Open Door Ministries Blog

8 Things You Need to Know from Our Senior Pastor

Hey, Open Door, I’ve got a few things I wanted to share with you today…

Before that though, thank you for all the kind words and prayers. Deana and I certainly appreciate each one of them. Our lives seem to be so busy, but very productive. We are so grateful to pastor a people who are so easy to care for. 

Many have asked about Deana's mom. She has been placed in a nursing facility in Greensboro, and is settling in. Hopefully, she will respond to therapy and do very well. It was such a blessing to find a new facility for her. 

We are enjoying this beautiful fall weather and looking forward to a few days away next month. But as we bring October to a close don't forget Fall Festival Monday night. It should be a wonderful time for all. 

I can’t tell you how exciting the past few weeks have been for myself and for us as a church.  I wanted to quickly recap some of the incredible things we’ve seen God do over the past few weeks and encourage you to pray with us about a few things:

 #1 – We recently had our Night of Worship last week.  It was incredible.  The altars were full as people gave their hearts to Jesus and received the Holy Spirit and healing.  I can’t wait for the next one!

#2 – We’ve also seen many lives changed and impacted in our Worship Services.  Over the past month alone we’ve seen over 28 lives either come to faith in Jesus Christ or rededicate their lives to Him, and over 8 of those were in our KIDMO and 418 Ministries for kids and students.  I’m so excited for what God’s going to do next!

#3 – We also opened up a new wing of our Child Development Center, which has allowed us to grow our CDC students to over 140.  We enlarged our playground and have made some improvements around the grounds of the campus.  To top it off, we were given a free gift of soil to use for future constructions totaling well over $100,000.

#4 – For those of you that could attend, we had a special Night of Worship for our volunteers and Life Group leaders at the end of September.  We felt strongly that we needed to record this and we are so excited about the possibilities for this being a powerful tool for ministry to our church.  We will release more details about this CD project as soon as we can.

#5 – We are really praying for our 418 Students and their parents to continue to see the importance of the environment we are creating for them each Sunday night.  I believe that it is so important for Middle School and High School students to be engaged and active in a Student Ministry.  Not only does this require the commitment from the students, but also from the parents.  Our prayer is that parents and their students would see the importance of this and participate with us.

#6 – In light of all the lives that are being changed and saved by Jesus we are trying desperately to hear the voice of God and seek His direction about how to create more opportunities for people to grow in their faith.  We are evaluating our Life Groups and seeing how to encourage discipleship to happen more and more.

#7 – Aaron Kennedy, our Administrative Pastor, is the keynote speaker at an upcoming conference, so please be praying for him as he will be speaking to church leaders from many different churches and countries.  Also, our Student Pastor, Tyler Braden, has the opportunity to preach at Christ Covenant School to their entire student body.  Our prayers are with him as well.

#8 – Lastly, we are praying about launching several new ministries at the beginning of the year and into next year.  Please pray for us that we would clearly hear the voice of God about these areas, that we would act in faith, and that we would have people step up and commit to helping us accomplish what we feel God is calling us to do.

Thanks for your time.  It's an honor to be your Pastor.

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Greg Kennedy

 

Taste of Night of Worship

  Night of Worship was in a single word AWESOME!

God moved in some incredible and unimaginable ways and we believe that lives were changed!

Below are some snap shots from the night for you all to enjoy!

 Hope you will plan on joining us for the next one!

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Worship Team Auditions

January 2011 marked the start of some new and exciting things.  Our Senior Pastor, Greg Kennedy spoke an incredible message on 1/09/11 about the vision of Open Door and what he felt like God was calling us to do in the coming years.  You can watch the entire message by clicking here.   Many of these things have already happened or the process has been started.  We've added on to the parking lot.  Our Child Development Center is expanding just in time for the fall and building plans are underway for a new Kid's environment for our KIDMO aged kids.  We've also just recently welcomed our new Student Pastor, Tyler Braden to the team.

One of the most ambitious parts of Pastor Greg's message was about our desire to start other campuses of Open Door Ministries.  Our goal is to create these churches to model and demonstrate the heart from our main campus.  They would be "Open Door" in whatever location we plant them.

