This past week we introduced a new song to the good folks at Shoreline. There were a number of requests for the chord sheet and so I figured I’d post it here, along with an mp3 and the story behind the song.

I have been listening to the Psalms on my commute to and from work and have been struck by a few key things.

Psalms are songs
Psalms are the word of God (in other words, inspired by the Holy Spirit)
Psalms are a spectrum of expression and emotional response to God

Simply, these songs in scripture teach us about God and what it means to offer our hearts to him. They instruct us in responding to God. They inform us of who God is and what He desires.

Who ever thought a song could do all of that?

So, listening to the Psalms has inspired a lot of ideas for me, and this song came out of that inspiration. Particularly it is a song of praise, highlighting the unwarranted and seeming impossibility of a holy and perfect God loving unholy and imperfect people. That salvation isn’t something I can achieve through merit, but something that God in his kindness provides in Jesus.

My hope with this song is that it may be a great reminder of God’s love in salvation. That He elected you, loved you, called you & saved you; that you would be reminded of the depths of His love and compelled to sing it back to Him; that you would be full of His love to give it freely to your families, coworkers and neighbors.

Over the few weeks after I wrote the song I found myself singing the last line over and over again as I went about my day. And I think if there’s one line you should walk away singing, it’s that line:

“the gift you give is love”

Listen on in the inline player below or click here to listen in a new page.

Romans 12:1: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, a to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Greetings brothers & sisters of Mars Hill Shoreline.

I’m writing to you today because over the last few weeks every single ministry lead at our campus has approached me to report a desperate need for more volunteers on each of their teams. EVERY SINGLE LEAD! Almost every serving team at our campus is on an every week or every other week rotation with their volunteers despite the fact that we have 600-700 people in attendance on a typical Sunday. This means that many of us are not only missing out on the blessing it is to join with our brothers and sisters in worshipful service to the body of Christ, but we are also leaving the burden on a faithful few to put on our services which will undoubtedly result in their eventual burnout.

• Members only are needed to serve on our Communion, Bookstore, and Financial Steward teams and may teach Children’s Ministry or become a Children’s Ministry Service Lead.
• Both Members and those who are not yet members are needed to serve on our Greeter, Refreshments, Facilities, Parking, Production, and Children’s Ministry teams.

EVERY ONE of the these teams is in desperate need for volunteers. However, I don’t want any of you to serve because they are desperate, I want you to serve out of cheerful, sacrificial worship to our Lord who is worthy of your time and your gifts. Please consider giving at least every other week or once a month to serve your church family and the visitors who come in our door each Sunday.

Click Here to fill out our SERVE form to get connected to a serve team immediately! Click Here if you’d like to view a list of brief descriptions of our serving teams first.

Thank you and may God richly bless our campus with His mercy as we participate in service to one another and to those He draws into our services!

If you have put your faith in Jesus, but have yet to make the public declaration of Baptism, I would implore you to join us on Wednesday August 12th at Richmond Beach Saltwater Park for our Baptism Beach Party. Click Here to register to be baptized

I thought I’d chime in here on the Ol’ Shoreline blog because I just read something disappointing about our last 3 blood drives at the Shoreline Campus. On an email from the blood drive coordinator, she mentioned that our givers had gone from 38 to 31 to 20 over the last three blood drives. This past Sunday we had 760 people at our campus listening to a wonderfully convicting sermon about the hope we have in heaven and God’s gracious patience that allows us to repent. Out of the 550 adults who came last week, can we seriously not find 40 suitable givers, willing to sacrifice 30min of their time to possibly save a life!

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). How shall we live in response to such a love?!  Shall we hoard our blood and our time to our selves? OR shall we live in generous wild freedom and joy, giving liberally of our time and not counting any of our possession (including our own blood) our own, but gifts from God meant to be stewarded as a picture of His grace, pointing to Him and His glory in everything? (that was a LONG sentence/ question)

Mars Hill Shoreline! I do NOT want to guilt any of you into giving blood this Sunday. I want to INSPIRE you to give blood this Sunday! Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Jesus’ sake will gain it. Lose your life for Jesus. Pour out your blood for others.

CLICK HERE to make an appointment to give this Sunday or walk-in anytime between 10:30am-4:30pm.

RG BLOG by Pastor Kerry Michaelis

I began to doubt: was I a Christian, or not? Was God listening and just not answering, or what?

I had grown up in Christian home and had professed a faith in Christ. Professed faith, yes; actually trusted, well, not so much. God didn’t seem to be stepping up and answering my prayers. In fact, I seemed to sin and struggle more and more. The more I prayed and asked God to free me from temptation and to give me willpower to say ‘no’ to sin, the more I found myself asking for forgiveness, because I sinned. Was I a Christian? Was God refusing to help?

Over time, I began to realize that I had been viewing God as someone who was there for me, ready to answer my prayers, and to meet my needs as I saw them. You know, like Psalm 46:1 says, “a very present help in trouble.” Or as others have said, a sky fairy awaiting my next wish, a vending machine ready to dispense at my request – you get the idea.

