As I approach my sixth anniversary leading worship singing at NCAC, I find myself continually revisiting this question along with several other questions that I will touch on in future articles.  Today, I will address some of the most common objections to corporate singing and how we can prepare for Sunday morning.

First, by way of introduction I understand that not all of us have a musical orientation or musical bent. Maybe some Sundays (or every Sunday) you think something like, “If we could only stop singing and get to the real reason that we gather together?” or “Why do we have to learn a new song so early in the morning?”

Secondly, I recognize that perhaps our style of music is a difficult hurdle for some as well. Someone once said “there are only two kinds of music, good music and bad music…Good music is music I like to listen to, and bad music is music I don’t like to listen to.”  I have personally been subjected to music that definitely fell into both of those categories.

But these issues aside, why sing together?  How does it help us as a church family or individually?  I believe one of the ways it helps us is to allow us an opportunity to move from self-focus (concern with what is going on in our very real and complicated lives) to focusing (not only with our minds but with our bodies as well) on the character of God.

At a worship conference I once attended, it was said that worship music leaders have the privilege of being church counselors every Sunday morning.  The speaker went on to say that through the use of music we get to help people in our congregations block out all of the lies that they have been telling themselves all week and replace the lies with God’s truth about His character.

At NCAC we strive to make our Sunday services God- centered. When evaluating songs, we pay attention to the words:  Do the words point us to the greatness of our Savior and the power of the cross?  Do they remind us of God’s faithfulness, God’s power and His unchanging love for us?  Are the words themselves Scripture and/or do they allude to Scripture?

Another thing that happens on Sunday mornings is we sing with our church family. When we see others engaged in praise of Jesus, we should be encouraged that we are not alone in our walk or in our struggles.

I also believe music has a power of which our enemy is greatly aware of: It causes us to let down our guard and open our hearts.  It has the power to help us remember (ask any Sunday school teacher!) and it engages many of our senses and emotions.

As our church’s “lead music worshiper” I have the privilege of listening to and singing many songs well in advance of introducing them on a Sunday morning.  The Holy Spirit uses the words of these songs to convict me as I walk through my day, and I also remember singing the song with my church family which encourages me that I am not the only one in the daily struggle of life.

So, how should we prepare for Sunday morning? I will interject here that not one of our Elders or Pastors is immune from life stressors, temptations, or distractions as we head towards Sunday morning.

I can say that for a fact that Saturdays are often the most difficult day of the week for me. It may help you to prepare Saturday evening or Sunday morning by praying or reflecting on the Psalms.  Another idea is to pray through the prayer requests on the back of the bulletin or through the church directory.  Listening to praise and worship music in advance of Sunday can also help you prepare your heart and turn your attention to Jesus.

Actively preparing and anticipating what is going to happen on Sunday mornings will have a great impact on you, and I believe that many of the other issues that tend to divide us will fall away.  It would not be accurate for you to think I have this all figured out because I certainly don’t! But, I do know that God is faithful and will bless us when we draw closer to Him.

It is my prayer for all of you that you will sing with utter disregard for what others think of your musical abilities, and that by preparing for Sundays, we will all benefit from a place where others will say “Those people at Neighborhood Church really mean it when they say they treasure Christ and what He has done!”

Ellie was born in Orland, Californa. God was seldom mentioned in her home. During her junior year in college, a biology lecture left too many unanswered questions about life. She spoke to a campus chaplain and that started her quest for Christ.

Ellie met her husband, Bruce, a Christian, while working at Lassen Park in 1957. Married 38 years, they have three sons, Rob, Steve and Jeff. Bruce went home to be with the Lord in 1996. Ellie now lives with  her son Rob.

In 1969, Ellie reach a “low point” and felt something was missing. The family began attending Igo-Ono Community Church where her relationship with God and His infinite love took roots. God is her GPS.

However, she felt unrest in her walk…the word “I” kept popping up more than the name of “Jesus.” For a while they attended NCAC before becoming involved in establishing a church in Lewiston, where Ellie was baptized in the Trinity River.

Ellie also worked for the Shasta Union High School District from 1960-1984. When Bruce became ill, they managed the Valley Inn Motor Park. It was here that Bruce was killed in an unfortunate accident.

In 2009 Ellie returned to NCAC and the something missing: “serving God with Joy!” was found while doing the “The Prodigal God” study and attending Nick Braito’s “The Joy-Driven, God-Centered Life” Sunday School Class.

Ellie attends Harvesters, a Home Group study, the Writer’s Group, and helps in the NCAC library. She used to write for the Valley Post and enjoys writing short stories. She loves to garden, listen to Southern Gospel and attends local and out-of-state concerts.

