New Video and Photos of Hannaford Worship

Though you might be interested in some photos and a video of worship at Hannaford. Check it out on my ecpowell.online website (click here). Also of interest is another video we produced for the youth group here at Hannaford (click here).

Powell Family Update?

Like I said in my last post, I haven't been very faithful to blogging. When I let so much time go by, it's hard to remember how much has happened. We'll here it is...

If you remember, Christmas was very busy and so we were really needing some time off so we took a two-week vacation back to SoCal. While there, we tried to take some more time and do less. Mostly, we got the opportunity to go to Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and visited two churchs: Crossroads Christian Church in Corona and North Hills Community Church in Claremont (Upland). They were both different from each other, but great. The music really led us into worship and the messages spoke to our lives. We also made it back to Helena, safe and sound (no deer incidents). Unfortunately, the time-off didn't have a lasting effect because of a number of issues back home in Helena.

Some of the other events that have happened are:

• Kellin had his 6th birthday (at Godfather's Pizza again).
• You may not know that Andrea has been working a 3-day 5am-9pm shift at Target since August. Well, she quit last week.
• Andrik went skiing for the first time with his 5th grade class on a field trip. In school, he almost got all A's on his report card (one B).
  
• Construction is coming along at Hannaford, but we don't have any new photos, yet. (1) We've expanded, roofed, floored, walled, and painted our fellowship hall. We still are expecting to put in some room dividers. (2) We've also had new siding put up on the remainder of the church including the in process sanctuary expansion. (3) Finally, we've added windows to the sanctuary. It really gives it a different feel and a lot of light (no more lights-down worship session, projector screen is pretty faded).
• We got the dog a new toy. It's a rope with a little "tire" on one end He loves playing "tog-o-war" with any of us!

I really haven't been taking a lot of photos, but I'll try to post a couple.

These Blogs Are Worth A Read

It seems that I'm not very faithful to this blogging thing, but I've been inspired by some great bloggers. It's not just a geek thing anymore. I've been pretty captivated lately by a few blogs that have really gotten me thinking.

CHURCH MARKETING SUCKS
I've mentioned one before called Church Marketing Sucks. They have a lot of great thoughts for churches to make them think about how they are perceived by congregants and their communities. I would check it out. I love their peer reviews of potential church literature and websites. While you're at it, check out this hilarious radio spot for St Andrew's Episcopal Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

TONY MORGAN
Another great one is Tony Morgan's blog. He's one of the pastors at Granger Community Church in Granger, Indiana. He posts the weekly stats for Granger, relevant quotes, current trends in church culture, and even some personal thoughts. I love his experience buying an HP all-in-one printer (read here). I was on the floor laughing when he posted photos of some other uses for his failed printer!

EBAY ATHEIST
Finally, I just started tuning into a blog called The eBay Atheist. Basically, Off The Map ministries hired an atheist offering his services in eBay. They've asked him to visit churches and write up a survey of each one. As of today, he's only visited 4 churches, but his posts are quite thought-provoking. It might make us re-think the way we do some things...

Anyway, I hope you have a chance to visit and digest some of these resources. If you do, I'd love to hear some of your comments. Leave them below so everyone can read them.

Christmas Controversy?

Should we have Christmas Day worship services? I would have to say that I am falling in the "no" category, feeling that God wants us to honor Christ with our families in Christmas Day.

Our church has been celebrating Advent and Christmas all month long and three very special Christmas Eve services planned specifically for the purpose of allowing our church body to gather together to honor and celebrate the incarnation of our Lord and Savior.

Personally, this will be the first Christmas Morning in 13 years that I will not spend with my family. Where is the point when "church" actually hinders the relationship of a Christ-honoring family? Check out these comments from the web that further express my opinion.

(For the source of these comment and a variety of responses on the controversy, go to Church Marketing Sucks. Be sure to chime in on the conversation here with your comments.)

When I was younger, our focus as disciples was to keep Him in the right place, enthroned in our hearts, and to live peaceably with others, to share His love and to demonstrate what an impact He makes in our own lives. That also helped us to remember that Christmas and much of the traditions that we have built up about this season are just that: traditions. And, as traditions go, they become entrenched in community practice and sometimes they get revised, transformed and even enriched by much newer practices. Whatever the practice, usually underlying principles linger. For Christmas, what undergirds it, is that it is a joyful time, a wonderful time of community, sharing, celebration, renewal, relationships and family. It is a time to be charitable, to give, to love and to remember. And, if people, communities and churches remember this, then I think they are celebrating the season, and we ought to give them grace to do so in the way they seek.

Christmas morning is the one day a year that should be reserved for the family! Yes, it is a holy day. Yes, it is the day that we celebrate the birth of our Savior. But there is something very sacred and Christ honoring about setting aside this day as a unique day in the life of a family- a day not filled with activity and stress, but a day to relax, enjoy the blessings of God and spend time with family!