Turns out I had quite a low view of God. God is eternal and preceded me, preceded creation, and will remain long after my body has returned to the dust. His word tells me that before the foundations of the earth, I was chosen (Eph 1:4), that my days were numbered (Job 14:5), and that he knows me better than I know myself (Matthew 10:30).

My story began at my birth and will end at my death; God’s story is one of creation to new creation. He invites me to be a part of the story of redemption that he is working out for purposes I can barely fathom, but which include glory for him and joy for me.

When I take a step back from the chaos in my life and see that I’m a part of God’s bigger story, that it encompasses my life, that like the grass I am here today and gone tomorrow, I can rest assured because his story and his word remain forever.

In Philippians 3:7-11, Paul says it this way, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith – that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Being Filled With the Holy Spirit
preached by Pastor Steve Tompkins | 5.10.09

What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Who is the Holy Spirit? What are errors we must avoid in regards to the Holy Spirit? Could we as Christians be grieving the Holy Spirit and be too asleep to know it? Is it possible that we might be so comfortable with our lives, that we have lost a hunger for more of Jesus? Pastor Steve walks us through God’s word to us regarding what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, starting in 1Peter 4:14 and focusing mostly on Acts 1 & Acts 4 as the church is filled with the Holy Spirit.

Listen right here by clicking the play button above. You can also listen to the audio or download audio on our Mars Hill Media site by clicking here.

You can follow along with Pastor Steve’s sermon using the text’s below.

1 Peter 4:14
¹⁴If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

Ephesians 3:14-19
¹⁴For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, ¹⁶that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 5:17-18
¹⁷Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. ¹⁸And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,

Luke 24:49
⁴⁹And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Acts 1:4-5
⁴And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; ⁵for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

Acts 1:14
¹⁴All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

Acts 2:1-4
¹When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. ⁴And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Acts 4:23-31
²³When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. ²⁴And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, ²⁵who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “ ‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? ²⁶The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’- ²⁷for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, ²⁸to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. ²⁹And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, ³⁰while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” ³¹And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

1 Corinthians 12:13
¹³For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones sounded a warning in 1959:

But, then, there are others, who . . . seem to me to be equally guilty of quenching the Spirit, because they argue like this. They say, ‘Baptism of the Holy Spirit is something which is non-experimental. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is that which happens to every man when he is born again, when he is regenerated. So we are all baptised with the Spirit, we have all received this baptism.’ Now, remember, they are talking about the thing which is described in the second chapter of Acts. And they say, ‘Yes, that was the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But we all get that now, and it is unconscious, we are not aware of it, it happens to us the moment we believe and we are regenerated. It is just that act of God which incorporates us into the Body of Christ. That’s the baptism of the Spirit. So it is no use your praying for some other baptism of the Spirit, or asking God to pour out his Spirit upon the Church, or to baptise the Church afresh with his Holy Spirit, a baptism of power. This is non-experimental, and as it has happened to all of us, we must not ask for it.’^[1]

John 3:34
³⁴For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.

Jonathan Edwards
Once as I rode out into the woods for my health in 1737, having alighted from my horse, in a retired place, as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view, that for me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God as mediator between God and man, and His wonderful, great full, pure, sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescension. This grace, that appeared so calm and sweet, appeared also great above the heavens. The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception, which continued as near as I can judge about an hour, which kept me, the greater part of the time, in a flood of tears and weeping aloud. I felt an ardency of soul to be, what I know not otherwise to express, emptied and annihilated, to lie in the dust and to be filled with Christ alone, to love Him with a holy and a pure love. To trust in Him, to look upon Him, to serve, and to follow Him, and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure with a divine and heavenly purity. I have several other times had views very much of the same nature, and which have had the same effect.^[1]

Abuses to avoid

1.    Mystical Authority

2.    Paganism

3.    Religion

4.    Fear

5.    Passivity (unbelief)

6.    Focusing on the Holy Spirit alone

7.    Creating two classes of Christians

8.    Sinning against the Holy Spirit

a.    Resisting the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51)

b.    Quenching the Holy Spirit (1 Thess 5:19)

c.    Grieving the Holy Spirit (Eph 4:30)

d.    Outraging the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 10:29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?)

e.    Blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Matt 12:31-32)

Acts 4:23-31
²³When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. ²⁴And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, ²⁵who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “ ‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? ²⁶The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’- ²⁷for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, ²⁸to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. ²⁹And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, ³⁰while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” ³¹And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Dr. Isaac Watts wrote in the Preface to A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God by Jonathon Edwards (Edwards’ account of the conversion of many hundreds of souls beginning in Northhamption, New Hampshire):

