This morning we began a new five week worship series called “Rejoicing Our World” (thanks to Rob Rash for creating an awesome logo). I’m pretty sure this is the first time I have devoted five weeks of teaching to one text of Scripture, but Proverbs 11:10 has totally captured my imagination. Here’s the text (just in case you don’t have it memorized yet):

When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices;
when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy. (Proverbs 11:10)

I was introduced to the power of this text by Amy Sherman and her tremendous book Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good. She writes of the glorious vision of Proverbs 11:10 and boldly declares:

“Dancing in the streets rejoicing occurs when the tsaddiqim (righteous) advance justice and shalom in the city in ways that vulnerable people at the bottom stop being oppressed, start having genuine opportunity and begin to enjoy spiritual and physical health, economic sufficiency and security.”

Here are a couple of questions for you to ponder:

1. What does a “rejoiced” world look like?
2. What are you doing to “rejoice” your city?

Our new song for the morning was “Now and Forever” by One Sonic Society. They describe their mission as:

One Sonic Society is about unity, creativity, and community. Led by Jason Ingram [vocals/guitar], Stu Garrard [guitar/vocals] and Paul Mabury [drums]; an international collective of respected artists, united in creating music to serve the Church.

These guys are tremendous songwriters with a huge heart for the Church – check them out!

Here is our complete worship flow:

• Now and Forever (One Sonic Society)
• Call to Worship (Psalm 40:5)
• Fall on Your Knees (David Crowder Band)
• Our God Is Mercy (Brenton Brown)
• Prayers of Confession/Assurance of Pardon
• Jesus, Son of God (Passion, White Flag)
• We Are Saved (Paul Baloche)
• Announcements and Offering
• Message (Rejoicing Our World)
• Reprise: Our God Is Mercy

You can learn what other communities of faith experienced this weekend in worship at The Worship Community.

Stay connected…

This is the good news— the grave is empty; Christ is risen.
Hallelujah!
This is the good news— the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never put it out.
Hallelujah!
This is the good news— once we were no people; now we are God’s people.
Hallelujah!
Christ is our peace, the wonderful peace we now share with each other.
Hallelujah!

We used these words from The Worship Sourcebook yesterday as we gathered for the second Sunday of Easter. The good news is that the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus is not confined to a single day but rather is a season of continual celebration. Christ is Risen – He is risen indeed!

Yesterday Josh Lucas, who serves as the Area Director for Young Life South Hills was our guest speaker. Young Life is one of our ministry partners and Josh shared an important message on the place of fellowship in fulfilling the great commission of Christ. Josh closed his message with these words from Elton Trueblood:

“What we need is not intellectual theorizing or even preaching, but a demonstration. There is only one way of turning people’s loyalty to Christ, and that is by loving others with the great love of God. We cannot revive faith by argument, but we might catch the imagination of puzzled men and women by an exhibition of a Fellowship so intensely alive that every thoughtful person would be forced to respect it. If there should emerge in our day such a fellowship, wholly without artificiality and Free from the dead hand of the past, it would be an exciting event of momentous importance. A society of loving souls, set free from the self-seeking struggle for personal prestige and from all unreality, would be something unutterably precious. A wise person would travel any distance to join it.”

Here is our complete worship flow:

• Christ the Lord Is Risen Today (Aaron Keyes)
• Like a Lion (Daniel Bashta)
• Easter Call to Worship
• My Savior Lives (Glen Packiam, Jon Egan)
• Reading from Titus 2
• Prayers of Confession and Words of Assurance
• We Are Saved (Paul Baloche, Ben Fielding)
• Mighty to Save (Reuben Morgan)
• Announcements and Offering
• Message – Fellowship (Josh Lucas)
• Reprise: We are Saved

You can learn what other communities of faith experienced yesterday in worship at The Worship Community.

Stay connected…

Christ is risen – He is risen indeed!

During our Easter worship gathering we focused on Mary Magdalene’s story from John 20.  When you consider the cultural realities of Jesus’ day, it is pretty amazing that His first resurrection appearance was to a women. This narrative reinforces Jesus’ belief in and love of women and He elevates one of them as  the first witness to the resurrection.

I love what Dave Buerstetta said about Mary:

“Mary is the first one at the empty tomb and the first one to whom the (not-quite-yet-completely) Resurrected Jesus reveals himself and the first evangelist for the Risen Lord, delivering Jesus’ message to his “brothers.” Mary Magdalene, the first Easter preacher!”

Two musical notes: if you are looking for a different musical setting of “Charles Wesley’s “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” you should check out Aaron Keyes‘ setting from the project “Love Divine: Songs of Charles Wesley.” The chord progression is fairly unique (when is the last time you vamped between a B and Em in the key of G), but it is worth a listen.

We closed our gathering with Matt Maher’s powerful anthem, “Christ is Risen.” Here’s what Matt said about the song:

“God really is a genius. He used death to destroy death. He did not even have to lift a finger. He literally tricked death into destroying itself. Jesus used the process of death to completely eradicate it. So now it just becomes a process of transformation, now it is a window or a doorway. Every Easter in the Ukraine, congregations chant the phrase, ‘Christ has risen from the dead trampling over death by death, and redeeming us from the grave’. I thought, ‘that is an amazing thought to sing. We should sing it in the west.’”

How did you celebrate the resurrection of Christ?

Here is our complete worship flow

• Christ the Lord Is Risen Today (Aaron Keyes version from Love Divine)
• Like a Lion (Daniel Bashta)
• Scripture Reading (John 20:1-1) and Prayer
• Second Chances (Rend Collective Experiment)
• Scripture Reading (John 20:11-18)
• Jesus Son of God (Chris Tomlin and Matt Maher)
• Announcements and Offering
• Message (I Have Seen the Lord)
• Christ is Risen (Matt Maher)
• Reprise: Christ the Lord Is Risen Today

You can learn what other communities of faith experienced in worship this weekend at The Worship Community.

Stay connected…