Welcome to the Midtown Midweek, a resource to equip you to be with Jesus and become more like Him as we continue the conversation from Sunday’s teaching.
This week we say a fond farewell to our church planting candidate, Tim Olson, as he unpacks more of 1 Timothy 6.
Questions? Send us an email.
To stay up-to-date with Citizens Church go to their website to subscribe to their newsletter and their social media platforms.
Sermon by Tim Olson for July 5, 2020.
Here is this week's sermon along with a digital worship guide that will include songs to sing, prayers, and scripture to read. Also, for those with children, please use our Kidtown guide as a resource to teach and lead your children each week.
Use this guide as a script, and, if possible, ask for a volunteer, roommate, or virtual participant to read the parts aloud. There are links to the songs to play and sing along with or, sing them a cappella. We want this to be a helpful guide for you and your community to participate together in worshipping the Lord.
We invite you to stand as you sing, to help position yourself to be engaged and focused as you participate in the gathering of God’s people.
Have someone read this scripture aloud to begin:
Psalm 98: 1 - 4
Oh sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things!
His right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
The Lord has made known his salvation;
He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.
He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
Have someone pray aloud, asking for focus, and wisdom as we hear the Word being taught.
Have someone read this aloud:
Psalm 98: 6 - 9
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who dwell in it!
Let the rivers clap their hands;
let the hills sing for joy together
before the Lord, for he comes
to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.
Amen
Welcome to the Midtown Midweek, a resource to equip you to be with Jesus and become more like Him as we continue the conversation from Sunday’s teaching.
This week we’re joined once again by Pastor Michael Bailey as he unpacks more of 1 Timothy 6.
Questions? Send us an email.
Resources:
The Century of Self (documentary)
Sermon by Michael Bailey for June 28, 2020.
Here is this week's sermon along with a digital worship guide that will include songs to sing, prayers, and scripture to read. Also, for those with children, please use our Kidtown guide as a resource to teach and lead your children each week.
Use this guide as a script, and, if possible, ask for a volunteer, roommate, or virtual participant to read the parts aloud. There are links to the songs to play and sing along with or, sing them a cappella. We want this to be a helpful guide for you and your community to participate together in worshipping the Lord.
We invite you to stand as you sing, to help position yourself to be engaged and focused as you participate in the gathering of God’s people.
Have someone read this scripture aloud to begin:
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Let us sing together, remembering and believing the good news of what God has done for us.
Have someone read this aloud:
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
As the family of God, we have so many things to thank God for, even in the midst of the hardest and darkest times in life. Let’s take 30 seconds to pause, then share aloud the things we’re thankful for with each other.
Have someone pray this to close:
God, You are faithful to provide us with everything that we need, and in Your presence is the fullness of joy and life. Teach us to trust you with all that we have. Spirit be near to us as we seek to follow you. Amen
Welcome to the Midtown Midweek, a resource to equip you to be with Jesus and become more like Him as we continue the conversation from Sunday’s teaching.
This week we’re joined once again by Pastor Jon Ludovina as he unpacks more of 1 Timothy 5.
Questions? Send us an email.
Sermon by Jon Ludovina for June 21, 2020.
Here is this week's sermon along with a digital worship guide that will include songs to sing, prayers, and scripture to read. Also, for those with children, please use our Kidtown guide as a resource to teach and lead your children each week.
Use this guide as a script, and, if possible, ask for a volunteer, roommate, or virtual participant to read the parts aloud. There are links to the songs to play and sing along with or, sing them a cappella. We want this to be a helpful guide for you and your community to participate together in worshipping the Lord.
We invite you to stand as you sing, to help position yourself to be engaged and focused as you participate in the gathering of God’s people.
Have someone read this scripture aloud to begin:
Psalm 96:1-6
Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples.
For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
he is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the nations are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and glory are in his sanctuary.
Corporate confession is a way for us to lay down our individualism and join with other believers confessing the same thing, as one body in Christ.
Read this confession, from John 1, aloud with everyone present:
If we walk in the light, as he is in the light
We have fellowship with one another
And the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
To forgive us our sins
And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Amen
Have someone read this to close:
Acts 2:24–28 God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him:
“ ‘I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
you will not let your holy one see decay.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.’
Amen
Welcome to the Midtown Midweek, a resource to equip you to be with Jesus and become more like Him as we continue the conversation from Sunday’s teaching.