Our worship services are intentionally designed to help people take steps closer to Jesus Christ.  As a result we strive to create an engaging, distraction-free environment.  Our worship and the music and songs that we sing and play are an incredibly important part of our DNA as a church. We recognize the need of raising more and more musicians and worship leaders who identify with the mission and calling of Open Door, more now than ever when the potential to start new campuses is in our future!  We believe the time has come to begin to develop ways to raise up worship teams to be able to facilitate the vision that God has given us!

Along with our desire to raise up more worship teams we believe in intentionally investing in the next generation.  We recognize that we need to provide an incredibly passionate and engaging worship experience for our students in AMP and 418.  It is of utmost importance to us that we raise up a team of worship leaders and musicians that can lead our students in worship.

With that said, we are believing God for a full worship team (bass, drums, electric guitar, keys and acoustic guitar) to begin preparing for what is to come and for the needs that we currently have now.

On Monday, July 25 at 7pm we will be having open auditions.  We are looking for experienced musicians that are dedicated to the mission of Open Door.  

The team that is selected will have weekly Monday night rehearsals and will start leading our students in worship on Sunday nights.  We will be investing in the next generation!  The next generation is the future of the church and our heart is always to invest in their relationship with God.

If you are planning to audition, please download the following song and sheet music and come prepared to play the entire song and any solo's on the recording with your instrument.  You do not have to respond to this email and let us know that you are coming, just show up ready to ROCK!

We truly believe that this is a vital step to the mission and purpose of Open Door and something that God has called us to.  Be praying with us that God would send the right people who are dedicated and anointed for this awesome and exciting task!

For a copy of the sheet music or for questions please email Miriam Wamer at miriamwamer@go2odm.com.

>>>>DOWNLOAD the Song from iTunes

This Is Our God by Hillsong

Click here for the album link to iTunes

 

Worship Night

We invite you to join us for a Night of Worship here at Open Door Ministries on Wednesday, September 22 at 7:00pm.

No tickets or advance registrations are required, so bring your friends and small group for an awesome experience.

Childcare will be provided for ages 0-5.

We hope you'll make plans to be here as we join as a church community to worship through music and prayer.

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Worship Songs...

So this past Sunday was an awesome day of worship at ODM! God was so present in every way especially during worship. Miriam and the team rocked as usual and the house blew the roof off!  It was so much fun to be a part of what happened!

We the Redeemed 

I really love this song. The lyrics are really well written and the chord progression allows for the sing-ability of a song with many lyrics.  Although you probably couldn't dance to it this praise song really allows us to enter a place of true praise of our heavenly Father.

The Wonder of Your Love 

This song is very similar to We The Redeemed in many ways. I love how the house engages when we do this song. The powerful lyrics are another home run!  I especially loved how we worshipped in the middle of the song, allowing the house to enter deeper into worship building up to the declaration at the end, "Sing out to God!" 

A Mighty Fortress

This is a new song by Passion that blows the doors off.  I love the line in the song, "a mighty fortress is our God".  This statement always makes faith rise up in me.  I'm so proud of the team that pulled this off on Sunday and allowed the church to enter into an understanding of this reality instead of just singing words on a screen.

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Aaron

Worship Songs...

I LOVED the song list yesterday! It was a Faith+Hope+Love type Sunday, packed full of powerful songs that proclaim truth about this God we serve!  All the songs are very singable for the congregation and there are a lot of dynamic parts that help create awesome an awesome worship experience! 

Here is where we found them, where you can get them, and lastly why we love them. See you next week! 

The first three are from Hillsong's Faith + Hope + Love CD.  You can download it here.

 

 Glow 

This is a really cool song with a different beat than what you normally hear in worship. Timmy rocked it yesterday and I love hearing him sing this song. The words are so as powerful. "Let the earth come to life in the light of heaven's glow" is an awesome lyric that brings about newness of perspective as we worship. I've never heard the word "GLOW" in a worship song before but I must say I like it! Love it!! 

It's Your Love 

The title describes the song really well. It's a seven minute song about Christ's love! You can never go wrong with that. We based our Easter service, "All For Love" on this song.  Click here to see the entire "All For Love" service.  I loved the song the first time I heard it and knew the message was one that our church needed to sing and remember--that "it's His love that has saved us" and continues to hold us together. On a side note, we are seeing more people come to Christ than ever before at Open Door and the numbers of new believers continue to grow week after week! Just continue to pray with us that people would continue to experience Christ love at Open Door! 

