I’ve been talking about how the church needs to be the church. Here’s a STRONG reason why we need to be the church. This is sad, unbiblical, sad and unbiblical. Pray for the church. For real.

http://mrmokelly.com/tag/eddie-long-crowned-king/

Again I say, pray for the church.

When I was a boy, I used to think that my dad was extremely scary. I also knew enough to know that he held he power. This was a terrifying situation for me. If I wanted something I knew that at the end of the day it was probably going to have to go through him and I was totally content with just not having anything. Later I realized that my dad is not as scary as I made him out to be as a little boy. I wonder how much more enjoyable those toddler years would have been had I not thought my dad would kill me? LOL Anyway, once I was able to grasp that he wasn’t just the mean dude that looked for ways to discipline me and tell me where I was wrong I realized that I had a loving father who wanted to give me the world if I would just come to him. Spending time with my dad was and is one of my greatest joys. There is a joy and confidence in knowing that I can go to my dad with anything and he will listen and help and give what he can to help me get what I need. As perfect as I think my dad is, I know he has some flaws. Even in those flaws he does his best to create an environment that allows me to come to him with whatever and know that his desire is to help me.

When I read Hebrews 4, I see that same sort of love from the Father in a completely perfect way. So many times we hear the last scripture in that chapter because it gets manipulated to mean that we can go boldly to the Lord and he’ll give us what we want. The scripture does tell us to approach with a childlike faith, but that’s another portion of scripture. This whole chapter speaks to a loving, all-knowing Father who has the answers. The things that are happening in your life and in this world is nothing new to him. So that’s why he tells us to “draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace” (v. 16 ASV). We should be able to do that knowing that he loves us and is fighting for us. He knows that we will need that mercy and grace that he is offering in a major way. It’s there for you if you go and ask for it.

I’ll never forget the afternoon that became real to me. I was a little kid playing baseball in the driveway with a Wiffle bat. My mom had told me not to play in front of the car cause I might break something. I was in the backyard at first, but after lunch I found myself in front of the car. My friend Derrick through me a fat pitch and I was getting ready to crush it. Instead, I caught the corner of my mom’s Buick Park Avenue and obliterated the tail light (okay, maybe not OBLITERATED, but I was like 8, let me have this). I became completely riddled with fear. My mom came out and was furious. But she didn’t spank me. She did something worse. She said those fateful words that I’m sure all kids hate to hear: “Wait until your father comes home”. I spent the next 3 hours or so in my room waiting for death. If it were today’s world, I would have said goodbye to all my Facebook friends. I would have created a Twitter hashtag that said #Harryslastday. I knew the end was near. When my dad came home my mom was ready for the show to begin. She told him what I had done and how I had pretty much been in my room in terror for hours. Then the time came. He called me to the living room. That was the longest walk EVER! But my father did something that he had never done in a situation like this. He got down on his knee and held me tight and let me cry on his shoulder. He talked to me and showed me great mercy. We talked about how it was wrong that I had disobeyed my mom and how I shouldn’t do that again. But it struck him that I spent the whole afternoon living in fear. He didn’t want to have a child that lived in fear believing that his father was there just to punish him.

Our Father in heaven feels the same way. We are given the freedom to approach him with everything knowing that mercy and grace flow freely. Are you living in that freedom? Or are you sitting in your room afraid to ask? Think about it…

This is our last Sunday for the sermon series Watershed. It has been good so far and I’m looking forward to hearing what our Associate Pastor Wendell Thompson has to say. Here are the songs we are singing today.

Come Thou Fount

The Stand-Hillsong

Beautiful One-Tim Hughes

Everlasting God-Brenton Brown

Healer-Mike Guglielmucci

Glory Hallelujah-Mark Roach

I don’t do this enough. If most of you are honest you probably don’t do this enough either. Every time I get to take one that usually means that I’ve waited too long. This case is no different. Nonetheless, I’m getting to take a small breather for part of the weekend. I’m taking a once popular (but not for very long) stay-cation. We are getting ready to dig into a lot of new things at the church and that will for sure mean lots of hours and planning, so I need to take some time and pull back before it gets all crazy on me again. Also, this is the first weekend in about 7 that I haven’t had anything going on so I’m taking the chance to hide out for a couple days. I’m TOTALLY excited!!!

