This video really cracked me up. I’ve seen several people share it over the last few days, so I thought  I would pass it along. Satire has a way of loosening our defenses so we can hear truth, and I think this video does a good job of that. We must be careful to check our motives and not fall into the “coolness” trap.  Let me know what you think.

I had an interesting conversation last week with someone in the community who suggested that our church should change music styles so that more older people would start attending. According to him, “people” in the community had shared that our music style and volume discourages older people from attending. His reasoning was based on the fact that we need older people because they give more money. In other words, change our style and cater to those who have money.

It’s an interesting argument, and one that I have heard before. But his reasoning was faulty. Yes, we do want to be a church that encompasses and welcomes all ages groups.  But money is not the reason to be a multi-generational church. We need all age groups so that we can learn and grow from each other. Titus 2:1-8 is a good example of how old and young can learn from each other. But his reasoning was also faulty because it simply isn’t true.

Our church is an amazing group of people of all ages. We have young families and senior citizens and everything in between. Sometimes the perception is that if you have a contemporary style, then older people won’t like it. We have found the opposite. People who have grown up in church love the passion and energy of a new style, and they love seeing the younger generation hungry for God. Does it mean they have to put aside some of their personal preferences? Absolutely, but we do everything we can to make sure everyone feels welcome. They may prefer another style of music, but when they experience God moving and working, they can put their musical preference aside. The simple fact is that our church is growing and full of life, and our musical style does play a part in that.

We try to incorporate older hymns done in a new style, and we make sure to keep our volume to a reasonable level , but we know that everyone won’t like the style we choose. There are many churches that offer a traditional style of music and there is plenty of room in God’s Kingdom for all of us. It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people, and I am not bothered if some people don’t like the way we do things. Because I know that as long as we continue to listen and follow God that our church will be blessed. It’s His opinion that really matters.

Over the years I have collected quite a few video backgrounds for worship. From our co-pastor Sam’s past involvement with Digital Juice and from years of downloading videos and bundles, I have a hard drive full of content. But if you are just starting out, it can get expensive.  One of my passions is using video technology to create environments to help present the timeless truths of scripture.  It is hard finding the right background to complement songs and not create distractions in worship.  If we’re really honest, much of the content out there is not that great.

That’s why I got excited when I read about the playback drive on several different websites (visualworshiper and churchcreate and WorshipVJ)   For $249, you get an external hard drive filled with quality backgrounds.  I get a lot of questions about video backgrounds we use when we do public events, so I think this makes it simple for smaller churches with smaller technology budgets to get started. It puts new meaning into plug and play.  Here’s a video with more details.

Playback Drive Promo from Orange Thread Media on Vimeo.

Christ is risen, and that changes everything. We worship Jesus who reversed the irreversible by defeating death.  The resurrection is the dividing point of history, because we have been given life. The grave no longer is something to be feared! This Easter at Cornerstone, we celebrated that new life in Christ. I wanted to share a few things about our weekend at Cornerstone.

• This was the first week we went to two Sunday morning services. It was a big step of faith because it required more people serving and getting involved. I appreciate all of our volunteers who sacrificed and served in so many ways. We have a great group of people who want to see our community transformed for Christ.
• The greatest comment from our response cards came from someone visiting from out of town. Here’s what they said “I was only visiting for the weekend since I live in (…)  You were all so welcoming! I am from the north and not used to being so welcomed by other believers. God Bless you!”  I love it when people feel welcomed because it allows us to challenge them with truth from God’s Word.
• We had our biggest crowd with more children and young families at our 9:15am service. That surprised me, and it will be interesting to see if that changes next week.
• Both services were full but not crowded. I was excited to see that we still have room to grow even with our largest attendance ever this weekend. Next weekend we will start offering three services every week! 9:15am, 11am, and 6pm
• Our worship team did an awesome job as usual. I don’t think there is another church our size in the entire country that has as much musical talent as we do!
• I was also excited to see lots of new faces and families worshiping with us this weekend. And of course, it’s always amazing when you see people place their faith and trust in Christ and cross over from death to life!
• Not excited to see that our offering was low again this weekend.  Our local economy is really struggling and it has definitely affected the giving at church this year. We have to start making some tough decisions in our budget.
• We started a new series this week called One Month to Live.  We are challenging everyone to ask the question “What changes would you make in your life if you only had one month to live?” That question is powerful, because it forces us to look at our priorities and values in life.  Can you honestly say that you are living passionately for Christ? The truth of the resurrection changes everything. It causes us to change the way we live and change the way we love others.

