Easter 2009

Easter Weekend 2009 at NewSong began on Friday night as a small crowd braved a tornado warning to attend a Good Friday service. Luckily we had John’s Creek Police Chief Ed Densmore with us who remained in constant radio contact with Fulton County authorities about the weather as we worshipped. We delayed our service about 30 minutes as we enjoyed time together downstairs in the church in a room with no windows. Then we went upstairs for the service. We had a great acoustic worship set led by Jordan C. and then just as I was wrapping up my comments we heard the tornado sirens start back up. Allison asked if we could do one more song at the end of the service and Ed responded, “Now might not be such a good time,” and we all scurried back downstairs. After another 20 minutes or so in the windowless room below we all headed for home.

Sunday’s sunrise service was amazing (the two photos in this post are from that service). By the time Amy and I arrived at 6:15am volunteers had everything well in hand. The chairs were all set up in the parking lot, the tables were being prepped and the food cooked by a bevy of volunteers led by Karen & Jesse Rivera and Dave Allen (thanks everyone!). The sun rose right on cue through purple and pink skies as the gorgeous wisteria vines covering the trees glowed in appreciation of the rising sun. We had about 75-80 Jesus-lovers who braved the 45 degree temps to honor our Lord. Thank-you Jesus!

After a sumptuous pancake, egg, sausage, bacon, and hash brown breakfast we finally we held our Easter Worship Celebration at 10:30am. Many of our members brought guests as requested, all our volunteers were “spot on” as they “served as if they were serving Jesus.” The praise band was rocking. There was an air of excitement in the air as we celebrated Jesus. As one staff member said, what happened today is a good example of what a “win” looks like at NewSong. I tried my best to bring the gospel and to make it plain and not churchy. I spoke on the hope that Jesus’ resurrection brings that is so much better than the hope the world offers. I did get slightly off track at the end and forget a simple acronym (BASE) but I covered well, making things up as I went. I also went off on a rabbit trail about “dead dog parties.” I suppose you had to be there to appreciate that. What can I say, I was excited. It was Easter!

Bottom line, we prayed that people would bring their friends, relatives, co-workers and neighbors to church. They did. We prayed that God would show up. He did. Were lives changed for eternity? I believe so. We may not see them right away; we might never get to see them ourselves. But I believe the Holy Spirit did His work and will continue to work in hearts that were exposed to God’s truth and His unfading and unfailing hope yesterday at NewSong.

Thank you NewSong Church for being faithful to invite others to hear about Christ! Through your commitment to our vision to see people who don’t know Christ get the opportunity to know Him, we have reason to celebrate! Let’s keep it going now. God is amazing and He certainly blessed us with an awesome Easter this year. All glory and honor to Him!

Easter Eggs

We've had fun today dying Easter eggs. Reminded me of when the girls were little and we did this every year.

My eggs were "interesting" colored.

Donna did the best egg - a dark red one.

Fun having everyone at home!

More later...

Sermons "In the Barrel"

In the old days preachers talked about having a sermon "in the barrel." That usually meant that after many years of preaching, he or she had written so many sermons they could always pull one out they had preached before, dust it off, update a few illustrations, and use it again. This was especially the case in the days when preachers moved to a new church every three or four years. They could pull out a whole bunch of "old" sermons and preach them again at their new church.

Personally, I've never had much luck recycling my sermons. I've tried, but either what I had to say the first time was not very good, or else what I said really just doesn't seem as applicable now as it did back then; so preaching from the barrel just doesn't work for me. To me, preaching is a moment in time where the text and the preacher and the congregation and the Holy Spirit all come together and something great happens (hopefully!).

I have begun to experience some interesting side effects of preaching for seventeen years however. When I decide on a text and start studying it, trying to discern what I believe God is saying in that particular text to our particular congregation, I often search on the Internet for ideas and illustrations to augment my own study. These searches are usually specific once I get an idea to preach on, for instance I'm preaching this Easter from 1 Peter 1:3-9 where Peter describes the basis of our hope as believers is Jesus Christ and his resurrection from the dead. The main idea of my message is how we need hope more than ever today and the hope we need is available to us through Jesus' resurrection and that hope is applied to our life when we place our faith in Him and become part of God's family. My search terms this week were something like, "sermon, 1 Peter 1:3, hope, resurrection." When I searched using those words I came across a link that looked very promising - whoever wrote the blurb my google search uncovered was really thinking like me. It was only when I got to the website where the quote came from that I realized the "guy" was me from a previous sermon I'd written. Ha ha... that guy isn't so smart after all.

Like I say, this is happening to me more and more. I suppose it's only normal too. I have hundreds of sermons online now and since we all have lenses through which we interpret Scripture, if you stick to a text long enough, and really pray through it, it only makes sense that what you find there would be similar to what you have previously discovered when studying that text.

So why not just preach the old sermon that's in the barrel to begin with? Well, like I said, the impressions God gives are often similar, but they are also usually different enough that you are really expressing a totally different thought or making a totally different point of application when preaching on the passage this time. Scripture is like that; it is so full of meaning and application.

The good news this Wednesday afternoon is that I have all three of my messages for this Easter weekend done! I'm preaching about the cross on Good Friday, specifically about one of Jesus' sayings from the cross: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Luke 23:46). At our Easter Sunrise service I'm preaching about the women going to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body and the disciples' odd reaction to the news from the women that "He is risen!" (Luke 24:6). And finally, I'm preaching the text I mentioned above from 1 Peter for the "main event," our 10:30am Easter worship celebration. The theme of that message is the hope Jesus' resurrection brings; it changes everything!

It is going to be a great Easter. My daughter Amy will be home from L.A., my church and I are going to invite a horde of unbelievers to worship this week, the weather is going to cooperate - and, most importantly, I am convinced God is going to show up in a big way. I can hardly wait!

I trust that each of you reading this are also looking forward to a joyous celebration of our Savior's resurrection this Sunday. May God grant you a meaningful Easter where His hope comes alive in you in new and powerful ways.