Why is it so hard for us to rest? This question is obviously for everyone, but specifically for my friends that work or have worked in churches. Why is it so hard for us to shut it down? I mean, we all can do that when it’s vacation time or something like that. But what causes us to act all Energizer Bunny all the rest of the time? I always wonder if we are overworked because they job calls for it or if we are doing it to ourselves. I haven’t come up with a conclusion yet, so don’t look for that answer. I’m learning that it is okay to rest, Biblical even. I am also going to be learning how to not run myself into the ground so that when I get a break I don’t feel the urge to sleep through the whole thing. Everyone needs the opportunity to recharge. I’m finally getting mine.

Honestly, I’m quite glad to see where this sermon series has taken this church. I personally didn’t think it would get this deep but it has totally done more than I expected. This Sunday was no different. We heard the story of one young lady in our church who felt like following Christ was just a whole bunch of boundaries that stopped her from being able to live her life. She later came to understand that Christ brings freedom and that has brought her so much joy!

This week I also had the privilege to sing with one of my best friends, Brittany Smith. As busy as she is she happened to have a free Sunday and so she came along and joined me on the stage and we led worship together. It was one of those weeks where a lot of stuff didn’t happen and a lot of people ended up not being able to make it so she filled in at the last moment. Nonetheless, here is the set list.

Opener- O Worship the King-Passion Hymns

Song Set

How Deep the Father’s Love For Us-Stuart Townsend

The Greatness of Our God-Jason Ingram (as sung on Hillsong’s Beautiful Exhange)

Blessed Be Your Name-Matt and Beth Redman

After Sermon Special

Call It Beautiful-Brittany Smith

Closing Song

Your Grace Is Enough-Matt Maher

We are wrapping up this sermon series  next week with what should be a pretty good message from our associate pastor, Wendell Thompson. Can’t wait to see how that turns out.

This sermon series is turning out to be quite good. If you are a reader and are looking for a church to visit, consider visiting The Word at Shaw. The stories that we are hearing are pretty good and I can only imagine what we will here over the next two weeks. This week we talked about having faith in troubled times and knowing that God is the one in control even when it feels like he’s not moving. Here are the songs from today.

Opener-Yahweh-Hillsong

Worship Set

All Creatures of Our God and King

Unchanging-Chris Tomlin

Glory to God Forever- Steve Fee

Have you ever been in a place where things are going well and then someone says something and this awkward silence hits the room? The first thing you want to do is sneak out the closest door or window and never return again. Sometimes it won’t even be about you, but the tension is undeniable and you can’t get away from it. You might even feel your stomach tighten up as the longer the situation continues. My wife actually can’t watch certain television shows because she gets embarrassed watching and has to leave. As a result, The Office was NOT one of her favorite shows. She starts to watch, gets uncomfortable, then leaves the room.

There’s also the flip side where you can be so physically uncomfortable that you are out of the game mentally. This happens sometimes when I’m leading worship. I tend to sweat when I’m leading worship and pretty regularly sweat will fall into my eye and completely throw off my concentration. It’s painful. It has to be fixed right away. It distracts me from doing what I need to do.

What about when things get spiritually uncomfortable? How do you handle being in a situation when you don’t know what to say when someone asks a question? What happens when you are asked to pray and that’s ‘not really your thing’? What happens when you are asked to lead worship in the summer when the air doesn’t work? Or better yet, outside in the sun (I’ve done both of those things)? How willing are you to do what God has called you to do even when it’s not the ideal situation for you? I’ve had the nerve a couple of times to consider not doing something because the accommodations weren’t what I thought they would be. I was quickly reminded of a man who died on a tree. Not the smoothed out lacquered things that we display in our churches. But a tree that caused as much discomfort as the nails in his hands and feet and the thorns on his head. Oh yeah, and he was dying for stuff that I did and nothing that he had done. That thought will knock you down a couple notches in a hurry.

