TONIGHT, 6:30pm – 8:30pm @ NORTHchurch
Awesome prizes, car bash, inflatables, games, special guests, best group game ever, loud music, powerful worship, relevant teaching, tallest school competition, and much more!
If you are a middle or high school student and live in the Oklahoma City area, you need to be at the biggest party of the year.
REVOLUTION
Here is a powerful video of Emcee One’s testimony and his decision to forgive that is definitely worth your time. This video was shown this Sunday at NORTHchurch. Listen to the entire message HERE.
Great work by Creative Pastor Scott Morris.
I am humbled and blessed to be working with such a creative, amazing, and talented staff.
I love writing on this blog. I thoroughly enjoy having an avenue where I can write about (as the tagline says) my thoughts on life, faith, God, sports, culture, and whatever else pops into my brain.
Through my two year journey of blogging, I have been amazed at all the strangers that seem to stumble on this website for whatever reason. People from all over the world with diverse backgrounds and beliefs somehow find briancromer.com.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post entitled “X3 WATCH“. This post talked about how pornography is the “dirty little secret” that is constantly being ignored and swept under the rug while it kills intimacy, marriages, and purity. I promoted a wonderful free software called X3 Watch, which is an accountability software that sends a weekly email to an accountability partner of what websites you are looking at. I personally use this software on my computer.
This week I received an interesting comment from a stranger (named Jeffrey) on this blog post. Jeffrey commented…
wow, do you Christians really need Big Brother to stay ethically centered? It’s no wonder you believe we are “born in sin,” when you yourselves are so morally bankrupt that you must resort to “discipleship” and “accountablity partners” to avoid doing what you have already convinced yourself you shouldn’t do.
I have an idea, grow a backbone and get a hobby?
My question to you is this…HOW WOULD YOU RESPOND? I’m not asking out of cluelessness. I am asking because I believe it is very healthy to be able to have a conversation with somebody who doesn’t know Jesus in a calm, rational, loving, yet unswerving way. Stretch yourself to process how you would respond if you received this comment.
How would you respond to Jeffrey?
I recently found THIS WEBSITE where Stephen Von Worley created a map of the USA showing where McDonalds outlets are. Every light on this map is an actual McDonalds restaurant. That’s a lot of Big Macs, McRibs, fries, and McFlurries.
As you can see, they are (almost) everywhere! You’ll have to go to South Dakota to get 100 miles away from a McDonalds.
What sticks out to you when you look at this picture?
Thoughts?
(WARNING: Long, but very good post.)
Sometimes knowing the story behind a song really takes the song to another level.
Here is the story behind the song “Heart of Worship” by Matt Redman (through the words of Mike Pilavachi, pastor of Soul Survivor in London, England)…
Since it began, Soul Survivor has always given plenty of time over to worshiping through music. Over the years, people have poured out their hearts to God through it, and there have been plenty of examples of great things happening as a result. However, there was a season when we realized that something was “up” with out worship.
At first, it was difficult to put our finger on the problem. On the surface, everything was just fine: the musicians were tuning their instruments and the sound men were getting out of bed on time. Each service contained a block of songs that focused on the cross and gave people the chance to get down to business with God. To make this easier, the music was (nearly) up-to-date, the chairs had disappeared, and the lights were low – what better atmosphere for young people to worship God?
Yet, we seemed to have lost the spark. We seemed to be going through the motions, but I noticed that although we were singing the songs, our hearts were far from Him. Was it Matt Redman’s fault? I listened. He wasn’t singing any more off notes than usual. Then one day it clicked; we had become connoisseurs of worship instead of participants of it.
In our hearts, we were giving the worship team grades on a scale from one to ten: “Not that song again,” “I can’t hear the bass,” “I like the way she sings better.” We had made the band the performers of worship and ourselves the audience.
We had forgotten that we are ALL the performers of worship and that God is the audience. We had forgotten that sacrifice is central to biblical worship. We are called to offer our bodies as living sacrifices – this is our spiritual act of worship (Romans 12:1). We are called to offer our sacrifice of praise (Hebrews 13:15).
We were challenged to ask ourselves individually, “When I come through the door of the church, what am I bringing as my contribution to worship?” The truth came to us: worship is not a spectator sport. It is not a product molded by the taste of the consumers. It is not about what we can get out of it. It is all about God.
