Just a reminder that this post is all part of Fred McKinnon's larger Sunday Set List project.

Centerpoint Church 11/30/08

Opening Set
    -More Than Ever (Robbie Reider, Allen Fuller)
    -Your Love Is Deep (Dan Collins, Jami Smith,
     Susanna Bussey)
    -The Glory Of It All (David Crowder)

Closing Song
    -Came To My Rescue (Dylan Thomas, Joel Davies,
     Marty Sampson)

We had an interesting morning today.  Rehearsal was running smoothly, until we discovered that the projector wouldn't come on... normally wouldn't be a problem, we'd just pull the lift in and check it out.  Not so.  The lift had absolutely no juice, so we couldn't move it from it's home.  Lame.  Switch to the backup projector (which we've done a couple times before).  Of course, then the computer crashed... twice... and at that point we knew we were in trouble.  The bad news is that we had to start about 10 minutes late (not good!).  The good news is that everything ran pretty smoothly once we actually got started, everything went really well.

We opened with a set of "favorites" today and pulled out a couple of songs we hadn't done in quite a while.  Lots of fun and the congregation was definitely into it.  We started our Advent series this morning - "Searching For More Than Santa", and we had a lot of "extra" stuff today - a clip from "Miracle on 34th Street", a drama piece, and communion.  I thought everything went really well and the flow was really good.  We came out of communion into "Came To My Rescue" (one of my favorites!)... it made a really nice closing!

I'll be headed out of town this evening for Thanksgiving with my family, so there won't be much happening here for the next few days.  I'm sure I'll be Twittering plenty, though :-P  I even dropped my feed down here for you all:

Don't say I never made it easy for you :-)

Have a blessed Thanksgiving everyone!  "See" you in a few days!

Just a friendly reminder that this post is part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set List Carnival.

Centerpoint Church 11/23/08

Opening Set
    -Everlasting God (Brenton Brown, Ken Riley)
    -Your Name (Paul Baloche, Glenn Packiam)
    -Waiting On You Again (Casey Corum, Brent
     Helming)

Closing Song
    -Mighty To Save (Reuben Morgan, Ben Fielding)

This week we wrapped up the "Prescriptions For Peace" series we've been in for the last five weeks.  The message title was "It's About How You Think", drawing from the second half of Philippians 4.  We used an in-house drama called "The Art Critics" which put a funny new spin on the whole glass half full/glass half empty conversation.  It came off really well.

Musically I kind of went for congregational favorites this week... pulled out "Waiting On Your Again" for the first time in a while - incredible song.  We also brought back "Mighty To Save" from last week to keep it fresh in people's minds.

We had a couple of technical glitches during rehearsal this morning, but once service time came around everything ran pretty smoothly.  Looking forward to our Creative Worship meeting on Tuesday night to tackle Advent!

We essentially skipped fall entirely this year here in Ohio.  We went from temps in the mid 70s to the 20s-30s over about three days.  I don't mind the cold, though, especially if we get some snow (I figure if it's going to be cold enough to snow, there should be some on the ground!).  Which we did last night.  We've had snow a couple of times already this year, but it hasn't stuck.  By the time I left Westerville Symphony rehearsal last night, the roads were a little slick, but the view out my window this morning was gorgeous.  Some of the snow has melted now, but it's still a nice view.  And I'm not complaining.

Mashable's 2nd annual Open Web Awards are going on right now.  Lots of very cool companies represented... you should vote!  You can even vote right here!

See?  Wasn't that easy?

We're working through 1 Kings with our men's Bible study right now on Tuesday mornings.  This week we worked on chapter 18... which means last week we did 17, and next week we'll be doing 19.  I've written about this passage before, but these three chapters are among my favorite scriptures, so I thought I would once again share a few thoughts...

(Read 1 Kings 17-19 here.)

The reason that I love this passage so much is that it shows us God's grace and providence in our inexperience and doubt.  If Elijah, who was not only greatly blessed by God but also spoke on His behalf as His profit, struggled with these issues, should we really be surprised that we have trouble today?  Let's take it one chapter at a time:

Chapter 17 is a perfect picture of God's willingness to provide, and a passage that I come back to again and again when I'm having a tough time... it's also a huge trust building exercise for Elijah!  God tells Elijah to go out into the wilderness (essentially) and eat whatever the ravens bring him.  Now, I can only imagine having to trust birds for your dinner... but they did bring him food.  Until the brook dried up.  See, God had just sent a drought over the land (using Elijah as his messenger).  So God talks to Elijah again.  This time he tells him to go to a village called Zarephath, which he does.  There he finds a widow, who, despite having no money and no food and a son to care for, agrees to feed him.  Again God is faithful, providing a seemingly neverending supply of flour and oil.  Elijah even gets to bring the afformentioned son back from the dead.  Pretty cool.

It seems that by Chapter 18, God thought Elijah was ready for the real task that was ahead of him... he sends Elijah back to King Ahab to say that rain is coming... and to challenge the prophets of Baal to a little contest.  Long story short... Elijah wins that contest in a BIG way (with some major help from God) and the prophets of Baal end up... well... dead.  On top of that, God does send rain... amazing!  God has delivered on everything he said he would... seems like Elijah should be feeling pretty good right now, right?  Wrong.

He runs away... he runs all the way to Mount Sinai and hides in a cave.  And then, when God asks him about it (we're into 19 now), he has the audacity to doubt God's faithfulness (God had even provided him with food to aid him in his journey to Mount Sinai!).  Elijah thinks he's all alone in his virtue and faith (which we know isn't true).  The incredible thing is that even after all of this, God still shows patience with Elijah... He still has work for him to do.  He puts on a pretty good show of wind and earthquake and fire... but then he comes to Elijah in the gentle whisper that so many Christians now refer to as the still, small voice of God.  He gives Elijah his instructions, and Elijah goes.