We have to be willing to put ourselves aside sometimes because the job we are being asked to do may not always be in perfect weather or with the latest technology. But that doesn’t change the fact that we have a job to do and a message to get out to people, some of which may have never heard the message you are sharing. Would you not want them to get that message because you didn’t feel totally comfortable? I’m just sayin’…

I can’t believe that I’m actually getting a chance to write this! I woke up this morning and still couldn’t believe that happened. Anyway, the show was really good from top to bottom, so I’m gonna start at the top. First things first, The Old Rock House is an awesome place to see a show. There is such a great atmosphere and the size of the room creates an opportunity for you to get up close and personal with the artists. It’s also a big enough room to where you can fit a nice group in. There were probably about 200 people there last night. GREAT group for a concert like that one. It turned out to be a great room for an a capella group. But more on that later…

I was introduced to a new group last night called Dots Not Feathers. The link there leads to an article from the Riverfront Times. They are the 2011 winners of the Best New Band. They have such a cool sound. Their instrumentation included a banjo, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, synth, and drums. It was a really unique experience. A lot of times when a group is new they tend to try and go overboard in a live show and they try too hard to be liked or make their mark. DNF just got up there and let the music speak for itself. And it did. There were some great melodies and great vocal harmonies and they were a joy to listen to. The piano player (which I always notice) had such a solid voice. Katy Durrwachter’s voice was so smooth and she had some great control. I really enjoyed this group and their newest EP, ‘Come Back To Bed’, is getting its second listen right now. You should check it out because it really is a good listen. I recommend it and give it a B.

Then there was Committed. It was so surreal to see the guys that were only on my TV now be standing 6 feet from me on a stage (I was sitting at the first table of course). They opened just like they opened the show. The first thing you realize with them is they are real. I mean, even when you hear them on TV you want to think that they haven’t altered anything on TV, but you can’t be sure these days. These guys are the truth and it was evident from the very first chord. And yes, the first words of out of their mouths were “I was so high I didn’t recognize…”. The place went nuts. That pretty much was the case for the rest of the night. They did all of their songs from the The Sing Off and there was much rejoicing. These guys sang for over an hour and you didn’t really hear any wrong notes. As a musician, you tend to listen for these things. I know that a couple of times they couldn’t hear each other and that definitely affects your sound, but I won’t count that. When they were able to hear, it was on point. One of the things that I was really surprised by was the fact that the percussion was so strong. Of course, I’m sure they work hard on the percussion and the bass to be in sync. It was stinking cool to hear them do their thing live. Each of their voices were so smooth and rich and their harmony structures were great. Hearing them was crazy enough, but I bet if you’re in a room with them as they put them together you’re probably going to have your mind blown.

One of the things I noticed is how great they are as performers. They know how to put on a show. They got the audience involved and they gave us more than what we paid for. But the way to truly know that they were great performers was after the show. After the show they went back to being the humble guys from Alabama that are living a dream. They greeted everyone and signed everything and even stayed up long enough to take pictures (I got one). I was totally impressed as a musician and as a Committed fan.

Guys, if you haven’t taken the time to listen to this group, you need to. If you knew of Take 6, they are cut from the same cloth. And that’s not just because they went to the same school, come from the same town and have songs written for them by members of the group. Their new CD is slated to come out on August 30th. In the mean time you can hear their single, Break Free on iTunes. You can also do what I do and periodically watch the videos from this past season. Thanks guys for a great show.

It is hot in St. Louis right now. Today is the last day of spring and summer is trying to start today. Once you have lived here for a while you just get used to the heat and humidity of St. Louis summers. It’s a part of life. You know that you should leave your car windows cracked if you can because any type of moving air is better than the stifling, non-moving air that tends to break windshields. Anyway, this whole thing is not about how hot it is here in St. Louis.

I have personally been dealing with lots of things in my own heart and mind and it seems that the more you try to sift through things on your own the more doubt seeps into your thoughts. Lately I have been doubting if I am doing what I’m supposed to do and it is totally scaring me. But yesterday during church I was totally confirmed by what God did for my heart. I couldn’t believe just how much the doubt melted away as we worshiped during the service. It made for a great Father’s Day.

Sometimes we don’t realize just how much in need we are. I know I didn’t. I was so wrapped up in all of my own junk that it wasn’t until God started to melt away some things in my heart. I’m excited about this week. I can’t want to see what God has to say to me. I’ll write about it. Promise.

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there! This service at The Word at Shaw should be a good one. The fathers are getting pretzels from Gus’s Pretzels, a famous St. Louis eatery. Here’s what you can expect to hear at the church this morning.

In Christ Alone- LOVE THIS SONG!

The Song Set

From the Inside Out- Hillsong

Mighty to Save-Hillsong

Hosanna-Paul Baloche and Brenton Brown

Middle Of It All-Harry Walls, IV

Yes, the last song was written by me. I wrote it for a friend’s project to help Joplin. People asked me to sing it and so I’m singing it after the sermon. Should be good. Or at least I think so. Come join us.