Be The Change: Vietnam from Northwood Church on Vimeo.

We use this in our Be the Change series and mission giving campaign.

Christmas Presence from Northwood Church on Vimeo.

Our marketing idea and pre-message bump for our December series.

Wow, we see such a difference when we do opportunities on video rather than live.

Announcements 11/8/09 from Northwood Church on Vimeo.

Dear Mr. Hicks: You own my Texas Rangers. You own my Dallas Stars. Why in the world must you own my Liverpool? Please sell them. Spend you energies ruining running the Rangers and Stars. Let a good Brit run a British team. One who isn’t in financial doldrums and will spend a bit for team improvement. Thank you.

• Those who argue moral obedience is the essence fail to see such behavior is only good if they spring from our heart’s affections. ~~Edwards #

• God doesn’t promise “easy,” He promises “with us” & us “in Christ” and “Christ in us” as we go “through” (not around) tough times. Help me. #

• A little joke to cheer you up…What do call the ratio of a pumpkin’s circumference to its diameter (wait for it) PUMPKIN PI…hahaha #

• Which do you treasure more? DIsgrace for the sake of Christ OR Egypt’s treasure. Heb 11:24-26 #

Here are pre-done breakouts of Ephesians 1, 2 and 3 for you to type your own life obedience notes on. Slowly read the text and see the main points and what modifies it. Ask God to speak to you and illuminate the Word to the context of your life. (As you get the hang of this, begin to do your own breakouts to make you slow down and wrestle with the text). If you want to print these keep in mind they are on legal sized paper.

ephesians-1-wj-blank
ephesians-2-wj-blank
ephesians-3-wj-blank

I’ll post up my completed ones next week and you can link to yours in the comment section. Just leave the hyperlink and I’ll covert it when I approve comments.

• To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world. -Karl Barth #
• 1&2 Samuel, crazy stuff happenin’. King prophesying naked, witch, Rambo missions, sleeping with your dad’s concubines so others will see. #

I have said 51% of any leaders job is raising up other leaders. How do we do that? 1. Most importantly, pray for workers for the harvest. 2. Secondly with the [decision space] concept.

When we have a potential leader we need to create a space for them in which they are completely authorized and resourced to make a decision. At first that space will be incredibly small, even an “either this or that” option. For example, I might need something designed by a layperson. I can tell the volunteer designer, here is the template and you are free to change this color or that one picture. Here are the resources you have available. I then tell them, “Here is why we do it this way.” This last statement is vital because it gets them to start thinking with values and purposes of the organization, more on this to come.

The next time I give them a project their [ - decision space - ] should grow. They should be given slightly broader boundaries to make decisions of what to do, when to do it, and how to apply their given resources, with me providing coaching and continuing to give the “why” behind it all. And so on and so on.

Soon they will have grown into a [- - - - decision space - - - - -] where they are making major decisions on what to do, when to do it and how many resources to bear, as they now start raising up new leaders under them by providing these new leaders small [decision space] and multiplying the process. You will rarely have to bang your ahead against the wall on their decisions because they understand why you make the decisions you do and were grown in leadership. Though they might not approach a solution exactly like you would (which is actually healthy), the result will line up with the overall vision because they understand the WHY of it all. Soon you will have a team of solid leaders.

How can you give every person under your leadership a bit more [decision space] this week?

Often songs either arrive from a great story. Other times God uses the words of a song as a catalyst for a story to emerge. True worship is always transformational. When you hear a great story tell it catalyzed by worship, tell it. We shot this video and then played it right before we did the song Mike refers to, How He Loves. It was an incredibly powerful moment. It was only the second time we had done the song in service.

Forgiveness from Northwood Church on Vimeo.

Crazy thing about the week Mike first heard that song in worship. I had a massively busy week and was leading. We needed a song that reflected God’s deep love as a response to the Word that was going to be preached. There was another song we already had a chart for, band knew, etc. But I felt led to introduce How He Loves though we didn’t have a lead female vocal, arrangement etc. One of my guys said, “Just do Your Love Never Fails” in an attempt to lighten my load (that must have seen my stress that week) and protect me from myself (ha!). I almost pulled it but I felt strongly that we should do it and spent the extra time to make a chart and work with Casey to learn it. It landed marvelously. When I shared with Mike how that song almost wasn’t in the service after he told me the story you saw in the video, he teared up at the realization of God’s providence for him that week.

For the record, Microsoft is using one of the goofiest ideas ever to try to build buzz about their Windows 7  launch. You host a launch party in your house and become a Windows 7 evangelist. As I watched this, it had the strange undertones of some church evangelism strategies I have seen….creepy. Consider the parallels.

Chris said to invite him and he’ll bring his mac over…ha. [video via --Bobby Vaughn's facebook]