Our new website launched today.  Check it out at www.2pillarsChurch.com.  There is a new blog over there too (www.2pillarschurch.com/blog/).

All of this means that project2pillars.com will begin to change shape a bit.  Rather than being the central web location for all things 2 Pillars, the project2pillars.com site will now transition to more of a place where I blog strictly on the progress of 2 Pillars Church, lessons we’re / I’m learning, etc.

Please stay tuned here, but also set another dial over to the new site and blog as well.

–John Stott, The Message of Acts, p143.

This Sunday (8/22) after our worship gathering we’ll be holding a Mission and Vision Meeting.  This is your chance to come and hear the broad mission and vision of 2 Pillars Church.  If you are relatively new to 2 Pillars Church or are sniffing it out, or considering sniffing it out, please plan to attend this meeting.  Consider it a “newcomers” meeting, if you will.

Beyond the mission and vision, we’ll also explain the path of becoming more involved in what is going on here – namely, how you can become part of our Launch Team.

The meeting will be held in the lower-level of The 815.  We’ll start at about noon and wrap up around 1pm.  Kids are welcome as always.

Hope to see you there.

On Saturday, September 11, 2010 we will be meeting here at The 815 for a night of worship and prayer from 7pm-8pm. This will be the eve of going public for 2 Pillars Church.  We will be singing songs together, praying together, breaking bread together, and asking Jesus for wisdom and strength during this next phase of the church. Please mark this date on your calendars and make time to come together in song and prayer.

• “My God, My Father” – Red Letter
• “Beautiful Things” – Gungor
• “Death in His Grave” – John Mark McMillan
• “Help My Unbelief” – Red Mountain Music
• “Overcome” – Desperation Band
• “Dry Bones” – Gungor

Not familiar with some of these?  Download the lyric sheet, google them up (or YouTube) and get your heart and head tuned in prep for Sunday.

(Post by Matt Grant, 2 Pillars Church Worship Leader)

This week, I’m dubbing our Sunday gathering as “New Music Sunday”. Ok, now don’t get worried that were going to be doing a bunch of weird songs no one has ever heard of or that we are going to have our Electronica sunday (which we may do in the future) with blacklights and really, really weird dancing. New Music Sunday is basically what it sounds like. We are going to have a few new songs that are going to stretch and pursue us. I want to make sure we aren’t heading towards a rut of some sort with the current song selection, so what better time than this Sunday to introduce new music to you, the church body.  With the overwhelming response to last weeks new song, “Overcome”, it seemed apparent that the church was hungry for some new tunes. So this week our new songs are:

“Dry Bones” by Gungor

“My God, My Father” by Red Letter

(Post by Matt Grant, 2 Pillars Church Worship Leader)

We’re looking to grow our worship team.

Who is Matt asking to come forth from their musical hiding?

1) First and foremost proficient musicians. I’m looking for people who display a certain level of excellence on their instrument and have some experience playing in a group setting. It could be orchestral or choral or band. You don’t have to be Bach or a “professional musician” to try out, but I am looking for people that are able to hold their own on the instrument and can adapt to a normal band setting. Would you be able to hold your own if I (Matt) wasn’t there to tell you what to play? Are you confident on your instrument? Have you been in worship groups in the past with success? If you’ve answered yes to these questions, then chances are you should be in our band now! Get over here. Quick. We want to work with you. We’re not asking necessarily for a weekly commitment (maybe though if your feeling that), but we will ask for a certain level (i.e. # of times per month) for you to commit to including rehearsal time.

2) Secondarily, to those who are not quite proficient, but moving towards getting there through their own training, I invite you as well. Due to time constraints I can’t promise you that you’ll be able to participate (at least initially) in worship, but one of the things that we are doing is inviting younger/older guys/girls/men/women to be mentored by coming to practice, praying with the team, and hopefully spiritually and technically preparing both your heart and your hands for worship; through the discipline of prayer and the discipline of practice. Are you thinking: I’m not ready now but I could see myself doing music in the church in the future? Then you’d fit here. This would be not those who are saying: “I’ve never played guitar before but it looks fun” but rather the people who already play but are still “getting there.” Those who have started their musical journey and are on their way but not yet proficient or confident for playing with the team.

Pray about it. Think about it. If either of these are you, we’d love to hang out, get a cup of coffee, run into you at a rehearsal, or even just exchange emails. Lets connect. This church is full of way too much talent that is untapped. This is your sincere invitation from the team and myself to you. We value you as members of the body and we want to free you up to use your gifts here in this season of growth at 2 Pillars Church.

Email me: matt@2pillarschurch.  Or come to the Worship Team Meeting this Sunday following our Sunday gathering.

This Sunday at 12pm after the gathering, we are having our first ever Worship Team meeting. If you have ever felt the call to minister through song or feel the  need to get involved and help out in anyway, then this is your opportunity. We will go through some Worship Team specific materials, expectations for musicians/vocalists, sound guys, and slide runners, and we will breifly touch some software ideas. Specifically, we need 4-6 volunteers to learn how to run our slides for Sunday worship. We have 2 guys right now that do it on a regular basis and it would be great to get more people involved to give them a bit of a break.

If you’re interested in learning more, come on Sunday morning for our Sunday gathering, then stick around afterwards for the meeting.

Arts in the Parks is going to be a Free Neighborhood Festival Series (presented by “2 Pillars Church in conjunction with The 815″) in which we aim at getting the name of 2 Pillars out to the neighborhoods directly surrounding downtown Lincoln.  The goal is for us to spread the word that there is a new church downtown interested in blessing and serving the downtown neighborhoods as well as interested in the arts.

We will be in four parks over the course of four nights:

• Breta Park (19th and A) on Saturday, August 21st.
• Stransky Park (17th and Harrison) on Sunday, August 22nd.
• Peach Park (14th and Peach) on Saturday, August 28th.
• Cooper Park (6th and D) on Sunday, August 29th.

The whole thing is free and we will be splashing the neighborhoods with flyers and personal invites.  We will serve free food, have live music, have an outside gallery space for some of the artists we’ve been featuring at The 815, as well as art activities for kids.  We’re also working at lining up a poetry reading on the 28th at Peach Park.

Make plans to join us and if you’d like to help by volunteering, please contact us.