10/3/10 worship set

Better Than Life
You Are Holy (Prince of Peace)
Holy, Holy, Holy (groove version)

When I Think About the Lord (praise team w/band accompanying)
I Will Never Be

Be the Biggest Loser...

What an awesome weekend we had! Ben got to experience DNOW with 1200 other teenagers in Wilmington at Ft. Caswell and had a wonderful time worshipping the Lord, and me, Matt, Callie & Caleb went to Myrtle Beach for the “Biggest Loser” 5K/1 Mile Challenge.  If you are not familiar with the show, “The Biggest Loser”, they take several contestants that are critically overweight and, in most cases, on the verge of a lot of health problems and teach them through drastic means how to eat healthy and exercise.  Through my own experience with weight loss, I love this show and what it has done to alert America.  We are a nation that is 67% overweight or obese, and now our children are following our footsteps.  Many people have gone through the process of losing weight and gaining healthy lifestyles through this show and it was neat to meet some of those very people this past weekend.

As important as it is to eat healthy and be active, we need to start with the fundamentals of healthy living.  That is to daily surrender our lives to the will of our Heavenly Father and give up our own desires.  We need to take these precious “temples” that God has blessed us with and make them acceptable for him.

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;”
--1 Corinthians 6:19

We are not our own! That means that all we do, all we are, should be for him and for him alone! Well, how do we do this?

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?
-- Matthew 16:24-26

Jesus said right here in his own words, “he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Deny ourselves?  We definitely live in a society that does not deny ourselves much, it is pretty obvious, but our Father says to deny ourselves and follow him.  When we lose our life for him that is where we will find it!  

Just as in the show, “The Biggest Loser”, contestants have to lose weight to save their lives physically, we as Christians, need to lose those selfish desires of our sinful natures to gain a heavenly perspective.  We need to lay down our lives daily and follow our God and our rewards will be eternal!  Be the “biggest loser” this week and see the rich, abundant life God has in store for you!

Have a blessed week!

Allison Jordan

SHBC Praise Team 

9/26/10 worship set

Let Creation Sing (choir special)
Filled With Your Glory
Your Name

Surrender (praise team w/band accompanying)
   *tag after message

a season of change...

Well, as of tomorrow, it is officially “autumn”! Yes, I know, the weather still feels a bit too hot for the autumn season, but according to the calendar, fall has come! This is probably my favorite season.  I love the cooler temperatures after such blistering hot days and I love to see the colors change.  When the weather starts to turn cooler, our family calls in the “snuggle weather”. Well, Ben has grown out of the “snuggle weather” but my other 2 kids still love to snuggle and, of course, I love to snuggle with my hubby!  I spent the first 9 years of my life growing up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and I would see the leaves all across the mountains changing from green to a variety of fall colors.  Absolutely breathtaking and something I still long to see every year! 

When this season rolls around every year, I have to stop and just “awe” at my Savior because he is in control of the seasons and all the colors they behold! He can take that big beautiful tree full of green leaves and turn them into warm shades of brown, gold, and red and bring you to a new appreciation for the beauty of that tree.  The same is true of us.  Different seasons of our lives bring different colors.  We are the same person, but seasons of change in our lives bring about different shades that are all still beautiful, just different. I can look into the eyes of my children and see the seasons of change they are going through.  They are still my children, but they are changing just as God intended them to and they are all still beautiful.  It makes me appreciate them even more. 

God intends for us to go through seasons of change.  They are a time to let the old fall away and bring about colorful new opportunities for us to serve him more.  A time for us to grow in Christ! We can have confidence in knowing God allows these changes, but he himself will never change.  He is always the same.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

-- Hebrews 13:8

Allow God to take the beautiful leaves of your life and change them into the warm colors of autumn and see how your love for him becomes more vibrant! Experience the changing of seasons in your own life and expect heartfelt worship and deep content in our never-changing God!

Have a blessed week!

Allison Jordan

SHBC Praise Team

9/19/10 worship set

Your Grace is Enough
Only a God Like You
Love the Lord

Our God (choir special w/Tim leading)

God of Our Yesterdays (praise team w/band accompanying)

Striving for Excellence

The summer is officially over for our family.  School bells have rung again and we are in full swing now! The new school supplies are in use, uniforms are out, schedules are posted, and their new lunch boxes are very cool!  Of course, the first day of school is always the most fun!  Seeing all your friends after summer vacation and catching up is great, but then that fun starts to wear off as soon as the homework and early morning wakeups hit.  Reality sets in and as parents; our job is to encourage the kids to start the year off with good study habits and routines so they can continue to follow through all year.  We are also their “cheerleaders”, if you will, to encourage them when the going gets tough and they just don’t think they can do one more piece of homework.   We also want our kids to strive for excellence in all they do.  In our home, we do not demand all “A’s”, but we do expect them to do their very best in all areas.  God doesn’t expect perfection in us, but he does expect our best.  That is something that we try to instill in our kids, through God’s Word.  

Our best!  That is what God deserves in all areas of our lives.  Not just for the kids in school or sports, but from all of us in every thing we do.  We wholeheartedly need to give our all to God.  In our parenting, our marriages, our jobs, our relationships, our ministries, and every other area, we need to work to give God our best, to strive for excellence!  King Hezekiah was a king that had a close relationship with God.  Though he did make mistakes at times too, he was credited for trusting the Lord and seeking excellence.  