Nothing can be the same again because of the resurrection. I encourage you to watch the video below to think about how the resurrection has changed your life.

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

At the heart of the historical Jesus story is the provocative, compelling, subversive, beautiful insistence that nothing can ever be the same again, not after resurrection.

I’m excited about John Waller joining us this Sunday at Cornerstone Community Church. If you saw the movie Fireproof or listen to SpiritFM, you have heard John Waller’s music. His song, While I’m Waiting is a powerful song about waiting on God’s timing. He will be joining us and leading worship for our 10am service, and then going over to First Baptist to lead them in worship at their 11am service. At 6pm on Sunday night, we are moving our evening service over to the historic Rex Theater in downtown Galax for a special concert with John.

The great thing about this concert is that it was organized by a young man in our church. Isaac Larrowe has organized and promoted the concert and has raised the funds to allow John to come minister to us. Please help us get the word out about the concert. If you haven’t heard the song, check out the video below or check out John’s website.

I’m getting excited about our trip down to Anderson, South Carolina this week for the Unleash Conference. We’re leaving tomorrow and hopefully heading into some warmer weather. Jennifer and I have been every year and I love the encouragement that we receive from the NewSpring staff. We try to take a different group from Cornerstone each year to expose them to the hospitality and vision of NewSpring. You can’t help but leave “fired up” about what God has called you to do. All the details about the conference can be found on the website, along with a listing of all the breakout session topics.

If you can’t make it to the conference, then you can join in and watch the main sessions online at http://unleash.cc/

Here is just a sample of what you can expect. I look forward to meeting up with some online friends. Leave me a comment or send me a message on twitter if you will be there.

Promo: “Unleash 2010″ from NewSpring Production on Vimeo.

A One Day Event focused on the church and it’s potential at NewSpring Church on March 4, 2010. Visit newspring.cc/unleash for more information.

As some of you may know, since the first of this year we have been working with First Baptist Church in Galax.  They are currently in between pastors, so Sam, my co-pastor at Cornerstone has been preaching and serving as their interim pastor. He’s still working for Cornerstone, but he is also helping them through their time of transition. We have stated that we want to be the best church for the community, not just the best church in the community. By being Kingdom minded, we are showing the local community what happens when we cooperate instead of compete. We have been preaching through the same sermon series and working together on the messages each week. At Cornerstone, we have wanted to do a baptism service during the winter months, so Sam came up with the idea of a joint worship service between the two churches.

This Sunday, we are moving our Sunday evening service to First Baptist and joining them for a combined worship service. We are coming together to celebrate. Our worship band will be joining with their choir as they lead the service in worship. They practiced together last night and everything really came together and sounded great. Even though the styles may be a little different between the two churches, we come together with the same purpose of lifting up the name of Jesus Christ. Join us this Sunday evening at 6:30 for a time of celebration through worship and baptism.

Own the Mix

Since I was sharing about a resource to train your tech team in an earlier blog post today, I wanted to share some other resources that you might find helpful.  The first is Own the Mix, an online training resource for your audio team.  Here is how they describe the service

OwnTheMix.com is a comprehensive audio training solution for the modern church. Created by Buckhead Church’s Audio Director, Dustin Whitt, and Music Director, Chris Green, you will learn secrets to creating irresistible worship environments. Whether novice or professional, there is plenty for everyone inside. Subscribers have an all-access pass to every video, and are connected to all of OwnTheMix.com’s users through a state-of-the-art social network.

Check out the video below for a sample of the teaching that you’ll find

Transposr

The second service I want to highlight is Transposr. It allows you to transpose chord charts and mp3 files into different keys.  This is a great way to make practice tracks in different keys.  It will change the key of a mp3 file without changing the tempo.  I have created accompaniment tracks in new keys several times in the past, but it required a confusing mix of plugins and audio programs to accomplish.  This is a free service provided by Planning Center Online and it works great.  You will need to know the original key of the song to make it work.  We are using and implementing Planning Center to schedule our worship teams and to layout the flow of our services each week.