Certainly it becomes us, who profess the religion of Christ, to take notice of such astonishing exercises of his power and mercy, and give him the glory which is due, when he begins to accomplish any of his promises concerning the latter days: and it gives us further encouragement to pray, and wait, and hope for the like display of his power in the midst of us. The hand of God is not shortened that it cannot save, but we have reason to fear that our iniquities, our coldness in religion, and the general carnality of our spirits, have raised a wall of separation between God and us: and . . . seem to have provoked the Spirit of Christ to absent himself much from our nation. “Return, O Lord, and visit thy churches, and revive thine own work in the midst of us.”^[2]

On Easter Sunday the Holy Spirit was pleased to pour Himself out on our campus in a beautiful display of the redemptive work of Jesus in the lives of the 39 people who were baptized that day. To celebrate that our Savior, Jesus Christ, had risen in defeat of death we sang, listened to the preaching of the word, heard testimonies of God’s transforming grace and love, and cheered for those being baptized!

Please enjoy the slide show above and keep checking in as we will be adding more photos as they come in from the photographers that were present that day. Click here to go to the photo set on flickr.

By Pastor Dick McKinley
There are few monumental moments in life which don’t require some sort of training.  To drive a car you must go through weeks of classes and hours of driving with an instructor, to graduate from High School or college you must pass the required courses and to become licensed at just about anything requires a test of knowledge and/or a demonstration of proficiency; yet for around 60 dollars (Cash only) you can get a marriage license and skip gleefully into one of the biggest decisions of your life without a class, course, or qualified instructor with his own emergency brake pedal.

Having been married for 22years and having been a couple who did not have the privilege of an instructor, class, or course, the value of what the pre-marriage class has to offer engaged couples is priceless.  We will discuss topics like, the purpose of marriage, roles within marriage, finances, communication, conflict resolution, and family from a biblical perspective, helping couples think past their wedding day and into the future reality of what life as a married couple can and sometimes will look like.

“One of the best wedding gifts God gave you was a full-length mirror called your spouse.  Had there been a card attached, it would have said, “Here’s to helping you discover what you’re really like!” – Gary and Betsy Ricucci

Why does a young couple “In Love” look so differently than a godly couple who have been married 5, 15, or 30 years?  Experience.  The experienced Godly couple has served with an open heart and have humbly been served.  They have given when they wanted to take and have received the most unexpected gifts.  They have forgiven much and have been forgiven of much. They have lived through separation and the joy reconciliation.  They have sacrificed self for the other and felt the assurance of redemption.  They have built the foundation of their marriage on the rock and reflect the glory of Jesus which is exactly what we want for each and every couple who attends the Pre-marriage class.

“Marriage is the greatest test in the world… but now I welcome the test instead of dreading it.  It is much more than a test of sweetness of temper, as people sometimes think; it is a test of the whole character and affects every action”  T.S. Eliot

PRE-MARRIAGE CLASSES BEGIN THIS SUNDAY (APRIL 26TH) AT MARS HILL SHORELINE DURING THE 11:15AM SERVICE.  THE CLASS WILL BE LOCATED IN THE JUNIOR HIGH LOUNGE AT THE TOP OF THE RAMP IN THE JUNIOR HIGH BUILDING JUST NORTH OF SCHIRMER AUDITORIUM.

Each year coffee drinkers use & throw away over 16 billion disposable coffee cups creating tens of millions of tons of garbage.  In Genesis 1 God charged us to be stewards of the earth He made for us.  In obedience to this divine command and as a pilot community for the coming fullness of the Kingdom of God, let’s do our part at Mars Hill Shoreline to cut waste by bringing a reusable cup to Sunday services to enjoy our coffee.

We thought it’d be fun to tie in Earth Day to our building campaign and offer stainless steel coffee mugs with Romans 8:19 and the Mars Hill logo for $20 at our bookstore with all proceeds going to our building fund OR for those who give $20 or more to the Building Fund for the Shoreline Campus and write “mug – your campus” in the memo either online or by check, we will provide a complementary  mug. Every $10 we can put towards a future permanent home is another step towards an exciting open door for the Gospel in the Northend, but of course, let me encourage you to donate much more than $20 if you can!

This Sunday we’ll have a sign up sheet at the bookstore where you can prepay for your cup.  If you donate online or by check, you’ll be added to the list. We’ll try to have cups the cups in by Sunday May 3rd and depending on the initial response we may begin to carry the cups in stock at the bookstore for purchase on Sundays. This is a great way to worship our Lord in obedience to the command to steward the earth He has given us while engaging our culture by caring about the issues they care about at the same time (not to mention a fun way to help our Shoreline Building Fund).

Give to the Shoreline Building Fund HERE (put “mug – your campus name” in the notes field to receive your mug and we’ll have it delivered to your campus bookstore to pick up. If you just type “mug” we’ll have it at the Shoreline Bookstore).

If you don’t go to a Mars Hill campus, but would still like to give towards our building fund and receive a mug, email shoreline@marshillchurch.org and we’ll try to figure out how we can get one to you!