Wow. This band is incredible. Michael W. Smith says they are the best thing he’s heard in a long long time. I agree with him. Check out their myspace and listen to their stuff — it’s awesome. Especially “Carried to the Table.” That one is really moving, at least for me.
Is There Anything Wrong With “More”?
A poverty mentality is a mindset. It not only includes finances – but your attitude. Someone with a poverty mentality isn’t just someone who is poor – its someone who will stay poor. I heard a story about a single woman who lived her entire life in an efficiency apartment in the slums of a large city. After she died, the landlord remodeled her apartment and in doing so he removed the wall paneling. It was then that they realized the woman had made holes at the top of her walls and had put money down inside her walls. When they counted it all up it totaled more than $1 Million. This woman had plenty of money, but she wasted it and stayed poor her entire life because of her poverty mentality. Her poverty mentality caused her to waste her life, most likely treating human relationships much like she did her money. Scared to live; scared to move; scared to effect the world. People with a poverty mentality stay “down in the dumps” in their finances and life in general because they do not strive for anything more.
We need to be content with where we are and what God has given us, but we should never be satisfied.
I am content with my car. But I am not satisfied — I am saving money so that in a few years I can purchase a nicer replacement.
I am content with my education. But I am not satisfied — I will soon be pursuing my Master’s degree.
I am content with my church. But I am not satisfied — I want my church to be more passionate than yesterday.
I am content with my house. But I am not satisfied — I am taking care of my house and fixing it up so that when the time comes, I could sell it for more.
I am content with my job. But I am not satisfied — I want to be even more “on the ball” tomorrow and give far beyond 100%.
I am content having a relationship with God. But I am not satisfied — I want to be closer to God tomorrow than I am right now.
Someone with a poverty mentality is “satisfied” with nearly everything, but they are not content with anything. People with a poverty mentality never strive for more of anything. Think about an area in your life where you have developed a negative poverty mentality.
I will always be content, but I will never be satisfied!
Another Description
“Worship is the humbling of self and exaltation of God.†– Ross Parsley
I Can Make You Explode With My Mind.
I’m going to go memorize Psalm 119:9-16. Grab your Bible, open it up, and quiz me on it next time you see me.
This is Gonna Be Sweet – Part Two.
Hebrews 10:25 says to Christians, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
The larger a church is, the smaller they have to think in order to make this verse a reality. That’s sort of an oxymoron – “to be big, you must think small.” But its true. New Hope has a lot of people in it – but we’ve got to maintain an environment where we can continue meeting together and encouraging each other (you can’t do that very easily in a room with 300 people in it). Every church needs community.
The Summer Choir will be built on community. We’re going to do lots of things in Summer Choir that will just be fun — great ways to get to know each other. The reason I’m so excited about this choir is because this will be unlike anything I’ve ever been a part of! I’m not promising anything, but my intent right now is to have cheeseburgers and tacos at the first rehearsal this Tuesday! How cool will that be?! We’re also going to have a “cookout” night in July. As often as feasible we’re going to have rehearsals outside in the awesome sunshine. Seriously – this will be the funnest choir in the world. Forget what your mama told you about choirs . . . because this will be way different. If you attend New Hope (or no place) and like to sing, you gotta check it out. At least come to the first rehearsal this Tuesday and you’re going to get free food out of it! Here’s more information.
This is gonna be sweet.
This is Gonna Be Sweet!
I just finished choosing music for the summer choir last week. I am so excited! It’s going to rock! The first song we’re singing is “The Family Prayer Song,” which we’ll wind up singing on Father’s Day. It’s an awesome song about a Christian family: “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” That song is sorta “soft rock” style. It’s typical to what our choir has done in the past. The second song we’re singing is A LOT different. It’s black gospel! We’ve never done anything like it before. It’s called “Hallelujah, Anyhow” by Joe Pace II. We’re also doing stuff from awesome songwriters like Tommy Walker and Lincoln Brewster. Oh my gosh, I’m pumped for this music! It starts next Tuesday! If you attend New Hope (or if you don’t attend any church but want to . . .), click here for more information.
