Sept 30, 2012 Set List

Set list at the 11am service at www.christ-first.org tomorrow. Click on each song title to listen and come ready to sing. See you there!

Say Say, Kristian Stanfill
Rise and Sing, Steve Fee
Endless Light, Hillsong
10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord), Matt Redman

Set List September 9, 2012

Excited for the set list this Sunday 11am at christ-first.org. Bethany Jepsen is back and will sing lead on Hosanna. Come early to grab a good seat and bring a friend!


All My Fountains by Chris Tomlin
Awesome Is The Lord Most High by Chris Tomlin
Everlasting God by Benton Brown
Hosanna by Hillsong United

June 17 Set List

This Sunday is Father's Day and it's going to be a great morning at christ-first.org! I'm excited to pull "Meet With Me" out of the vault this weekend. This song by Ten Shekel Shirt was released in 2001 and quickly became a popular worship favorite. The album "Much" was nominated for a Dove award in 2002. Click on the songs below to listen and come ready to worship this Sunday at 11am.

June 17, 2012 Set List

Savior of the World by Ben Cantelon
Where The Spirit of the Lord Is by Chris Tomlin
Meet with Me by Ten Shekel Shirt
The Stand by Hillsong United

June 10 Set List

Excited to play these songs tomorrow. 100,000 points to the person who correctly guesses the theme in these songs first. (Hint: You'll have to look up the lyrics.)

Set List

Let God Arise by Chris Tomlin
Saviour of The World by Ben Cantelon
Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle
Saviour King by Hillsong

New Service!

We are excited to have started a 2nd Modern Worship Service at www.christ-first.org! At 9am you now have a choice between our Classic service and our new Modern service. Kidstuf starts at a new time: 10:15am followed by the 11am Modern Service.


Modern Worship setlist this Sunday:
1. Happy Day by Kristian Stanfill
2. Water by Matt Brouwer
3. God is Able by Hillsong
4. Our God by Chris Tomlin

If any are unfamiliar to you you can find them on iTunes, Amazon or probably for free on YouTube. Get familiar with them... it's always a better experience to have everyone singing out LOUD at church! Invite a friend this weekend as we kick off a brand new sermon series.

Louis Zamperini

I am typically reading two books at a time. A leisure book and something that will advance me... usually some kind of leadership book. The leisure book I'm reading now is blowing me away. It's about this Olympic athlete named Louis Zamperini. He was a WWII prisoner of war survivor who spent 47 days afloat in the pacific after crashing his bomber and then was picked up by the Japanese and sent to a POW camp. I was reading it late late last time (again!) and I'm 90% through it... this book is written so well and the story so gripping that I woke up and told my wife I feel like I just got freed from a POW camp!

I actually started reading this book in the summer. I couldn't put it down... and then I did something totally stupid. I left it at this campground near Nelson. I was so mad!!! I was planning on buying another copy because it was that good and just last week I see it sitting on my boss' shelf... I quickly asked to borrow it and actually found where I left off two months later.

Anyway, if you're whining about life and feeling sorry for yourself pick up this book. It'll smack you upside the head and remind you to lean into your (small) challenges in life. If Louie could get through what he did (with God's help!) so can you.

How Do You Make New Friends?

Recently I've worked with a few adults and children on the process of making new friends.

Feeling lonely is hard. Making a new friend can be harder. Actually, most of the time it's quite impossible. What I mean is that when people go about trying to make a friend they often end up being awkward by being too forward and overbearing. And who wants to be a friend with someone acting desperate?

Think about a close friend of yours. How did you make that friend? It's likely that you didn't make a plan one morning to go make a friend and that same day you actually caught him/her. Most people don't make friends. Most people become friends. In fact I would never recommend anyone to go and make a friend because at the end of the day if you didn't make a friend you have failed... or at least you feel like a failure. As the days without making a friend string together discouragement sets in and your focus turns inward with thoughts like, "Why doesn't anyone like me?" or "What's wrong with me?" At this point you've become your worst enemy in the process of trying to develop new friends because you're even less attractive to others as you wallow in negativity and self-pity. Walking into a room with negative expectations often is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You expect the worse, the worse happens. So suck it up and cheer up because I want to give you the simple tools that will dramatically increase your chance of developing new friendships.

The process of making friends is the same whether you're seven or forty-seven years old.

Instead of making a friend you should simply focus on being a friend. To be a friend is to simply express loving kindness to people around you and patiently wait. Then get up the next day and repeat. Get up the next day and... you guessed it, REPEAT!

K + P = > chance of 1 + 1
Kindness + Patience = a greater chance of making a friend.

Becoming friends with someone is never guaranteed. It's still a risk and not easy. Sometimes when you think you've become friends the other person shuts you out. That hurts. You cannot force someone to be a committed friend. God is the one who knits hearts together. That's God's department alone. So if you didn't make a friend today GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK. That's not your job! But what you are responsible for is being friendly. Being kind and serving the people God has placed around you at your job, in your neighborhood, at the grocery store, hair salon, etc...


So quit playing God by trying to make friends.
Simply love others, be kind and have patience.

It's worth the wait.

"Love is patient. Love is kind."

2 Corinthians 13:4