Archive for March, 2008
Jesus said He came to bring us an abundant life, not a boring life. Scripture also tells us that laughter is good medicine. One of our core convictions at Northway is that we believe church should be fun. Check out this intro we did to last week’s message. I LOVE THE 80s has been our theme in this love series, and I don’t know if I’ve heard our church laugh harder.
Friday I mentioned I received some inside news regarding an unprecedented BUZZ that should hit the church world today! We have been invited to be a part of a national message series entitled, One Prayer, beginning in June with Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv, Ed Young of Fellowship Church, and many other churches. Now, this is so much more than a message series as One Prayer has the opportunity to be a movement!
Imagine hundreds of thousands of Christ followers, possibly millions, cooperating and collaborating in a strategic alignment. Take hearing God’s Word from some of the greatest leaders and communicators in the church world today, then add in community service and global outreach, and you have conditions for a tsunami of generosity that changes our communities locally and globally. I want to encourage ALL pastors and leaders and bloggers to check it out and consider being a part of this historic opportunity.
I think heaven is smiling on this ONE.
Makes me think of the words of Jesus and a recent post I did from several months ago.
John 17:20-23 I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be ONE, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be ONE as we are ONE: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Pretty remarkable that Jesus would take time to pray for you and me. Consider the timing of His prayer, and it’s beyond remarkable! Jesus knew He was hours from being tortured. I don’t know about you, but when I’m struggling with something major (let alone dying, being tortured, and carrying the weight of the sins of the world) the last thing my focus would be on is praying for others. I’m too self-centered.
Maybe that was Christ’s point. When you stop and think about it, how many prayers have we have asked God to answer in our lifetime?
Wouldn’t it be cool if we just stopped once and answered one of His?
So many of you have been an encouragement to me by praying for my Dad’s healing. God has answered those prayers, and God has healed my Dad of cancer! Many of you have also been praying for Debbie’s mom, Josephine.
Josephine has been battling cancer for 40 years! Josephine has been through more health challenges than any other woman I know. Josephine has had numerous surgeries and procedures, and I think most people given her challenges would have given up years ago.
Not Josephine.
Josephine is courageous; she is a fighter; and she is Italian…I think they all go together! We have just heard that Josephine has had congestive heart failure. She is tired and exhausted. Please remember to pray for Josephine, Debbie’s dad, Ray, and Debbie as she will be headed home to see her mom. Thank you. If you want to send any comments to Debbie, Josephine or Ray…I will pass them on. Thanks again.
There is so much news in the pipe line that I’m PUMPED about…the launch of Cremeans Couch next Monday and our next series, REVOLUTION…change a life, change HISTORY! I believe it will be the greatest and most important thing in the history of Northway Church! The revolution begins April 26th.
What if I told you that after the greatest thing in the history of our church (The Revolution), that the greatest thing in the history of the church GLOBAL/UNIVERSAL may happen? What is it? I just got a call from someone everyone knows in the church world…and it will be announced this Monday! All I got to say is…I’M ALL IN and I’ll let all of you bloggers know about it this Monday.
It has the potential to start a revolution Globally!
Spring has sprung, and it’s stinking snowing in upstate New York! When the snow first falls here in November or December it’s gorgeous. However after 5 months…I’m frozen out! THIS SNOW HAS GOT TO GO!
Anybody else sick of this stuff?
Yesterday, I received a call from a reporter of the Schenectady Gazette, inquiring on doing a story about the grand opening of our 3rd location in Colonie and all that is happening at Northway Church. Pick up a copy today and check it out online.
Thank you Cari Scribner for thinking of Northway and capturing who we are.
Just got home from our Connection Group. We have the BEST group! I love these guys…such great discussion…such openness. There is nothing cooler than the church being the church! We talked tonight in our study about the truth that everyone matters to God. We also talked about how all of us struggle with our own value. From a Pastor, to a butcher, to a builder, to a nurse, to a teacher, to an administrative assistant, to a CEO and a business owner…all from different backgrounds…but we ALL grapple with our value.