This is gonna be sweet.
Jesus Saves . . . Why Can’t I?
Argh! I just spent a hunk of time entering notes into the music notation software here at the church. I said to myself, “Adam, you should save your work in case your computer locks up.” I argued back, “Nah – I don’t need to save. This computer was just upgraded last fall, it’s not going to lock up.”
Well, it didn’t lock up. But the power went out. Everything just shut off for about one full second and came right back on. WEIRD!
When the power shut off I immediately knew that I hadn’t saved and that I had lost everything. After a few shouts at whoever caused the outage (I have no clue who or what caused it — but yelling at them seemed appropriate at the time – even if they couldn’t hear me) I got things fired back up. Calming down now.
Jesus saves. I guess I’m not as Christ-like as I thought I was.
I Won’t Beat Around The Bush in This Blog.
A recent poll indicated that only around 10% of Christian church attenders tithe. That’s . . . sad.
Tithing is giving 10% of our increase to God (by giving to the local church). A Christian should (and often will song songs about) complete surrender to God. Everything we have ultimately belongs to God, but God says we need to give him 10% of it. Malachi 3 says that if you are not tithing, you are robbing God. I doubt any Christian church attender would even consider stealing something of value from another person — yet roughly 90% of them steal from God on a weekly basis.
“But I cannot afford to tithe!” Psh. You can’t afford not to. Malachi 3:10-12 says that when God’s people tithe, he will bless them! The inverse of that would be that if God’s people don’t tithe, he will not bless them. Do you trust God’s Word? If he says he’s going to bless you if you tithe — he will. You can take that to the bank.
If you are not giving 10% of your increase (i.e. your paycheck or allowance) to your local church – you are robbing God. Knock it off. Start giving to your local church. Like . . . now. God says so.
New Hope just introduced an online tithing program where you can electronically donate money to the church. If you consider New Hope your church home and you’re comfortable with “online payment” methods, I encourage you to check out New Hope’s Online Giving. It’s been tested for several months and it works great! I’ve used it myself and I’ve found it to be completely safe. Just visit NewHope.in and click on the Online Giving link in the bottom left corner.
One of My Favorite Tools.
As the Worship Arts pastor at New Hope, I have many tools I can use to help me with my job. Today I am sludging through hundreds of choral songs to choose music for the summer choir starting in a few weeks. It’s not easy to find songs that are both musically and thematically appropriate!
This task would be a huge pain if it weren’t for iTunes. iTunes is the free music player program from the Apple company, yet it runs on a Windows PC as well. It’s available at www.apple.com. Today, instead of searching for several CDs, I can simply search through the iTunes library and listen to all the choir sample CDs that publishing companies have sent in — many of these sample CDs are buried deep inside cabinets, but with iTunes I can access everything on my computer. iTunes is saving me a lot of time today, although I’m making up for that saved time by spending it writing a blog to tell you about it. lol.
In the words of Kip, “I love technology . . .”
We All Have a Big Butt.
God has a calling for each of us. We (Christians) are all called to share the message of Jesus with those around us. We are all called to show God’s love to those we come in contact with every single day. We are all called to help develop other Christ followers (a.k.a. make disciples). It’s God’s will for each of us to spend time with Him every day. God’s called each of us to live holy lives. There also may be specific callings — for example, God might have called you to lead “Bill Johnson” (insert any specific name) to Christ. Or He might have called you to serve in the choir at church (or some other specific ministry).
We always have an excuse to get out of some of these things:
But I’m too busy . . .
But I’m so tired. I don’t feel like it . . .
But I worked in the nursery this morning, why do I need to have “God time” today? . . .
But . . .
But . . .
We all have a big but! Quit scratching your “but” and do what God’s called you to do!
This past weekend at Church our youth pastor did a fantastic job sharing the message where he used the phrase “we all have a big butt” to illustrate this idea. I thought it was great so I stole it and adapted it for my blog.