Wednesday Evening Service

Good evening, I think we need to call some people in from the hall, so let's all stand together. This first song we're going to do says, I will sing unto the Lord. It doesn't say, I feel like praising the Lord or anything, it says, I will. So we're going to, if we're all together here. It's so nice to hear your fellowship. Let's turn that fellowship now from horizontal to the Lord, shall we? I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of you shall be sweet. I will be glad, I will be glad in the Lord. Blessed Thou the Lord, O my soul Praise ye the Lord I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live, I will sing praise to my God while I have my peace. My meditation of peace shall be sweet, I will be glad, I will be glad in the Lord. Let's bless the Lord together. Blessed thou the Lord, O my soul, praise ye the Lord. Let's bless him some more. Blessed thou the Lord, O my soul, praise ye the Lord. Celebrate, celebrate the glory of our God. Celebrate, celebrate his wisdom and his power he has given to us to be victorious. Celebrate, celebrate the glory of our God. Celebrate, celebrate his wisdom and his power he has given to us to be victorious. Celebrate the glory of our God. And there is fullness of joy in your presence, in your presence. And there is fullness of joy, joy in the spirit of our God. Let's celebrate, celebrate the glory of our God. Celebrate, celebrate his wisdom and his power he has given to us to be victorious. Celebrate the glory of our God. And there is fullness of joy in your presence, in your presence. And there is fullness of joy, joy in the spirit of our God. Let's celebrate, celebrate the glory of our God. Celebrate, celebrate his wisdom and his power he has given to us to be victorious. Celebrate the glory of our God. There is joy, joy, joy in the presence of the Lord, singing alleluia, amen, amen. There is joy, joy, joy in the presence of the Lord, singing alleluia, amen. Dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate, dance with joy before the Lord. Dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate, dance with joy before the Lord. Okay, before we do this again, adults are so big. Try not to fall off. Can you kind of stand up so I can see you there? I want to see the joy on your faces. Can you put your hands together? Do you know what this means? Clapping. I know you can do that. And I want to hear your voices. And when we get to the part that goes amen, I want you to say real loud amen. Okay? There is joy, joy, joy in the presence of the Lord, singing alleluia, amen, amen. There is joy, joy, joy in the presence of the Lord, singing alleluia, amen. Dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate, dance with joy before the Lord. Dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate, dance with joy before the Lord. There is joy, joy, joy in the presence of the Lord, singing alleluia, amen, amen. There is joy, joy, joy in the presence of the Lord, singing alleluia, amen. With all our hearts, can we do that? Let's give the Lord a clap for our friend, because he's worth it. I was so blessed today when I was reading through our Victory Bible plan, and in Psalms 46 it talks about the gladness, the joy of the Lord. It says, there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. Where does your joy come from tonight? You know, I used to think joy was something you just kind of felt all the time, and when it wasn't there, I wondered what was wrong. I began to find that joy was a choice I made. It was an attitude with which I have, you know, I could be in very bad straits, but my joy can still be there, and why is that? Because it comes from who? That joy comes from the stream that never runs dry, Jesus, who lives inside of us, his life in us, our life in him, so we can never run dry. Would you turn to someone right now and tell them maybe a place where you need to see the joy of the Lord, a choice you can make in a situation you're in. Maybe you can share with them a joy that you have right now that might encourage them. Just do that. Just turn to one other person. Tell them a place where your joy is coming in. Could you now join with that person's hand? Could you join that person's hand while we just ask the Lord to show his joy in all those places? Just join a hand together. Lord, we ask now that in all those places, Lord, that we live out your life. Lord, that you would show us the joy that's there. Lord, that you could show us how we could choose to have that river overflow, that stream that never runs dry, that you could activate that, that river of gladness in our lives, Lord. And I pray for anyone here, Lord, where their stream seems dry, Lord, that you would cause something to happen in their lives tonight, that that floodgate would open and that water would just come rushing in and that joy of gladness would just be like a flood over them and they would leave from here so filled up and just