Appreciating North Point Church
Christa and I joined our friends Jeff and Alexis at North Point Church for 9:00 AM service yesterday. North Point was our destination for this trip. I was curious to see what makes North Point so successful.
I was impressed with how much thought and prep goes into the big idea. This is a common thread among all the churches I have visited this year. Andy spoke on reading the bible. The message was simple, and Andy mostly stuck his one point philosophy. The message reminded me that when I hear people commenting about the message on Sunday not going deep enough I should remind them to get into their bible; God will speak to them deeper than any man can.
10 minutes before the service began we experienced “10 before”. This is a 10 minute video that replaces the conventional announcements. The video welcomed new comers and gave a minute of information for them. The remaining 9 minutes were used for commercial style announcements – all MC’ed on the video; high quality and very effective.
The pieces that made the message most impressive were the “extras”. The worship was excellent, along the same genre as Grace, but a bit shorter with lots of creative camera angles. There was a baptism before the message; the testimony was recorded and very well done. One of the benefits of doing this is that you have an archive of testimonies. The stage backdrop for the message series was impressive; the entire backdrop was hung with milk white plastic sheets covered in words from the bible. The theme was relevant; Andy’s series was on the word of God, made relevant by using the idea of text messaging, something that most people can relate to today. “You don’t ignore your text messages, why do you ignore God’s messages?” The message opened with a video simulating a text message sessions with God – very effective. The message itself was straightforward and simple – the big idea was “have a time, place and plan for reading the bible and make it personal.”
Overall, I was impressed with how much planning and effort goes into producing the weekend experience. It brings the weekend experience to the next level.
North Point was beautiful, the people were friendly and guest services were well orchestrated, but none of this was significantly different from what happens at Grace (other than the size and cost of the facility!) J
Is the bible guide that he mentioned during the sermon available anywhere for download or purchase? I heard the podcast, but I’d really like to get that guide.
Great question, I’m not sure. I think they threw one in our visitor materials. If they are available, i would expect that you could find it somewhere on there website.