Psalm 23 is Ellie’s favorite Bible passage. Another favorite is Psalm 118:24, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”: A fitting verse for a lady who has found joy in God at NCAC.

Sean and Christa Shepard:
On many Sunday mornings, Sean Shepard may be found at the keyboard playing with NCAC’s fine Exaltation Team. Sean was born in Mt. Shasta and raised in a Christian home. He does admit to a few stumblings as a teenager.

His lovely wife, Christa was born in John Day, Oregon. The family moved to Mt. Shasta where she “kind of knew Sean,” and then to the Redding area when her father became Director of Dental Hygiene at Shasta College. The family began attending NCAC in 2003.

Sean and Christa officially met in 2003 on a mission trip to Mexico. They were married in 2005. Sean graduated from Oregon Institute of Technology and then went on to
receive a Masters Degree in Structural Engineering and Mechanics from U.C. Davis.

Christa earned a BA from Sacramento State.
Returning to Cottonwood and NCAC, God gifted them with son Seth, who is now one year old. Sean is employed as an engineer with the Department of Transportation and Christa is a stay-at-home mom, who lovingly cares for her two “boys,” cooks, quilts and walks—especially with her friends. Their cat “Maya” shares their home.

Sean also plays the piano, guitar, bass and trumpet. He likes to keep abreast of economics and foreign policy. It could also be said that another love in his life is his motorcycle, a love shared by Christa’s Dad.
God is the most important of all that matters in their lives, and they seek to
continue growing in and following His teachings.

Both agree that Jeremiah 29:11 is their favorite verse, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Though there are many problems facing the world today, we should be encouraged by how God is glorified through the steadfast faith of young couples like Sean and Christa Shepard.

Don’t waste your summer.  Sound familiar?  This was the title of a sermon by Nick Braito two years ago just before summer vacation started.

Without prayer or a plan, the hazy, lazy days of summer can drift by before you know it.
Time and opportunities to serve God can be wasted.

My wife and I sat down this morning and tried to plan at least the first part of our summer.  For us it looks something like this:  Our youngest daughter graduates from high school on June 3.  This sets off a chain of wonderful events involving the homecoming of our four older children, three now with spouses.  The house will be full for a few days with a frenzy of activity.

Most of you probably are looking forward to special events like us, but what about the rest of the summer?  Are you anticipating a time of rest, relaxation and leisure?  Maybe that is what you really need, but summer lasts a long time.

There are many seasonal opportunities to serve.  Will you be ready?

Dozens of teen and adult volunteers are needed at Vacation Bible School.   Even if you can’t help directly, this is a great opportunity to engage in invitational evangelism.  That’s right, enroll your school aged children.  Encourage them to invite their friends June 21-25.

Mountain Meadows Bible camp is another fun place for kids to grow in faith and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Adults contribute time and talents on the Tuesday work days at camp where maintenance and improvements are done on the facilities.  Men at our church have a fire-wood cutting ministry to help provide camp scholarship money for students who need it.

The men’s houseboat trip, Mexico missions trip and Sunday school are other important ways to participate in the Lord’s work.

What can you do for the Lord this summer?  First pray and ask God how He would use you.  God just may reveal to you some new and creative way to do His work.  Life is not primarily about us. It is about delighting in God and pleasing Him with our affections, thoughts and actions.

These opportunities to serve Christ are just some of the ways that I am most familiar with at the moment, but I know there are many, many others.  Why not try something new?  You may just be surprised what the Lord will do through you.

Early in March we had the “Amazing gRace” where we had the opportunity to share the gospel with many unchurched teens.

As many of you know, we had Justin Peters come speak to our Church Family on Biblical Discernment.  Many of our students really appreciated what he was talking about because they have questions concerning some of the same issues.

The beginning of April we were able to serve meals to families in need at the Good News Rescue Mission.  We had in excess of 30 people participating. The people at the Mission were very thankful as they watched the teens helping out and also excited by how many of them cared enough to come and serve them.

In May, we had the privilege of leading the main worship service at church on Sunday morning, known as ACTS Sunday.  Robert Ramsey delivered a fine message entitled “Buffet Christianity.” We had about 30 students working together to serve the body of Christ with music, art, drama, testimonies, prayer, and in serving communion.  It is great to see how God is exalted through these students and I am thankful we have a Family of Believers who supports our Youth Group.