We needed to take drastic action. For a while, in order to truly learn this lesson, we banned the band. We fired Matt Redman!
Then we sat around in circles and said that if no one brought a sacrifice of praise, we would spend the meeting in silence. At the beginning we virtually did! It was a very painful process. We are learning again not to rely on the music.
After a while, we began to have some very sweet times of worship. We all began to bring our prayers, our readings, our prophecies, our thanksgiving, our praises, and our songs. Someone would start a song a cappella and we would all join in. Then someone else would take it on to another song. The excitement came back. We were not having church; we were once again meeting with God. With all the comforts stripped away, we worshiped from the heart.
When we had learned our lesson, we brought the band back. It was at this point that Matt Redman began to sing the song he had written out of this experience. I wept as we sang it for the first time. The words expressed exactly what was going on…
When the music fades, And all is stripped away, And I simply come
Longing just to bring, Something that’s of worth, Just to bless your heart
I’ll bring you more than a song, For a song in itself is not what you have required
You search much deeper within through the ways things appear
You’re looking into my heart
I’m coming back to the heart of worship
And it’s all about you, It’s all about you Jesus
I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
When it’s all about you, It’s all about you Jesus
Heather went nuts at Mardel Christian Bookstore yesterday and came home with 4 new CDs. So today my ears get the pleasure of listening to these CDs…
CHURCH MUSIC, David Crowder*Band
TEAR DOWN THE WALLS, Hillsong United
LOVE IS ON THE MOVE, Leeland
KARI JOBE, Kari Jobe
___________________
Two things to remember today…
What if instead of coming to church to worship, we come worshiping to church?
Most of my life, I thought you went to church to worship. But now I see that the better approach is to go worshiping to church. This approach changes things. Trust me, church is a lot better when our gatherings are filled with people who have been pursuing and seeking God for six days before they got there. Church is supposed to be a celebration of our personal journeys with God since we were last together. As Louie Giglio puts it his book The Air I Breathe, “All our personal streams of worship flowing into one surging, worship river.”
What would happen if each person in your church was seeking the face of God throughout the week? What would our worship look like as a result? Can you see it?
What if instead of coming to church to worship, we come worshiping to church?
What if…
I’m lost.
Not spiritually, of course. I am secure (and stoked out of my mind) that I am going to heaven. I hope you are going with me. If not, let’s do something about that, ok?
Back on topic…
I’m lost.
Recently, I have been finding myself locked up in confusion not knowing what to order at Starbucks. At one time in my life, the ordering process at Starbucks was automatic. “What can I get started for you?” the kind barista would ask. “Grande caramel frappuccino with no whip cream and extra caramel please,” I would quickly reply with a boyish grin.
Recently, that has all changed. Somewhere along the way, my staple Starbucks drink became too sweet. It was a good run while it lasted, but it became obvious that it is time for a Starbucks drink of choice change.
However, I do not have a clue where to start.
1. I do not understand over half of the Starbucks menu. I am not fluent in the Starbucks lingo. I am not sure the difference between a cappuccino, espresso, or latte. I have no clue what chai is. Ordering shots makes me think that I am sinning. The menu often looks like this to me…
2. I am not a hardcore drink straight black coffee kind of guy. I like the (as my Dad likes to call them…) “froo froo” drinks. When I go to Starbucks, I pretty much want a liquid dessert.
I need your help.
I am having a Starbucks crisis.
What is your favorite Starbucks drink? Is there a drink you would recommend while I am in this Starbucks exploring stage?
REVOLUTION was incredible last night. We were in week 3 of “24/7/365” (our September series on worship).
Here’s what we talked about…
What would you prefer?
If you’re like me, your answer is BOTH! I want the words AND the actions. Well. God is no different. God wants both your WORDS and ACTIONS.
In fact, there are two primary Greek words for worship in the New Testament:
The true test of worship isn’t so much what we say, but how we live. Singing songs is not enough. God cares about what you say, but God isn’t honored by words alone. The total package matters – what you say, how you say it, whether you mean it, and whether you live it out in your daily life.
24/7/365
(a lot of this material is from The Air I Breathe by Louie Giglio)
