Service Recap - 11/14 - 11/15/15 - Fellowship Bible Church

This weekend, we continued in our Rebuild series and began looking at rebuilding a heart for our city from the book of Nehemiah.

Here are our songs from this weekend:

"Lead Me to the Cross" [Brooke Ligertwood]
"Jesus!" [Zach Bolen, Brian Eichelberger]
"How Can It Be" [Jeff Thomas, Jason Ingram, Paul Mabury]
"God of This City" [Aaron Boyd, Andrew McCann, Ian Jordan, Peter Comfort, PeterKernoghan, Richard Bleakley - Bluetree]

In the wake of the events in Paris Friday night, some of these songs became especially poignant, such as "God of This City." It is a song we haven't sung in a while, but the lyric was timely:

You're the God of this city
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation
You are

You're the light in this darkness
You're the hope to the hopeless
You're the peace to the restless
You are

There is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

Greater things have yet to come
Greater things are still to be done in this city

It is a song that encourages me and gives me hope, pointing me to the One who can, and will, right all wrongs and draw the lost to Himself. His greatest enemies can become His allies, just like Saul became Paul and helped turn the world upside down for the gospel. May we trust Him all the more, and may we all recognize that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers (Eph. 6:12). May we fight the good fight in faith, and spread the gospel far and wide with our lives and our words. He is worth it, and He isn't done using us yet!

in the Son,

Bill

Songs We Sing, 07/20 - 07/21/13 - Fellowship Bible Church

This weekend, our lead pastor, Joe Hishmeh, shared the "State of the Church," where he celebrated what God has been doing in our church, dedicated our church to what God is currently doing, and anticipated the future of our ministry in Topeka and around the world. It is incredible to see what God has been doing and to envision what could happen with our church as we continue to pursue Him. You can listen to or watch the entire message and service here. Here's our service plan from this weekend:

Welcome "Hosanna (Praise Is Rising)" (G) [Paul Baloche, Brenton Brown] "Before The Throne" (A) [Charitie Lees Bancroft, Vicki Cook, arr. by The Modern Post] Greeting Time/Announcements Message - "State of the Church" [Joe Hishmeh] "10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord)" (G) [Matt Redman, Jonas Myrin] "God Of This City" (B) [Richard Bleakley, Aaron Boyd, Boyd Aaron, Peter Comfort, Ian Jordan, Peter Kernaghan, Andrew McCann, also sung by Chris Tomlin] "Lord Of All" (B) [Kristian Stanfill] Tag of "How Great Is Our God" (B) [Chris Tomlin, Ed Cash, Jesse Reeves] Dismissal

Thoughts: This was an exciting weekend in our church. We don't take much time throughout the year to celebrate how God has moved in our church and to dream together about what is possible here. We dreamed and prayed for a major awakening in Topeka, asking the Lord for 18,000 new believers in our county. This wouldn't be possible with just our church, but would need to involve all the gospel-preaching churches here. It will be amazing to see what God will do.

For our singing this weekend, we sang "Hosanna (Praise Is Rising)" to invite God to have His way in us and to celebrate how He has redeemed us. "Before The Throne" was our main gospel-focused song, singing about how Jesus is our divine Substitute and Advocate. I absolutely love the clarity of the gospel in this song. In the middle of the message, after Joe celebrated some of the amazing things God has been doing in our church, we sang "10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord)." We did this just with one guitar and the voices, and it was a great moment this weekend. We responded to the vision for our future by singing "God Of This City," and its chorus was a great declaration for us this weekend: "For greater things have yet to come/ Greater things are still to be done in this city." It had been a while since I had sung this song (because it had been played so often at the time), and it felt fresh for me this weekend. We finished the service by singing about God's sovereign lordship and power in "Lord of All," and tagged the chorus of "How Great Is Our God." It felt fitting to end with this, because God is the one who will direct our steps with His perfect wisdom, and who can uphold us as we sacrifice and serve to advance His kingdom.

- Bill

What were your thoughts or experiences from your worship gathering this weekend?