“This is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah,

doing what was good and right and faithful

before the Lord his God.  In everything
that he undertook in the service of God’s temple

and in obedience to the law and the commands,

he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly.

And so he prospered.”

-- 2 Chronicles 31:20-21 

“He sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.”  We, as children of God, need to seek God daily.  Just as Hezekiah, a leader, served as a role model, we too serve as role models in the position we hold as worship leaders.  Others are watching our lives and our lives should match what we sing and lead on Sunday mornings.  Just like we teach our children, God doesn’t expect perfection from us but he does deserve our best.  We should strive for excellence in leading worship to our God!  That requires us to be in a deep prayer life, and daily reading of his Word for guidance and direction.  It also requires us to come to rehearsals prepared and ready to practice.  We expect our children to go to school with homework done and prepared for tests and quizzes, and the same is true with us.  When we come together in practice, we need to have prepared in advance so that our time together can be everything it should be for our Lord.  The times that we lead in worship, should be times focused on our amazing God, and that will happen when we are well prepared and in one accord. May the cry of our hearts this week be to seek excellence for our King!  

I appreciate all of you so much and know that God wants to do amazing things through us all!  

Blessings,

Allison Jordan
SHBC Praise Team

9/12/10 worship set

Be Glorified
We Have Seen Your Glory (choir special)
   *w/track
Open the Eyes of My Heart

Grace Flows Down (praise team w/band accompanying)
Great is Thy Faithfulness (Tommy w/band accompanying)

Do not be afraid, only believe!

Has God been pricking at your heart about a certain area and asking you to take a leap of faith and fully rely on him to guide you? Is there an area that you know God is leading but the fear of the unknown is holding you back? 

Well, I had another devotion planned for this week, but after some events over the weekend I feel that God is leading me to share a devotion with you that he had for me the day we made Caleb’s adoption “official”.  I have a couple of friends right this very minute in China adopting two precious girls into their families!  I began to think back to the call Matt and I had to adopt.  We were completely stunned, to say the least, when we felt God calling us to adoption.  We had two great kids already and we were done; or so we thought.  For a year we prayed about adopting before making that huge step of faith.  Our fears were many but one thing was clear; God called and we had to obey.  It was during the paperwork process, that we really studied God’s Word about adoption and what we realized is that how could we fear when God already set the standard for adoption.  He adopted us as his children through his Son, Jesus Christ.  He paid the ultimate price for me and for you!  From that point, we put our fears aside and knew that somewhere out there was a child that needed a family; a child that God had already predestined to be with us.  How exciting that was!  I have to be honest when I tell you that there were many times that I, in my human eyes, could not see how this would all work out, but God again would draw me back to him and I would look through his eyes.  What a beautiful picture I could see then.  

The day Caleb walked into my arms is a day, ordained by God, that I will never forget.  How perfectly he fit into my arms, how natural it was to hold him, like he was finally “home”!  It was a beautiful moment.  As Matt and I talked that night after the kids were asleep, we discussed how we could have missed out on this moment because of our fear.  If we had not put our fears aside and put our trust in God we would have missed this precious miracle that was waiting for us in a Chinese orphanage.   As I woke the next morning, preparing our final paperwork, I was excited to be officially making Caleb my son in just a few hours. I stood over his bed, in awe of what God had done.  I picked up my Bible and devotional book and turned to that day’s message and this is what was there:

Faith Versus Fear

“Be not afraid, only believe.”  Mark 5:36

As we consider the uncertainties of the future, we are confronted with a powerful temptation to play it safe.  Unwilling to move mountains, we fret over molehills.  Unwilling to entertain great hopes for tomorrow, we focus on the unfairness of today.  Unwilling to trust God completely, we take timid half steps when He intends for us to take giant leaps.  Ask God today for the courage to step beyond the boundaries of your doubts.  Ask Him to guide you to a place where you can realize your full potential – a place where you are freed from the fear of failure.  Don’t ask Him to lead you to a safe place; ask Him to lead you to the right place.  And remember, those two places are seldom the same.

-- from Hugs: Daily Inspirations for Women

I thank God that we took that step out of our fear and had faith that God knew what was best for us.  That we didn’t give in to the practical but put our trust in God.  We now have another precious member of our family because of that trust in God.  A precious soul that has now heard the most wonderful name he will ever hear, JESUS!  The Name above all names!

This was not intended to be a devotion about adoption, but a devotion about overcoming fears through faith in God.  I wanted to share our story of adoption because God used it in a powerful way to show us how fear, overcome by God, provides such sweet results!  I strongly feel that God is calling us all to a time of true faith!  It is time we put all our fears aside and follow him completely.  It is then we will see mountains moved!

Let’s use Mark 5:36 as our verse to focus on this week!  “Be not afraid, only believe.”  

Have a blessed week and know that I am praying for you!

Blessings,

Allison Jordan

SHBC Praise Team

9/5/10 worship set

My Savior Lives
Glorified
Nothing But the Blood (Charlie Hall)

At the Cross (praise team w/band accompanying)
   *tag after message