ready to spill over, Lord, with whoever they might come in contact with. We ask that in Jesus' name. Amen. This next song, My Life Is In You, that's the truth. That's what makes that a reality, his life in us. My life is in you, Lord, my strength is in you, Lord, my hope is in you, Lord, in you, it's in you, my life is in you, Lord, my strength is in you, Lord, my hope is in you, Lord, in you, it's in you. I will praise you with all of my life. I will praise you with all of my strength. With all of my life, with all of my strength, all of my hope is in you. My life is in you, Lord, my strength is in you, Lord, my hope is in you, Lord, in you, it's in you, my life is in you, Lord, my strength is in you, Lord, my hope is in you, Lord, in you, it's in you. I will praise you with all of my life. I will praise you with all of my strength. With all of my life, with all of my strength, all of my hope is in you. My life is in you, Lord, my strength is in you, Lord, my hope is in you, Lord, my strength is in you, Lord, my hope is in you, Lord, in you, it's in you, my life, my life is in you, Lord, my strength is in you, Lord, my hope is in You, Lord, in You, it's in You. My life is in You, Lord, my strength is in You. Lord, my hope is in You, Lord, in You, it's in You, in You. Mighty King, we celebrate Your victories. Mighty King, we bring our praise to Thee. Mighty King, we celebrate Your victories. Mighty King, we bring our praise to Thee. Hey, before we do that again, the only thing that really makes this song work, so that you'll never forget it, is when you get to that Mighty King, you have to clap, and it's like two claps, and it's really easy. So you go, Mighty King. Okay, got that? Oh, you're quick learners. Let's try it. Mighty King, we celebrate Your victories. Mighty King, we bring our praise to Thee. Let's do it again. Mighty King, we celebrate Your victories. Mighty King, we bring our praise to Thee. Lift our banner high over us, announcing salvation to the earth. You, oh Lord, bring us liberty. You've freed us from the curse of sin. Mighty King, we celebrate Your victories. Mighty King, we bring our praise to Thee. Mighty King, we celebrate Your victories. Mighty King, we celebrate Your victories. Mighty King, we bring our praise to Thee. We lift Your banner high over us. You hold us from the curse of sin. You are a mighty King. Mighty King, we celebrate Your victories. Mighty King, we bring our praise to Thee. One more. Mighty King, we celebrate Your victories. Mighty King, we bring our praise to Thee. So Lord, it's You who we depend on. Always there, steadfast, and You never change. What a fellowship. How many know this song, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms? I know I learned it when I was young. This song says so much. Can we look at those words? What a fellowship. What a joy divine, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. What a blessedness. What a peace is mine. You know, you're never alone out there, kids. You're never alone everywhere you go. The Lord is with you. What a fellowship. What a fellowship. What a joy divine, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. What a blessedness. What a peace is mine, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. Leaning, leaning. Safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning, leaning. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. Oh, how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. Oh, how bright the path grows from day to day. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. Everyone, leaning. Safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning, leaning. Safe and secure from all alarms. You guys have to say, Leaning on Jesus. Leaning on Jesus. Try that with me. Ready? Leaning on Jesus. Leaning on Jesus. Good. Then you sit next to her, and you guys just keep saying, Leaning. Okay, let's try it. Ready? Go. Leaning on Jesus. Leaning on Jesus. Safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. Everybody, leaning on Jesus. Leaning on Jesus. Leaning on Jesus. Safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning on Jesus. Leaning on Jesus. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. Turn to someone and greet them. Tell them that you're leaning on the Everlasting Arms of Jesus. Could you do that? Introduce yourself. Make everybody feel at home. That's me. Pastor Jeff. Pastor Jeff was leaning on Jesus when we were all confused. He was doing it right. Just before we dismiss the kids, let me make sure there's any announcements just for the kids. They need to know about Jeff. Just that we need some teachers to teach in the back. If you are interested in teaching, we're glad you're here today. Sometime during this service, you can go ahead and open that packet up, and there's a card in there that if you'll take a minute to fill out, we'd be delighted to know that you were here, and we'll gather those during the offering at the end of the