Right after ACTS Sunday, we had our first Mexico informational meeting where approximately 40 people attended to find out more about the trip.  Nick and I were very excited by the strong response and everyone’s excitement about the trip.  It looks like we will have a team of about 34 people…14 adults and 20 students.  Upon our return, I look forward to reporting back on all the things God accomplished through our team while we served the people of San Vicente.

While I was away on May 18th, our Harvesters’ Senior Group served our students ice cream at the now annual “Ice Cream Social.”  It was a real treat and nice to have the younger and older generations together talking about Jesus.

Last Sunday evening May 30th, five of our graduating seniors participated in West Valley’s baccalaureate service. Forrest Fells preached while Amy Haley and Jensen Stroup both shared a small devotional on there favorite Scriptures.

We just finished a series we have been teaching on Tuesday nights.  It was inspired by “Crazy Love,” a book by Francis Chan.  The basic premise of the series is that God loves us with a crazy love and our right response should be a crazy love in return.  Please pray for our students as we work at moving from ideas to action.  Pray for boldness as the students press forward in lives motivated by the love God has demonstrated toward them.

More summer stuff for your calendars…
Monday Nights– 6:30pm at …  Our Student Ministry Team gals are leading a Bible study called “Lies Young Women Believe,” for the incoming freshmen and sophomores gals.

Tuesday Nights– 6:30pm - 8:30pm  Our weekly Bible Study is moving to the Bainbridge’s for the summer:  20717 Castlewood Drive in Cottonwood.

Sunday Mornings– Sunday School 9:45am Join us this summer as we continue our study through the book of James.

Sunday Afternoons– 2:00pm on Sunday, Jeremy Pagan is heading up some ultimate Frisbee at the Anderson River Park.  Bring your friends and you’re “a”-game.

Contact Info

Please feel free to contact me at any time.  Our Youth Staff views itself as partners with parents, helping to support them in their God-given opportunity to raise their children.  I love spending my time one-on-one, or in small groups with the students. It is actually one of my favorite parts of the job.

Office Phone: 530.365.3331
Home Phone: 530.365.6133
Cell Phone: 530.949.2129
Email: RyWild@ACTSYouth.com

“Go and make disciples of all nations …”—Jesus, Matthew 28:19 (The Great Commission)
“The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.” —J. Hudson Taylor, founder of China Inland Mission (now OMF).
This summer our church’s 2-5 grade Sunday School classes will learn about six significant ways they can be involved in missions even now as children.
Here are these six ways, along with suggestions of ways you can also participate in missions. Why not pray about how you or your family can make a commitment over the summer that will help advance the worldwide missionary task?

Praying:
Attend our monthly Prayer for the Nations meeting.
Buy Operation World (for adults) or Windows on the World (for kids) and pray for a new people group each day.
Sign-up for a Mission-ary’s Prayer Letter and then pray faithfully.
Giving:
Support a Missionary with a monthly pledge.
Write a missionary and ask if they have any special needs. Then give.
Send a missionary an Amazon.com gift card to use however they need.
Going:
Become a “tentmaker,” using your professional skills to gain access to another country.
Go on one of the short-term “vision trips” that our church offers.
Serve as a dorm parent for missionary kids. Run a mission home. Become a missionary nanny.
Welcoming:
Go often to an ethnic restaurant and befriend those who work there.
Volunteer to help with our CELLLS outreach, teaching English and life skills to local Hispanics.
Learn all you can about some of the local ethnic groups like the Mien or the Sikhs.
Sending:
Write an encouraging letter or email to a missionary.
Be intentional about sending birthday and holiday cards to missionaries.
When missionaries are home, set aside time to listen to their stories.
Connecting/Mobilizing:
Keep updated with missionaries and bring their needs before your home group.
Be an advocate for a missionary you know.
Encourage your children or grandchildren to consider a future in missions.

Welcome to Our New Financial Secretary:

We’d like to welcome Brenda Flory, who will become our new Church Financial Secretary. Brenda will be replacing Diane Duncan, who has served our church faithfully for 17 years. Thank you, Diane, for your service and ministry to us all!

A New Church Sign:

Our new sign in front of our building was just recently completed. We felt it was time to replace our previous, aging church sign which partially blocked the view of traffic. All expenses for the sign and many hours of labor were donated. Thank you to all who helped!

Plants in Parking Lot:

You might have also noticed the many plants that were put in around our parking

lot during the last church workday. These plants were also donated to our church, as was the labor involved in planting them and laying the irrigation system. Thank you

to everyone who was involved in this project!

Mexico Mission Trip: We currently have 19 Youth and 12 Adults going on our June Mexico Trip. We’ll serve the community of San Vicente through projects like youth outreach and ministry to single parents. We would greatly appreciate your prayers as we prepare and as we go!