I have looked at both of these services in the past, but I want to thank Church Media Design for reminding me about them in their latest podcast.  Check out the CMD.tv podcast for great technology and computer tutorials.

I have been hesitant to blog about this, but the thoughts simply won’t go away.  At the Catalyst Conference I saw yet again something that has been bothering me about the church world.  When you step back and look around, all the pastors of contemporary churches look the same.  And all the worship leaders leaders looked the part as well.  It was a very homogenous group of 30 and 40 somethings all trying to look cool.  You could tell many of the pastors made a run on Buckle and picked up their wardrobe before dropping by the salon to get highlights in their hair.   And don’t even get me started on the tight skinny jeans and low-cut v-necks that many worship guys were wearing.

You may ask why does it matter?  Let me give you a couple of thoughts to think about.  And let me just say that I am in no way judging others.  In some ways, I very much lump myself in with the pastor crowd.

• Some may say that we dress that way to be culturally relevant.  I’m okay with that if the culture you live in actually dresses that way.  I don’t want to be cynical, but in most cases, the way we dress doesn’t actually match up with the people we are called to reach.
• Some may say that we are rebelling against the pretentious suits and ties of the previous generation.  But  is there any difference between wearing a $500 suit and a $500 outfit from a hip store?  How many people in your congregation can actually afford the clothes that you are stylin?  It’s a honest question that we must wrestle with.
• Why are worship leaders afraid to wear masculine clothing? It looks like a bunch of 40 year olds dressing like the Jonas Brothers.  That may sound harsh, but I really struggle with the styled long hair, manscara, and skinny women’s jeans they are wearing.

Let’s remember who we are to imitate.  I would argue that there is nothing inherently wrong about styles, as long as they are modest and appropriate.  I know those are subjective terms, but the bigger issue is one of our hearts.  WHY do we all look the same? Is there an unspoken pressure to conform to the music world? Why can’t we be normal?

I don’t have the answers, but I don’t think there is a valid reason that everyone looks the same.  I want to see the uniqueness and beauty of the world we live in reflected in the leaders of our churches.  Drop me a comment and help me understand.  Keep it civil, and remember that I live in a small rural town in the mountains of Virginia.  I’m just a little backward

It was strange tonight having a cookout with the family instead of being at church. As many of you know, we have stopped having our Saturday night service during the month of August. During the past year, Cornerstone has had two services: one on Saturday nights at 7pm, and one on Sunday morning at 10am.  If you have been at church the past few weeks, you have heard our decision to move our Saturday night service to Sunday night starting September 13th.  It was not an easy decision to make, but we feel that it will be best for everyone involved.  When you have to change something that you created, it is tough, but I am excited about the changes we are making.

Here is what was great about Saturday night:

• The laid back, conversational environment with tables and chairs surrounding the stage
• The modern/eclectic worship style of our young adult band, Scattered
• The ability for our people to attend the Saturday service and worship and then serve on Sunday mornings
• The chance for me to preach the message twice each week.  Saturday night helped me develop and fine tune my thoughts for Sunday

But here is what we struggled with:

• Encouraging people from the community to attend. After almost one year of meeting, we had very few people from outside of the church visit.  Attendance was increasing, but we weren’t reaching those in our community who weren’t already in church somewhere
• Having enough volunteers to serve each week.  It was a constant struggle to make sure that we had our children’s ministry covered and enough people to setup and run the cafe.
• Spending time with my family on the weekend.  Since Emma was in school this year, Saturdays with my family were important.  Preparing for a service meant that many Saturday afternoons were spent at the church. For the health of my family, this was not a good habit to get into

So we decided to address the good and the bad by moving the service to Sunday night.  We debated moving to two Sunday morning services, but we would lose the identity and environment that we have worked so hard to create on Saturday nights.  Having a service opportunity for our younger band to lead worship was important, and trying to incorporate two different bands on Sunday morning would have been difficult. Already, we have had much more support from our volunteers about serving on Sunday night.  It also worked well with our decision to start a mid-week youth service.

