A new adventure….

I am the worship pastor for a new church plant in South Florida. Check it out! www.crosswaychurch.net

God has been mercifully guiding me all through this past year and helping me realize this is where he wants me to be.

Pray for us please!

“More Relevant Than Thou…”

“…the church and its members must not seek the world’s approval by providing programs that pander to people’s need to feel popular and appreciated. The “more relevant than thou” approach to ministry may fill churches, but often at the expense of the cross and all its glorious foolishness and shame.”

An extremely relevant quote (pardon the pun) from Jason J. Stellman’s Dual Citizens. You can read an expanded quotation at Ligonier Ministries or purchase his book.

(via Nathan Bingham)

Spurgeon on Baptists…

About a year ago, when I worked at Oasis Church, my good friend Guy Melton gave me a paper that was ripped out of a magazine. On the paper was this great quote from Charles Spurgeon speaking on the history of Baptists. When uneducated pastors are shaking their heads and fists out of shame, I will always stand and say that I’m proud of my Baptist heritage. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

“We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther and Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel under ground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others; nor, I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man.”

—Charles H. Spurgeon

What the pursuit of Holiness looks like

When we sin, we repent.

Biblically, I think Micah 7:8-9 shows repentance in a way that points the sinner back to Jesus. It points back to the very person who provided grace, took all wrath, and supplied Justice.

v8 Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;
when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be a light to me.

v9 I will bear the indignation of the Lord
because I have sinned against him,
until he pleads my cause
and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me out to the light;
I shall look upon his vindication

On the cross, God executed judgement by looking to Jesus instead of looking at us. God vindicated us through Jesus. It is Jesus that takes us from darkness into his marvelous light.

You should memorize these two verses.

Good Music

I’m not just saying this because he’s one of my oldest and dearest friends. But check out my friend Fil’s band Mouvement . His e.p. will be coming out shortly and they’re going to be touring around Florida in August. Go see them if they are playing in a town near you.

Give an ear to their music on www.myspace.com/filipesound. The song “Making Landmarks” is seriously my jam.

-Jimmy

Tired of music

When you are tired of everything on your itunes and ipod what do you do?

I am currently looking through 13G’s of music on my macbook… and I can’t find anything that fits my current mood.

Usually this is when I either throw on the first Third Eye Blind album or some Denison Marrs.

What do you do?

Covering songs…

Why does being a good cover band make you a good worship leader?

I am reminded of that old movie with Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston from 2001 titled “Rock Star”.  *edit: video now works*

I quit playing in a cover band when I graduated… from middle school. Playing songs exactly like the CD may prove you are just as good as a musician as the CD you playing your worship songs from, but are you sure you’re not trying to make your worship band a Chris Tomlin tribute band, a Hillsong tribute band, or  a Paul Baloche tribute band? Are you Mark Wahlberg’s character? Are the “Top-20″ worship artists your Steel Dragon? (see trailer above)

What about doing music your own way? What about writing your own or arranging your own?

Make music your own. God has placed you in a city to minister to it. Your job as a worship leader is to help the senior pastor of your church build a city within a city. Play and write music that ministers to YOUR city. Are you willing to play the kind of music that it takes to reach people in your context, or are you only willing to lead with your own style?

Cool stuff

1) First off, my wife took a picture of one of the coolest things ever in St. Augustine. We went up there for our honeymoon and just found about 4 rolls of film and got them developed. Check it out via her Flickr.

2) I posted a new song. Check it out over at my mypace.

3) Passion tea is the greatest thing at starbucks.

4) I bought Delicious Library a couple months ago. If you use a mac, and have a personal library that you always lend to people (books, dvd’s, games, etc…), you should buy this program. It only casts $40 and is simply amazing!  Check it out from their website.

5) If you don’t follow the Cool Town Studio’s blog, you should.

C.S. Lewis

To along with the post below, my good friend Ryan posted this quote from C.S. Lewis’ book Mere Christianity

“They all say “the ordinary reader does not want theology”…I have rejected their advice. I do not think the ordinary reader is such a fool. Theology means “the science of God”, and I think any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available…If you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas.”

Matt Chandler on the De-Churched

This was on the Desiring God blog today. This is very good. It describes why my peers left the church in and after high school.

Fact

We view God being active in our lives based on whether we have a job or not.

The sin gets worse. See, it’s bigger than that. God being actively involved in our lives, from our perspective, depends on if our needs are met. As soon as one of our needs are compromised, then God is not active. Our prayers then join the unsatisfied, worldly people in their cries for God to make their financial or material life better by the standards set by other unsatisfied, worldly people.

The words of the old hymns can only stand secure in ones heart when they are ‘trouble free’.

“On Christ the solid rock I stand.
All other ground is sinking sand!”

or this one,

“My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness”

My depravity leads me to idolatry. Will Jesus’ grace be enough to fulfill the void and will my false idols fall?

Life is a constant work in progress, but Jesus’ hand mercifully guides me.

It’s true

I have been deeply convicted by Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God. I am convinced that I am the older brother in the parable. I struggle everyday with putting the gospel first and killing self-righteousness that my flesh holds on to.

I’m working with a couple friends of mine to write music and maybe play a couple shows, and we were writing an intro, and these are the lyrics I came up with.

“I am the older brother of the two.

My younger ran far away. And I am too self-righteous to choose.

But God this can’t be! I have followed all the rules.

 

I am blemish free! But my brother comes and runs to thee?”