Sunday Recap: July 18th 2010

What a weekend!

Mack Kirkland and Lois Somerville were married in a beautiful ceremony Saturday evening at New Hope. This was a joyous event for all of us at New Hope who love them both. It was awesome.

Sunday's worship was great too. Maybe some of that joy carried over, but people really seemed to be singing. The set included two songs that we hadn't done in over a year and for the life of me I don't know why, because they were awesome.

All the Earth Will Sing Your Praises - with a great lead-in from Sean
O Worship the King - David Crowder
Lord I Lift Your Name On High - complete with motions!
Made Me Glad - Hillsongs

Amazing Grace - All of it! That's right - we sang every verse and we SANG!

The message was the first in a series I'll be preaching from Colossians. New Hope has done so much ministry and service over the last couple of years, I've come to the conclusion that we need to spend some time exploring and discovering the riches of what we have received by God's grace. Jesus is everything. He is enough to meet our every need. But we sometimes seem to have a Jesus Deficit Syndrome and it keeps us in bondage to our emotions and a slave to our circumstances.

So we are tackling Hebrews on Wednesday night Bible study and Colossians on Sunday morning. Total immersion in Jesus. Had the best week of study I've had in a long time last week and attribute that to two things - first, I'm reaching for more time in the Bible and working with some of the old tools - pen and highlighter that I used years ago. Less laptop and more of an open Bible with notes scribbled on post-it notes and filling the margins. Yes, I have tons of help on the laptop, but for some reason the old school way made me slow down and really dig into the text.



The text Sunday was the first I ever preached at New Hope. It's one of those passages where Paul opens his heart to the reader and he lays out exactly what his prayers are for the people God has given him to care for. It was easier to identify with now than it was years ago. The people God has placed me in are dear to me, and I pray every day for them and for God to fill their lives with His grace and peace. So as we start our walk through these two great books,I'm believing that God is going to do great things among us.