare for Reveal, I knew I was going to miss the message so I slipped into our 9:15 gathering for part of the sermon. Here are some of the highlights:

• Knowledge of God is intended to change who we are.
• Our view of God shapes our lives, our values, our priorities, our focus, our spending, our morals.
• The Bible assumes that God exists. (In fact, Psalm 14:1 says that those who deny God's existence are fools.)
• Knowing doctrine is important. It helps us with questions and different views that many people have.
  
• God reveals Himself to us through General Revelation (Nature) and Specific Revelation (Jesus & Scripture).
• We can learn a lot about God but it is useless if it doesn't change our lives.
• Steve ended with a great question - what are you doing with what you already know about God?

While I was supposed to be in childcare, I was in reality running around helping some of our volunteers get set up for lunch following Reveal. We have GREAT volunteers. We definitely could not have pulled off lunch yesterday without them.

I missed being in the room for Reveal but there was a good crowd there again yesterday. It has been a great summer and there are only two more Sundays before school cranks up again.

-- Peace, Jamie