service. I want to have plenty of time tonight to kind of share a little bit about what I believe the Lord is speaking to us about our future, and you're going to be part of that. I've drafted a little survey. How many of you like to take surveys? You don't? You do. Hand me the paper, honey. You know, USA Today is great on surveys. I mean, they must have an army out there taking surveys all the time. And I'm going to have North Way Survey published in USA Today. This is what we think about what they think, okay? I'm going to refer to this in a little bit, but it's important to us that we know what you're thinking. And one of the greatest blessings that I experienced in my time away, as I mentioned to you earlier, was the thrill of hearing from so many of you, about 700 of you personally, via your written prayer request. Some of you used that opportunity to really give me your whole hearts and a few other things, some of your mind. And I appreciated that. I mean, I really did. And tonight, we're going to spend a few minutes looking down the road of North Way's future, and you're going to be very instrumental in shaping some of the attitudes and some of the decisions that we're in the process of making concerning the expansion of our ministry. And that's very, very important as far as I'm concerned, that you feel that God is with us as we move down the road, as we sang a little bit, down the path of life. I believe we sang. Quickly, mark your calendars for these things. Number one, we are already now taking a number of registrations for Love is a Decision seminar. Gary Smalley and John Trent have distinguished themselves as being able to really get in touch with people's needs at a very genuine level. If you sign up within the next two weeks, it will save you some money. But mostly, we need you to understand something. Many of you want to go, and you're putting a registration in, but you're not paying anything. We have to have something with that so that we can pre-register a whole large group, and that way save a lot of money. But please consider it. If the Lord wants you to be there, then sign up soon. That's not that long off. It will go quickly, and we urge you to do that now. Number two, how many of you ever were in a school play? How many of you were ever in a school play? Look at this. Now, there's our drama team, 300 strong and growing. We have a drama workshop. Put it up there, please, gals. Drama workshop this Friday evening for the writers and Saturday for the actors. And that should be actresses, too, right? Yeah, certainly. Here's why this is going to be really important. Number one, you have so many wonderfully latent gifts from the Lord that what we want to try to do is tap into that pool and come fall we are going to be, as I'll tell you in a moment, affecting our community in a very powerful way through drama. And we just would like to urge you to consider this. Coming to this Saturday workshop does not commit you to anything. Is that correct, Jan? It's just for your own instruction and training to discern the possibilities. Is there any cost? There's no cost except the church is underwriting this whole thing, and it will really be worth your while. It starts at 10 o'clock on Saturday and 7.30 on Friday evening. Please consider that. And tell someone about it. Tell someone about it and come together. All right, quickly then. Citizens for Excellence in Education, if your child is in the public school, consider this. This is a group of parents who are committed to affecting public school policy. How many of you know that's an important thing to do? All right, Thursday, that's tomorrow evening, room 103, which is along the hallway in the back there, 7 p.m. And finally, the missions meeting, Friday, that's also this Friday, August the 18th, 7.30. If you're considering going overseas within the next year, you ought to make this meeting so you can get some information as to how to plan for that. And if you're considering even more than that long-term mission involvement, please be at that meeting. You say, how can I do all this stuff? You're not supposed to. You're supposed to do what the Lord leads you to do. We just want to make it available to you. Do what you can. Do what the Lord leads you to do. But we want to make those opportunities available. Home group leaders, by the way, if you have anything to share as to some of the exciting things that are going on in your home groups for this Sunday, see me after the service. Let me know that. I want to plug into a couple of you for sharing some testimony, so let me know right after the service if you would. This Sunday I'm going to be talking. My message is on reporting the good news to your family. How many of you have at least one unsafe family member? How many, to your knowledge, everyone in your family is born again? Don't be embarrassed about it. That's exciting. See, it is possible. Amen? It is possible. But what we're going to do