I am on staff at a church about 150 people. We are not doing a service on Christmas Day but it appears that the reason we approached it was different. We looked at it from this angle: what as a church is our driving focus for Christmas this year. As a church we are promoting families and anything that we can do that develop the relationship we are doing. That is the reason we decided to not a Christmas morning service. It would be detrimental (sp?) to where the church is going.

My biggest complaint about the coverage of this is that many of the reports make it sound as if worship starts and ends at the church door. We are not having Christmas services this year but mainly because we never have a Christmas service. But like many evangelical churches we teach that worship of God is a constant and ongoing thing. Therefore we have been sending the message that although we will not be worshiping God as a community of believers on Christmas day that we will be worshiping Him throughout the day as we spend time with family and friends.

I wonder if Colossians 2 speaks to this issue at all... "So don't let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new-moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these rules were only shadows of the real thing, Christ himself." (Col 2:16-17 NLT)

Consider Mark 2:27 (NIV) "Then he [Jesus] said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.'"

I really don't understand why everyone's getting bent out of shape about this now. It's not like we're not celebrating Christ's birth in church in all the preceding weeks or even on Christmas Day.

I agree that family should come before Church, and also that God should come before family (all of these are not exclusive - one or the other, mind you).

For somebody who worships only one day a week, it might seem that they are being robbed of that chance since the church doors are locked, or that the pastor has a "paid" day/week off. For those of us who worship 7 days a week, we recognize that all we really have is a change of venue.

Jesus preached in the temple as well as taught on the sea-shore, He ministered at funerals, and weddings, and fellowshipped with friends and family. He even worshiped alone in secret, and instructed us to do the same.

When we stand before the Judge at the end of time, we will not be asked if we had perfect attendance every Sunday, or observed His Birth and Death on their appropriate days; He will ask if we fed the hungry, clothed the naked, encouraged the desperate, and loved our neighbor.

For the source of these comment and a variety of responses on the controversy, go to Church Marketing Sucks. Be sure to chime in on the conversation here with your comments.

A Bit Down-trodden...

OK. So I've been feeling a bit down-trodden lately. I have been reminded that being in ministry can be challenging. Worship, ministry, and life itself is a series of tensions that we must work through.

Emotionally, I want to please everyone - I want everyone to be happy, especially with worship. But wisdom and experience speak to the fact that this is not possible. Specifically speaking, some what more hymns, some want less, some like things the way they are. Some want things louder, some want it quieter, some like it the way it is. For some, change is too fast. For others, it is too slow. Where do we seek the balance?

My conclusion, although it does not make things easier, is that there IS no balance. Making people happy, although it seems to make MY life easier on the outside, is not the solution (even if that solution could be sought). I am more convinced than ever that we must look more inward to the life God has put inside of us (Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit). Too often we look on our outward desires and justify them based on our preferences, history, or experiences - when the only justification or solution we should be looking for is from Christ.

So please pray for me that I might be able to be attentive to, hear and respond to, the guidance I might receive from God over the many other voices...

Inside-Out Worship

Being at Hannaford for a year now, we've been evaluating the ministry here. Recently, we've begun a new challenge to continue moving forward. I believe this "forward motion" is necessary for all believers and ministries because we live in an ever-changing and ever-evolving world. While God Himself and His precepts never change, the vehicles in which He is presented must change.

The same living water must be poured into new wine skins for each generation. To quote my good friend Kevin Bowers, "to maintain is to die." For more reading on this thinking, I suggest Len Sweet's Aqua Church and Erwin McManus' An Unstoppable Force.

I present this as food for thought...

As a team in the last year, the Praise Team has been able to produce a change in the atmosphere of worship here at Hannaford - the Holy Spirit has enabled, even anointed us to bring an attitude of celebration and joy to our worship gatherings. What has lacked, however, is a deep passion for God evidenced through our worship on Sundays and throughout the week. (It's not that there isn't a deep passion for God in some, it is just that that passion isn't connecting with our worship). We seem to be fixated on the externals with our worship on the outside - What we are doing and what others are doing..

God has led me to the conclusion that our focus, our vision if you will, must result in inside-out worship. One that develops from Godly passion & purpose, and intimate relationship with Him; a worship that is born from revelation and personal experience; a devotion that flows from a changed life.

Our new vision is to be "a team of servant-leaders who seek passion and purpose through inside-out worship.

God granted this vision as I read through a little book complied by Matt Redman, Inside-Out Worship. As I read through the short readings in the book, I was struck over and over about how the topics addressed the missing elements of our worship (and our understanding of worship). So, yes. I took the phrases "passion and purpose" and "inside-out worship" for my own - Under the circumstances, I don't think Matt would mind.