Back In Town

We arrived back in Kentucky after spending much of the holiday weekend in Ohio. I am back for the services tomorrow morning at CrossPoint and getting ready for a hectic few weeks through the holidays with work and church.

I am expecting tomorrow morning to be a great service, but don't know what to expect in terms of turnout for the service. Holidays are wildcards with so many folks travelling, but it reenforces an important point that we should always be prepared for whatever. In fact, I prefer to keep my head down and work as hard as possible to lead the congregation regardless of the size of a particular day. You never know who or how you are going to impact one person through your ministry.

We are simply called to lead folks into a worship experience. as best as we can and that is our weekly focus.

Travis Cottrell and Forever Worship

2 In A Row

The praise team is coming over to my house tomorrow night and we are going to plan the rest of the year's services, so I have a little extra time and am going to do a rare "2 days in a row as a blogger". Thank you-Thank you applause isn't necessary. Actually the die hard blogs that I read (which are mostly sports related) are updated every few hours, but who has that kind of time? So anyway, here's what's up..

Read of the week: Same Kind of Different As Me A truly amazing book.. I read quite a few books, but this one is a truly unique story of compassion and ministry. The rights have been sold to make the movie (same Producer as Pursuit of Happiness), but don't wait for the movie.. it's an easy and enjoyable read.

An artist that I am coming to appreciate more and more is Travis Cottrell. I am extremely impressed with a song Jesus Saves I will post the video in the next blog. He has a new Christmas album out that sounds good, I haven't downloaded it yet, just listened on his website http://www.traviscottrell.com/Home/tabid/299/Default.aspx

Sunday Night Recap

Things have been going very well at CrossPoint for the past several weeks. We have continued to add to the congregation and the worship sets have gone very well. We have worked some new songs into the mix, which I will share below.

Often people will hear songs on Christian radio and think that they will transition to a worship service very well- and often this is not the case, however there is a popular song that we have started to do call New Hallelujah, by Michael W Smith, that exceeded (by far) my expectations when introducing it to the church. If you aren't doing this song, it is one that needs to be added into the rotation.

We are on a bit of a kick in trying to find song pairings- one lately that I happened to like very much and was effective for the service was In Christ Alone/The Solid Rock- you sing the first 3 verses of ICA and then come in with the chorus (2 times) of SR then go back to ICA for the last verse.

Finding old hymns and adding to them is or pairing with a newer song is really great to do in your services- tonight we started with You Are My All In All and then went directly into He Keeps Me Singing. Some other older hymns we have done lately that I like - He Hideth My Sould, My Faith Has Found A Resting Place, Above The Hills of Time, etc

I hope everyone has been doing great. If you are in the Richmond, Ky or are travelling through Ky on I-75, try to make it a point to stop by and see us. The church web address is www.crosspointbaptist.net

What's Up

I hope everyone is well, I see that the blog has been steadily growing in viewership, even though I haven't had near the time I wish to contribute, but I just wanted to check in and give an update on the latest with me and CrossPoint.

The praise team has been shifting around lately, as you probably know, Amanda headed off to the mission field, so we have added a new female vocalist. In addition we have 2 new guitarists 1 lead and 1 rhythm guitarist to add to the mix. In addition, our djembe player is now back after having to take some time off due to illness.

One of the things that I really appreciate about the CrossPoint Worship team is the adaptability. I am quite uncomfortable with the idea of having 4 people locked into a position without others in the congregation feeling welcome to participate in the services. I probabably still don't do a good enough job of promoting the membership to the team, but I'm working on it. I think it's important to the worship experience to have a freshness/newness to things- and new members bring their own special gifts to help lead in the services.

One tip for those going this route, keeping the team open to new members, is one that I heard recently from Brenton Brown and that is, if you have new people interested in joining, ask them to just hang out for a while with the team, come to practice, see how things flow. It will help both you and them understand if it is a match.

We are small enough now that it isn't an issue to bring in new additions, but at some point, as the church grows, lengthening this familiarization time from a few weeks to a few months, will be a great way to maintain healthy praise team-building.

There is a lot of good things going on at CrossPoint at the moment that I will be sharing soon, so stay tuned....