right now is going to be an outgrowth of what we believe God is calling us to do, to be on the cutting edge of seeking to win unsaved friends, relatives, neighbors, and the like. I'm going to ask you to share with us your feedback. Guests, are you all ready for this? We need a number of you to be on call here. I've prepared an outline of questions. Go ahead, ladies and gentlemen, pass these out. Go ahead and shuffle around your purses now and get a pen. This is the time. If you don't have one, be real nice and smile at the person next to you and say, Can I borrow yours when you're done? All right, I'm going to read through the questions with you. If you need a pen, the ushers can assist you with pens as well. Just wave your hand. Here comes some pens along with them. We need some more flyers up front here too. Follow along with me now. We need some more copies. Here comes some more copies. All right. Let me read through these with you. Dear North Way family, we are moving ahead in our plans to touch a broader cross-section of our community through expanded worship service opportunities. Please help us to correctly interpret your needs and desires by answering the following questions. We desire your feedback. We really want to know what you're thinking. Number one, do you have lots of contacts with people in your neighborhood, family, workplace, etc., who do not know Christ? Yes or no? You say, Well, of course the answer is yes. Hello? That's not true of everybody. Most everyone where I work knows the Lord. That's not a leak. Just go ahead and answer the question. Some of you are just so independent. Now, you're all on the back. I wonder what you mean by that. I'll read you through it, okay? Number two, when was the last time you personally invited one of these non-church, non-believing friends to a North Way service? Within the last month? Check it. Maybe it's been within the last three months. In other words, you don't have to do, obviously, if it's within the last month, you don't have to do all the rest of them. Was it two months ago? Was it Easter Sunday? Within the last six months? Within the last year? Within the last two years? And I had to add, or more. Now, if you never have invited anybody, would you go ahead and slip out of your chair and talk to the elders in the room? No. Really, I know there are people who have not, and I mean not just invited, but I should have said brought along, okay? You invited and they came. That's what I mean. I mean, hey. Suddenly the numbers are increasing. You invite them and they came. I mean, not just invite. You invite them and they came. Visitors, I beg your indulgence. This probably doesn't relate to you, but in a way it does. Number three, would you be interested in a service that is particularly sensitized to the perspective of the average nominally churched or non-churched person? Now, let me clarify this for those of you who have all manner and means of concerns. We're not talking about changing the gospel, not talking about even changing the message, but we're talking about the fact that this is a one-room schoolhouse, and we've got some graduate student Christians here. Amen? Look at your neighbor. Is that one of them? And we have some kids who aren't even in school yet, and we're talking about having a service that's particularly geared to the younger ones who aren't even in school yet. You can't fully appreciate this unless you know someone who you know just would not understand there is joy, joy, joy in the presence of the Lord. All right? Question four. Would you be supportive of such a service for the purpose of outreach? Now, I don't mean there do you think it's a good idea. What do I mean? Would you come and bring somebody? Number five. This, by the way, some of you are nervous. You don't have to sign this. What ingredients of such a service would enhance your desire to bring someone new? All right? Let's look through these. What, in other words, what parts of the service particularly are meaningful in a way that you think would relate to people that you know? Carefully selected and prepared music. In other words, specials that are very geared toward communicating to those who don't know the Lord. Visual reinforcement of major themes. We're talking about different things. Remember when Pastor Scott had the three chairs up here just recently? Remember when I had the axe head there one time and I swung it at the podium and hit the elder instead? He weren't here for that one. Meaningful dramas. We've tried those from time to time and I think they've been very successful when we've done them. Testimonies that relate accounts of what's happening in different lives who have come to Christ. A little shorter service. One of the things that's very difficult for an unchurched person who's never been to church more than 59 1⁄2 minutes is to say you're going to go 90 minutes and they say, whoa. A sensitive explanation of what it means to be in the presence