Wherever I turn these days, God won’t allow me to drift and float away from this truth. The enemy’s number one strategy is to attack God’s children by attacking their worth. Think about it …it worked with our first parents in the Garden of Eden. Why? The enemy attacks our worth because it works!
Jesus Christ’s number one strategy, on the other hand, is to RAISE OUR worth.
How can you tell how much something is worth? By how much someone is willing to pay for it. God gave His Son for you and me on the cross. In other words, anchor yourself in this truth…YOU are priceless. Your worth is immeasurable. God loves you more than you can imagine. This is the message of why we exist as the church…to raise people’s value.
What are some practical ways you can raise other people’s value today?
Cremeans Couch launches in 12 days! I’ve got to discipline myself and ask myself this question repeatedly…“why am I doing what I’m doing?” God has recently opened up a HUGE door for me in the blog world with Cremeans Couch. I’m asking myself this question again. Why am I doing this God? Why have you opened this door for me? How do you want to use Cremeans Couch, God? I’ll be sharing the answers to those questions leading up to the Monday when we officially launch CC!
Many of you are probably wondering, “What is Cremeans Couch?” Well, here is the short of it…CC is a video interview segment on my blog that features a wide variety of inspirational leaders that have a passion for leadership and for the future of the church. My desire is to bring the “behind the scenes stuff” about leadership that you don’t hear at conferences to the blogging world. Why? Starting Northway Church 5 years ago in upstate New York, I know far too well that so many pastors and leaders are isolated, starving and craving this information. CC offers to bridge the gap by bringing access to all.
Please spread the word to all the bloggers out there that CC is coming a week from Monday! God has blessed incredibly in this already as I have some amazing guests, Perry Noble, Ed Young, Lisa Young, Craig Groeschel, Bil Cornelius, Mac Richard, Mark Batterson, Steve Furtick…just name a few familiar people in the church world.
Who would you like to see on CC?
We had three thousand two hundred people this weekend at Northway in 10 services at 3 locations! I had more people come up to me this weekend that introduced me to their friends than any services I can remember at Northway. Thanks again to everybody who invited your friends, and served and gave so we can lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. I just got this email…
I would just like to take the time to thank you, Buddy and the whole
Northway team for being so nice to me for when I accepted Jesus as my savior on Saturdays service. I’ve had a lot of turmoil in my life and never knew what to do and now I just put it all in Jesus’ hands and I learned from going to Northway and having a better understanding of what Jesus did and why he did it. And what He can do for me, all thanks to the way Buddy relates it to real life just makes such a difference to me. I can really understand to what he says about it and I feel very comfortable at the church. Everyone is so friendly and outgoing. I now feel a lot more confident joining the military knowing that if I come to a hardship in my life Jesus will be there to get me through it.
Alicia
Seriously, yesterday was the BEST day for our family since Christmas! We all slept in from our 10 services and the kids had the day off. We cleaned the house like crazy until lunch time. This made my bride feel like Christmas…got to tell you, if I hadn’t heard the Easter message, that would have been the last thing we would have done. Then, we went outside and played Family vs. Wild. The Wild won. We fell in the frozen creek trying to cross it. But, it’s only a foot deep so no worries.
Then we had lunch and watched Nancy Drew…this made it feel like Christmas for Natalie. I decided later to take the kids bowling, and Devin beat me. The wager was…whoever won got to pick out dessert for supper. This made Devin feel like it was Christmas. Natalie won five bucks from me because she asked me how much I would give her if she made a spare…backwards thru her legs…impossible! But she did it!
Then we went to the store and grocery shopped for homemade spaghetti and went home and made it for the fam. We rented Die Hard…this made me feel like it was Christmas! I love my family…what a day! Thank you, God! We haven’t connected like that in a long time!