I hope that we will soon be adding a second service on Sunday mornings (that makes three services all together).   That will be the next logical time to add.  But for now, we are encouraging people to think about switching to the Sunday night service to free up some space for visitors on Sunday morning, especially our teenagers and their famillies.  I’ll share more about our youth ministry and the new changes over the next few weeks.

Here are some great pictures from the concert Sunday night.  I didn’t have my camera, so I grabbed these from several people at church who posted them on Facebook.  The crowd was estimated to be between 3000 and 3500 people, which is incredible for a city with a population around 6000.  We had several local bands play before Decemberadio, including our own Cornerstone praise band Scattered.  It was an incredible success, and we’re already planning on how to improve and make it even bigger and better next year.  Thanks to all the churches and sponsors who made it possible, and special thanks to all our Cornerstone members who put in a long, long day to make this such a success.  I have heard nothing but positive comments from everyone involved.

Over the last four years at Cornerstone, we have not developed a reputation for planning our services.  We typically showed up on Sunday morning and hoped everything would fall into place.  Most weeks it did, although the stress level was through the roof when the unexpected happened.  I have heard numerous times that we should just let the Holy Spirit lead, and not worry about how everything comes together. But my question was always, do we honor God with our lack of preparedness?

With the addition of our Saturday night service and a second band, it became increasingly difficult to coordinate everything happening in the service. How many songs is the band playing? What song should we use for the response time? Who is doing announcements? What videos are we playing? All these questions and more were asked every week. The other problem was for the band. They needed the ability to share chord charts and songs and even schedule who was playing each week. Based on the recommendations of several churches, we decided to give PlanningCenterOnline a try.

We’re two months in, and I’m loving the service. We haven’t got all our songs into the system yet, but the potential is great. We are printing out a service plan each week for our band, speakers, and audio/video operators. I am even thinking about expanding the use of it to schedule children’s workers and greeters each week. You can check out the video below to find out more.

And finally, the Holy Spirit can move just as much when we plan earlier in the week. Let’s not use the Holy Spirit as an excuse for our own unwillingness to plan and prepare. The schedules are still just a guideline.  In a few cases we have changed up the service as we go because we did feel God leading us to do things differently.  But because the plan was in place, the stress and craziness has been drastically reduced.

Introducing Planning Center Online from Planning Center on Vimeo.

If you have read through my twitter updates, you know that I have not been a big Adam Lambert fan on American Idol. I get tired of hearing every song turned into a screamfest.  But I was excited to see two worship leaders, Danny Gokey and Kris Allen, end up in the top three.   Kris surprised many by winning, but he is truly a great artist and a great guy.  Here is a clip of him leading worship at church.  I really love this song, and I’m grateful that he is using his talent to honor God.  Let’s all pray for him.  He has a huge opportunity.

Kris Allen Singing “God Of This City” from Rick Smith on Vimeo.

thanks to Rick Smith for the link

We’ve showed this video a few times before church and it really emphasizes what we want our church to be.   We want Cornerstone to be a very safe place where you can hear a dangerous message.

this video is available for purchase at Worshiphousemedia.com

We have been talking about starting a Saturday Night service at Cornerstone for a long time and we are finally pulling the trigger. We have decided to do two preview services, one of which is this Saturday night, November 15th. We will do another one on December 13th and then determine if we can do it every week. I am super excited about the opportunity to do a service that is geared toward young adults and youth and that is a little edgy and modern. Our young adult praise band, Scattered, will be leading the worship for this service.

We are starting the service at 7pm and we will be offering child care as well. If you are interested in helping this week, please let me know. The message will be the same as Sunday morning, although it will be “presented” in a slightly different way. There will be more movie clips, more interaction, and a higher use of technology. We are using this as an outreach service to the many young people in our area who have nothing to do on Saturday nights. It will be high energy, relevant, and fun, but I can guarantee that it will have the same hard-hitting Bible truth that I am passionate about.

You can download the flyer here and print it out and distribute around town. We aren’t doing much publicity for these preview services, so it’s up to you to get the word out. Thanks