My point is this: Elijah was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life and was used by God in extraordinary ways.  And yet he doubted himself and God all the time.  God always provided anyways.  God took care of Elijah because he was doing His (God's) work.  God still calls us to trust Him for our needs.  He may not ask us to wait for ravens or widows to bring us our food, or to stand up to one of the most powerful people in the world, but He still expects us to rely on Him for our strength and provisions... and He still provides.

...And yet we still doubt.  We still wonder if God will really come through for us.  We still try to rely on ourselves.  And we wonder why we don't succeed?  God is still whispering... we just need to step back from ourselves and from our lives and listen.  We need to get our instructions, find out where and how our needs will be met, and then go!  We never lack a plan, only the ability to find and trust in it.

I had a request to post the Letterman spoof that we did this past Sunday... so here it is:

Pastor Dave's Top 10 Ways to Stop Worrying

10. Be Happy - As in "Don't Worry, Be Happy!" (cue
      cheesy music - and yes, we used it) 

9. Go shopping for $150,000 worth of new clothes!  

8. Make an insanely large donation to the church.
    (sure would help me stop worrying!)  

7. Be endorsed by Oprah.  

6. Birth Control  

5. Apply for a government bailout and then go to a
    luxurious spa in Cancun!  

4. Back out of your hunting trip with Dick Cheney!  

3. Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate.  

2. Fall asleep to another one of Pastor Dave's
    sermons.  

And the #1 Way to Stop Worrying...  

1. Play Michigan! (what can I say, the whole state is
    obsessed this week!)

Obviously the sermon that followed this sketch made it pretty clear that none of these things could actually take our worry away... only a relationship with Christ can do that.  Our congregation responded well to it, though :-)

Well, it's 4:30 AM and I've been completely unable to fall asleep.  This happens about once a month... I figure as long as I'm not sleeping, I might as well get a couple of things done, so that's what I'm going to do.  First, though, I should share this:

That's today's Garfield strip, and for the record... I think it would be an excellent candidate for Garfield Minus Garfield ;-)

You may not know this about me, but I watch a lot of TV.  The DVR and I have a love hate relationship - I hate it because I love it so much.  I have to work pretty hard to keep myself from watching too much (especially with Law and Order on basically 24 hours a day!), but once in a while a show comes along that I just can't resist.  Last week some friends from church turned me on to a new(er) comedy on CBS called "The Big Bang Theory".  They were so convinced that I'd like it that they made me watch an episode... and I laughed so hard that we watched another... and another... and another.  This show is hilarious.  It's on on Mondays... which is usually a pretty light day for me, plus it's only a half hour long (which means I can reduce it to 20 minutes by zapping commercials with the afformentioned DVR:-P).  I'm definitely a fan.  Here's are some clips from tonight's episode... slick editing courtesy of CBS:

I confess... I'm a giant nerd.  So shoot me :-P

Books take me a long time.  Not that I'm a slow reader (I used to read a ton), but it usually takes me a while to "jump on the bandwagon" with a book, and then schedule constraints take me a long time to finish it.  In any case, I just (finally) finished David Kinnaman's much talked about "unChristian".  I won't say a whole lot about it (as so much has already been said elsewhere), but I've got a couple of reactions...

I've been interested in this kind of stuff for quite a while... being a member of the generation that Kinnaman refers to as "Mosaics", I have a real heart for that generation.  Last summer I got into Dan Kimball and his book, "They Like Jesus, But Not The Church".  This book seemed like a natural fit for me.
  Having said that, I don't think the research presented here said a whole lot that I didn't already know.  I do think that these are things the church needs to be aware of and address.  For example:

    -91% of "church outsiders" aged 16-29 perceive
     Christianity as "antihomosexual"

    -About 85% of that same group sees Christians as
     "judgmental" and "hypocritical"

    -Over 75% described Christianity as "old fashioned"
     and "too involved in politics"

These numbers are troubling, and it's even more disturbing when you take into account that significant numbers of self-professed Christians in this same age group share those perceptions.  I'm not afraid to admit that I often fall into that category when I think about the church as a whole.

Many church leaders have responded to this research in a negative way - recalling Jesus' words in John (telling the disciples that they would be hated by the world) and other Biblical passages.  Others have gone on the defensive, claiming that their churches and the people in them are not this way.  I don't think either of these reactions are correct.

First, to those who think it is Biblical that Kinnaman's "outsiders" hate Christians:  Jesus did say that the world would hate his followers, but I don't think that this is what he had in mind.  If there's one thing that Christians seem to be able to agree on, it's that Jesus' message was one of love.  The world may hate us for the things we do and the things we say, but we must take every care to make sure that words like "hypocritical," "judgmental," & "old-fashioned" do not apply to us.  We are called to love, and while that may not mean agreement with the actions and ideas of others, we ultimately must show them the true love of God anyways.  That's hard to do, but it is what we are called to.  I think oftentimes, we could be much better at it than we are.

I do think that some of the folks who defend their churches and church members are correct.  I believe that their are lots of churches out there that do not reflect these negative perceptions, but that doesn't excuse our responsibility to dispel them.  It is not enough to know that our churches are loving and accepting - we have to go into the world and prove it!  If people don't know that our churches are not "unChristian," then we aren't fulfilling our mission!

I hope that Christians will read this book (if they haven't yet), and respond with love to the world, and especially to the people who have been isolated by Christianity and the church up to this point.  We have to, or else we will be facing a generation for which organized Christianity has no relevance, and that would be devastating.