of the Lord. Is that important to you? An ingredient that says to people this is what's happening when this happens. Acknowledgement but not pursuit of visitors. In other words, we wouldn't ask visitors to stand and fill out things. We would welcome them but we would not particularly it would be very comfortable for them to not necessarily be recognized if they should so choose. Relevant biblical messages on current themes. That will be the same whether it's this service or on Sunday service. Other things that you feel. Please give us any feedback. Other things that maybe you've visited somewhere. Maybe you've prayed about it. Maybe the Lord woke you up last night with a vision and you saw me doing something up here. I mean something I was supposed to be doing. You want to share that? All right, next, number six. Now our plans at the current time are to conduct such a service on Saturday evening. We feel this will give a significant option to many people in our community. In other words, lots of folks aren't even available to come to church on Sunday because how many of you know lots of places work now seven days a week. In order to allow time for activities following the service that is to say you bring someone then you go out and share a meal together, what have you. Further fellowship, we're going to probably consider having a very informal coffee reception kind of thing. Would you personally prefer a service? In other words, would you come to one at what time? Very early like 5.30, fairly early like 6 o'clock so that figuring about a 70, 65, 70, 75 minute service at the most 6.30 or 7.00. In other words, if you came at 7.00 you'd pretty much be past the dinner hour when you were done. If you came at 6.00 you'd certainly be right in the heart of the dinner hour for most people. About 7.00, 15.00 you'd be out. All right, along with the children's ministry, nursery and other normal support services any other ingredients that you'd like to recommend that we be sure to include. Ministry afterwards by those who would pray for the sick whatever you would want to put down there. And finally, number eight would you be willing to commit to the success of this outreach by a three month commitment to Saturday evening services? In other words, you're saying, Pastor, even if I can't bring someone every Saturday night I'll be here. You might ask, does that mean I can't come on Sunday? No, you can do both. The services will be a little bit different. But we'd like some people to say, I'll be here to support the vision to share the gospel with those who don't know the Lord. Would you be willing to say, I'll give help in whatever way I can? Maybe you could come Saturday evening and help in the parking lot. Maybe you could be a teacher. Maybe you could serve as an usher for a period of time, whatever. Or would you just say, Well, I'm not sure. I'll try it and see. Or would you say, Well, this just isn't for me. I prefer Sunday morning. I prefer more structure, what have you. Be honest. We just need to know those things. Now, let me ask you to do this. If you have a question, rather than just take the rest of the service time to answer questions, write your question out and I'll get back to you with an answer. If you have any questions you're concerned about, just write them and you'll have to put your name down there if you have a question. All right. All right. As soon as you're done, would you stand, please, and pass your sheets on in toward the center aisles. And I'd like us to do this. If you're not done, you can hold on to it and we'll pick it up later on. Go ahead and pass them in, please. How many of you came tonight to this service and you just had a need that you hoped someone would be concerned about? All right. Many of you did. Some of you came tonight. Everything's just going great. I'm trusting that God put those of you who are going great guns with those who have a need. That's what I'm believing. If you turn in a circle and everyone looks depressed, break it up and go to another one, all right? I want you seriously, though, to take the next seven or eight minutes and meaningfully pray for each other. How many believe God's called you to minister? I'm going to talk about that in the teaching here in about seven or eight minutes. I'm going to ask you to pray right now for one another, for God to meet your needs, and if things are going well, then just ask for prayer for whom God would send you to witness to his love and faithfulness. All right? Form a circle of three or four. If you're a visitor, please just listen in and see if you can participate by joining in a circle. Thank you. Turn and lift your voice and tremble before him Jehovah is our deliverer Hallelujah He's glorious Hallelujah Sin that has been our hope, Jehovah, our provider For doors that have opened, Lord For homes and cars Praise to thee, my mouth Thus exalt his name Together Save them and deliver them When God will hear your cry.