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I haven’t been to church in a long time

I haven’t been to church in a long time.

That may come as a surprise to many of you who see me each weekend… preaching.

Yes, I am aware that some of you extremely spiritual pastors out there will argue with me about my own spiritual state if I don’t feel like I’m at church whenever I am in the pulpit.

Don’t bother commenting on this post, I’ll just delete it… yeah, I said it!

So, back to my initial statement, I haven’t been to church in a long time.

Last weekend in our faith community was amazing. We hit record high numbers, our offering was through the roof, we baptized on Saturday and Sunday, we celebrated the installation of a new campus pastor, launched our brand-new Christmas series, and I got to preach five times in three buildings in two cities with four different worship teams… You better hang it up, because that was off the hook!

In reality, while that was an absolutely stellar weekend for CrossPoint, I went home tired, again.

Continue reading “I haven’t been to church in a long time”

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Drawing the battle lines

If you really want to bring a group of believers together, talk about Jesus.

If you really want to drive them apart, talk about worship.

It really is sad, isn’t it? We have so much to agree on in the majors, but we continually gravitate to the minors and fight viciously over stuff that barely matters.

It’s kind of like two countries that share every single value, but go to war over the cost of the toll bridge between them.

Yes, I am a veteran of the worship wars (an idiotic phrase, but one that fits all too well). In the churches I have served, the music ministry was often in a state of ‘transition.’

This is the worship pastor’s way of saying, “Our worship was something, now its something else, but we hope it will somehow morph into something completely different.”

In the church we’re constantly searching for that ancient hymn, that only sounds good with distorted guitar which causes teenagers to weep with conviction while simultaneously prompting our seniors to yell at the sounds booth, “Turn it up my man, it’s just not loud enough!” Continue reading “Drawing the battle lines”