This week we’re joined by Pastor Jon Ludovina as he unpacks more of 1 Timothy 5.
Questions? Send us an email.
Resources:
When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert
“We’re Not Wired to Be This Alone” by Frank Brunhi, The New York Times
Sermon by Jon Ludovina for June 14, 2020.
Here is this week's sermon along with a digital worship guide that will include songs to sing, prayers, and scripture to read. Also, for those with children, please use our Kidtown guide as a resource to teach and lead your children each week.
Use this guide as a script, and, if possible, ask for a volunteer, roommate, or virtual participant to read the parts aloud. There are links to the songs to play and sing along with or, sing them a cappella. We want this to be a helpful guide for you and your community to participate together in worshipping the Lord.
We invite you to stand as you sing, to help position yourself to be engaged and focused as you participate in the gathering of God’s people.
Have someone read this scripture aloud to begin:
Psalm 9:1-2
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
Read this aloud:
Hebrews 3:12-13
“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
Take 30 seconds to pray for a way you can encourage someone. How have you seen Jesus working in someone’s life recently? Now, take some time to text them, and tell them why you’re thankful for them. If you have others in the room with you (physically or virtually), pray for specific ways you can encourage them.
Have someone pray this aloud:
Pray: Father God, you have spoken to us through your Son. Let your written Word now be spoken and heard by each of us. Give us ears to hear and hearts to understand. Amen.
Have someone read this to close:
May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.
Welcome to the Midtown Midweek, a resource to equip you to be with Jesus and become more like Him as we continue the conversation from Sunday’s teaching.
This week we’re joined once again by church planter Tim Olson as he unpacks more of 1 Timothy 4.
Questions? Send us an email.
Resources/Quotes mentioned in this episode:
Check out FollowingJesusTogether.com for resources on how to walk with Jesus.
Also, check out Donald Whitney’s book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life.
Sermon by Tim Olson for June 7, 2020.
Here is this week's sermon along with a digital worship guide that will include songs to sing, prayers, and scripture to read. Also, for those with children, please use our Kidtown guide as a resource to teach and lead your children each week.
Use this guide as a script, and, if possible, ask for a volunteer, roommate, or virtual participant to read the parts aloud. There are links to the songs to play and sing along with or, sing them a cappella. We want this to be a helpful guide for you and your community to participate together in worshipping the Lord.
We invite you to stand as you sing, to help position yourself to be engaged and focused as you participate in the gathering of God’s people.
Have someone read this scripture aloud to begin:
Psalm 139 1-6
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Take a moment to lament the brokenness of the world. Think on the injustices you’ve seen this past week. Acknowledge to God that this world is broken and in need of redemption.
Read aloud this lamentation, inspired out of Psalm 13:
How long, O Lord, will you forget your people who are oppressed?
How long will you allow these injustices to happen?
How long will we have this sorrow in our hearts and city?
Our hearts are shaken over the brokenness of this world.
Consider and answer us Lord, and light up our eyes.
We trust you and your steadfast love.
But we need your help to trust
We choose to rejoice in your salvation and hope in your promise of deliverance.
But we need your help to believe.
We sing to you Lord, because we know you deal with us in love and mercy.
But we need your help to sing.
Amen.
Have someone read this scripture aloud:
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
Revelation 5:9-10
Have someone read this to close:
Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
that he may deliver their soul from death
and keep them alive in famine.
Our soul waits for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
For our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.
Psalm 33:18-22
Amen.
Welcome to the Midtown Midweek, a resource to equip you to be with Jesus and become more like Him as we continue the conversation from Sunday’s teaching.
This week we’re joined once again by Midtown Lexington Pastor Michael Bailey as he unpacks more of 1 Timothy 4.
Questions? Send us an email.
Resources/Quotes mentioned in this episode:
Go-to Verses for Gospel Fluency
Confession and Repentance from FollowingJesusTogether.com
“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”
-The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
“It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
-The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
“Until you know that life is war, you cannot know what prayer is for.”
-John Piper
“Whoever tells the best story wins.”
-Anette Simmons
Lastly, for a primer on “Elohim” check out the Bible Project’s video on the topic. The book we referenced in the podcast on this topic is The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser.
Welcome to The Midtown Midweek, a resource to further equip you to be with Jesus and become more like Him as we continue the conversation from Sunday’s teaching.
This week we’re joined by Midtown Downtown pastor Allen Tipping as he unpacks more of 1 Timothy 3.
