Worship Week: A Short Series
There is a ton going on in the life of 2 Pillars Church from a worship and music stand-point. In order to draw attention to the great work that God is doing through this body musically, we’re going to post a short series of posts highlighting it all.
Below is a video shot from the back of our space this past Sunday to put you in the mood.
Preparing for Worship 8.8.2010
(Post by Matt Grant, 2 Pillars Worship Leader)
The song “Overcome” from New Life Worship at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO is not what I would consider a typical worship song from a mega-church of 14,000 people. In many instances, worship songs focus on all things happy and fluffy and skip the tougher subjects like hurting, frustration, and brokenness. “Overcome” was born out of a season of just that. In just over a years time, the church had experienced a much publicized sex scandal involving the dismissal of the founding pastor and an attack from a lone gunman that left two teenage sisters dead and their father and two other men wounded. Only hours before the attack on the church, that same young man entered a Youth With A Mission Christmas banquet in Arvada, CO and gunned down two staffers and wounded two others. (My friend Dan Griebenow was among the wounded and his fiance, Tiffany Johnson, was killed in the attack).
I tell you all of this to convey the level of hurt that this community was feeling. I can hardly imagine the disillusionment of the body at New Life. Most churches in our country don’t know this kind of tragedy. Most of us have probably never experienced gun violence or the betrayal of a friend and pastor to his family and his church. But, we do know tragedy of other magnitudes. We do know betrayal of different scopes. In the aftermath of these tragedies, the anger could’ve taken over. The pain could’ve been too great. The doubt could’ve tore them apart. But the big idea is this: The Gospel changes everything. They looked to Jesus. They looked to His love to heal their hearts. They united under Christ and overcame all the hurt, anger, and doubt that has its way of setting in whilst in tragedy. As one voice they cried out to our Savior in all praise and glorified Him above all else. The Gospel of Jesus can changes everything and everyone, no matter the situation. He looks past our trash and redeems us even though we could never deserve it.
On Sunday, we have the chance to sing to Jesus even though we are broken at times. We have a chance to sing to Him who redeems us despite our doubts and hurts. We get to unite as a body and sing with one voice to the Creator of the Universe. Think about that for a minute. How amazing is it that we as tiny human beings with tiny little lives can be in communion with God, through Christ. Through Jesus, we have victory over tragedy. We have victory over our angers and our hurts. When tragedy strikes, we look to the Father and remember the work He did on the Cross. We allow His glory to transform us and teach us in those tough times.
Going Public: September 12
2 Pillars Church will be going public on September 12. Please pray for us as we head in that direction.
Over the summer we have been in what we are calling the Organic Launch Phase. This has been a phase marked by pretty much everything you would expect a church to look like and be doing. The difference is that we have made no public effort to get our name out there. This was done on purpose to give ourselves time to grow as a community and assess whether or not we were ready to go public based on whether or not we were seeing people living out the mission that we all agreed to set out on. We are seeing that. As we approach this fall, we’ll be moving into our Launch Phase. We call it a “phase” because launching a church is not an event. It is something that occurs over time.
To that end, we will begin stepping up our outward focus and attempting to get our name out there to neighborhoods, campuses, and the public at large. Your prayers would be much appreciated over the next couple of months.
New Website: Coming Soon
We’ve been working hard on a new website for 2 Pillars Church and are proud to announce that we should be launching the new site within the next month. We are greatly appreciative of all the hard work the folks at Ekklesia 360 and Monk Development have put into this effort. The picture above represents a snapshot of the near final product (note that the pictures and stuff are all stock at this point). We’ll provide more details about the new site and the transition as we get closer to launching it.
Family Guide 8.2.2010
A little late this week, but here’s this week’s Family Guide. Download it here.