Go to your favorite map program (if you are a computer user) and type in your address and where you want to go. In a few seconds you can view step by step directions for getting from your home to another location along with a map showing the roads you will use.

This tool takes away much of the worry we associate with losing our way and ending up where we never wanted to be. It all starts with knowing our destination. In fact, the program is useless unless you know where you want go.

The path we take is determined by our destination.  This principle applies to many aspects of life, even a church service. Knowing where we are going makes all the difference. At NCAC we travel a very specific path because we have a very specific destination.  It all begins with the Bible, the Word of God.

We build our services around the Word of God because it is the only source that clearly explains who God is, what He has done and why He has done it. Our singing reflects what is in the Bible; our prayers are based on the purposes given by the Bible; we read passages from the Bible; and we explain what Bible passages mean (called exposition).

More than just telling us about God, the Bible exalts God. To exalt means to “raise aloft; elevate, thus, to praise highly, extol.” In the Bible, God is set forth in magnificent splendor, power and glory both in His character (who He is) and works (what He does).

Because the Bible lifts God up as infinitely worthy of our praise and adoration, we exalt Him by singing, praying, saying and explaining what the Bible says (Ps. 21:13; 34:3). But we are not at our destination yet.

The destination of the Bible, its ultimate purpose, is not just that God is explained or that He is seen to be wondrously glorious but that we, His people, rejoice in His greatness.  This is called exultation, “to spring or leap up; to leap for joy, to rejoice greatly, be elated.”

It is to have our hearts captivated, thrilled and made glad by all that God is and does (Ps. 5:11; 28:7; 35:9; 68:3, 4; 70:4).  But we cannot manufacture it or will it within ourselves.  This must be a work of God in us (Ps. 51:8, 10, 12; 119:18), it is the heart and substance of worship.

So, as we come together to meet with God on Sunday mornings, we sing, pray, speak and explain the Word of God so that the Spirit of God might create in us the delight and joy that is the goal of worship.

Family Devotions. For years that very phrase caused me some discomfort.

It’s not that I didn’t like the idea of Family Devotions: I wanted to do them. I knew it was my responsibility to train my children in the Scriptures. I recognized that doing this effectively required following an intentional, systematic plan.

What I always struggled with was following through with Family Devotions with any reasonable degree of quality, consistency, and creativity. Many of the family devotional guides we found were full of made-up stories that taught good morals but didn’t help our children get to know the Bible. Other books retold Bible stories in simple language but failed to point us to the actual Scriptures (and missed a lot as a result).

For a while I just read to our children directly from the Bible each day. Although this was good, I knew it could have been better for our kids: Seldom did I take the time I should have to prepare good introductory or follow-up questions to the text in order to help my kids engage with God’s Word in

age-appropriate ways.

But we have finally found some material that we feel is worth recommending: Table Talk from The Good Book Company. (You can order it from their websitewww.thegoodbook.com, and note that this is not the devotional magazine from Ligonier Ministries, which has the same name!)

Each day’s devotion begins with a question or an easy activity to capture our children’s interest. We read a short passage from the Bible together. We are then given a few questions to answer. I appreciate that these questions often point us back to the text and lead us to a simple application.

Since we want our children to learn to view the Scriptures from a joy-driven, God-centered perspective, I will usually add a question or two about what the passage tells us about God and how that truth should impact our hearts.

Each edition of Table Talk lasts three months, and there are 12 books in the series. The publisher says these book are appropriate for children from age 4 on up. Our own children range in age from 4 to 11, and by directing specific questions to different children, I find that I can make this guide work for our entire family.

We also strongly desire our children to grow up sharing God’s passion for the spread of the Gospel to all peoples, so after we look at the Bible I then read from a book called Window on the World: When We Pray God Works. (You can order it from www.amazon.com.)

Through interesting stories that my children enjoy, Window on the World introduces us to 100 different people groups who are in need of the Gospel. We spend just a few minutes each day reading from this book, and it generally it takes us two days to read through the section on each people group.

Next we invite each of our kids to pray, asking each to pray for an unsaved friend and for one of our church’s missionaries. My wife and I conclude in prayer, often basing our prayers on that day’s Scripture passage and praying for the people group we just read about.

We can do all of the above in just 15 minutes each morning before school. I know there may be better approaches, but we have finally found a way to do Family Devotions in a Bible-based, God-centered way that our whole family looks forward to each morning.

If you’re struggling with Family Devotions like I was, I hope these resources can be a blessing to you as well. And if you have a system you’ve been using that works well, I would love to hear about it!