Questions? Shoot us an email.
For resources to explore this passage on your own, make sure to check out our 1 Timothy series page (Downtown, Lexington, Two Notch)
Welcome to The Midtown Midweek, a resource to further equip you to be with Jesus and become more like Him as we continue the conversation from Sunday’s teaching.
This week we’re joined by Midtown Lexington pastor Michael Bailey as he unpacks more of 1 Timothy 2.
Questions? Shoot us an email.
Below are some resources referenced in this week’s episode:
1&2 Timothy, Titus - Christ-Centered Exposition Series - Platt, Akin, Merida
1 Timothy - Reformed Expository Commentary - Philip Ryken
For an alternative interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:15 check out “What Must She Do to Be Saved? A Theological Analysis of 1 Timothy 2:15” by Themlios
For alternative theological perspective on the entire passage, check out “1 Timothy 2:8–15 and Gender Wars at Ephesus” by CBE International
For resources to explore this passage on your own, make sure to check out our 1 Timothy series page (Downtown, Lexington, Two Notch)
Welcome to The Midtown Midweek, a resource to further equip you to be with Jesus and become more like Him as we continue the conversation from Sunday’s teaching.
This week we’re joined by Midtown Two Notch pastor Ant Frederick as he unpacks more of 1 Timothy 2:8-9.
To resources to explore this passage on your own, make sure to check out our 1 Timothy series page (Downtown, Lexington, Two Notch)
Questions? Shoot us an email.
Welcome to The Midtown Midweek, a resource to further equip you to be with Jesus and become more like Him as we continue the conversation from Sunday’s teaching.
This week we’re joined by Midtown Lexington pastor Michael Bailey as he unpacks more of 1 Timothy 2:
To resources to explore this passage on your own, make sure to check out our 1 Timothy series page (Downtown, Lexington, Two Notch)
Questions? Shoot us an email.
Quotes/Resources:
“Intercession is spiritual defiance of what is, in the name of what God has promised. Intercessors visualize an alternative future to the one apparently fated by the momentum of current forces. Prayer infuses the air of a time yet to be into the suffocating atmosphere of the present. History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being. Even a small number of people firmly committed to the new inevitability on which they have fixed their imaginations can decisively affect the shape the future takes. These shapers of the future are the intercessors.”
-Walter Wink, The Powers That Be
“Don’t seek to develop a prayer life — seek a praying life. A ‘prayer life’ is a segmented time for prayer. You’ll end feeling guilty that you don’t spend more time in prayer. Eventually you’ll probably feel defeated and give up. A ‘praying life’ is a life that is saturated with prayerfulness — you seek to do all that you do with the Lord.”
-Dallas Willard
“Prayer is easy only for beginners and for those who are already saints. During all the long years in between, it is difficult. Why? Because prayer has the same inner dynamics as love and love is sweet only in its initial stage, when we first fall in love and again its final, mature stage. In between, love is hard work, dogged fidelity, and needs willful commitment beyond what is normally provided by our emotions and our imagination.”
- Ronald Rolheiser, “Maturity in Relationships and Prayer”
“The devil is not terribly frightened of our human efforts and credentials. But he knows his kingdom will be damaged when we begin to lift up our hearts to God.”
- Jim Cymbala
“Prayer is where I do my best work as a husband, dad, worker, and friend.”
-Paul Miller, A Praying Life
Welcome to The Midtown Midweek, a resource to further equip you to be with Jesus and become more like Him as we continue the conversation from Sunday’s teaching.
This week we’re joined once again by our church planting resident, Tim Olson as he unpacks more of 1 Timothy 1:6-20.
To find resources to explore this passage on your own, make sure to check out our 1 Timothy series page (Downtown, Lexington, Two Notch)
And to learn more about how to pray and serve our upcoming church plant, Citizens Church in Charlotte, NC, check out their website.
Questions? Shoot us an email.
Welcome to The Midtown Midweek, a resource to further equip you to be with Jesus and become more like Him as we continue the conversation from Sunday’s teaching.
This week we’re joined by our church planting resident, Tim Olson as he unpacks more of 1 Timothy 1:1-7, 3:14-15.
To resources to explore this passage on your own, make sure to check out our 1 Timothy series page (Downtown, Lexington, Two Notch)
And to learn more about how to pray and serve our upcoming church plant, Citizens Church in Charlotte, NC, check out their website.
Questions? Shoot us an email.