I Will Exalt You 

This is a faith building song! From the "go" it makes me believe that with God, I can do anything. That was important as we looked at what was being taught that day on the topic of The F Word (forgiveness).  Click here to see Sunday's message. Sometimes people hurt us to a place that we can't imagine being able to forgive. When the team looked at that, we felt this song fit perfect with the mood we wanted to set in the house Sunday, a mood that said "because you are with me, I will not fear." What an awesome statement as we deal with the place of hurt and pain! 

The Closing song was from the Passion: Awakening CD and was sung by The David Crowder*Band.  You can download it here.

 

How He Loves

From the beginning of The F Word series we felt that this song was the way we wanted to end the series.  Knowing the story that Roger Gosnell was sharing was key as we prayed about what we wanted people to feel and experience at that moment.  If you don't know the back-story of this song check it out here.  It is an incredible testimony of a song that is being sung throughout the world.  The staff has been talking about the ending to yesterday's services all day.  Yesterday can be summed in simply this, "oh how He loves us so, oh how He loves us, how He loves us all!"

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Have a great week! 

Aaron

Worship Songs...

I have been so blessed by the response in worship over the past couple of months at Open Door. I have really felt the presence of God in a way that I'm not sure if I have ever felt. 

God has drawn our hearts together to worship as one voice and make Jesus famous in Greenville. We have begun to step into what part of our calling is, to be "unashamed and uninhibited worshipers of this God we serve". 

With all that being said, I cannot count the amount of people that have come up to me and said, "Where are you getting the songs we are doing on Sunday?" To answer the questions, I have listed what my team and I are listening to as we pray about what we sing on Sundays. 

I will be back to give you some more next week. Hope you enjoy! 

Hillsong United:  Across//the Earth:Tear Down the Walls 

Great album that really speaks to this generation's need and desire for deeper expressions of worship. Musically speaking, it's one of the best worship albums I have heard in long time. One of the harder aspects of the album is that the songs are wordy which is not all bad but does require longer for people to learn the songs so that they can sing with us. The songs we have done off this album are: "Tear Down the Walls", "Soon", "King of All Days" and a few others. 

Passion: Awakening 

Passion comes out with a live album almost every year from their conferences. The team that sings with Passion are some of the most influential worship leaders in the world at this time. Names include Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Christy Nockels, and David Crowder. They continue to set the standard of worship for most churches in America. This cd is another great one from the team that knows congregational worship. We have not done many off this album yet, but we will in the upcoming weeks. 

Hillsong: Faith + Hope + Love 

This another great cd from the guys out of Australia that seem to be able to write 10 new cd's a year! lol!! We used a lot of this during our Christmas program this year including the opener "His Glory Appears". Most of the stuff that Hillsong Church comes out with is good.  They have a real anointing for writing songs that speak to where the church is at right now. This cd is a great add as we have and will continue to do songs off of this album. 

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Blessings, Aaron

Coming In and Going Out

This past Sunday's service at Open Door had to have made one of our top ten favorites. We were able to take in new members, to add to our church family, but also send out one of our very own Jody Paramore and his family to ministry. 

Jody and his family have been with us for several years, the majority of which he has served on our praise team and his wife in our 0-3 nursery. They have a been a huge help and blessing in the teams they have been on, always faithful and devoted to the cause and purpose of the ministry. 

Now it's time for us to be faithful and devoted to the promise and calling God has spoken. Jody has been offered a position at his home church to lead the youth as well as the praise and worship at Salem United Methodist Church. 

Words can't begin to express how proud we are to see what God is doing in Jody and Stephanie's lives and how excited we are to see them step into ministry during this next chapter of their lives. 

Jody, Stephanie, Chloe, Luke, and Ethan, please know that you will be incredibly missed but that our prayers, thoughts, blessing, and excitement are with you as you go.

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Way To Go D!

This past Sunday I was in Colorado Springs, CO visiting some close friends of our church, Daimon and Sarah Elliott.  They moved there several years ago for business. 

Cool thing is that while Daimon was here he had a strong calling on his life to be a worship leader. He began to develop that gifting while with us at Open Door through leading the team in worship. 

Now he is the Worship Pastor at Gateway in CO. He is doing a incredible job with the team there and they are seeing awesome growth in the church. 

As I was watching him lead worship over 2,000 miles away from Open Door I couldn't help but be humbled by the fact that God uses us to reach people all over the world for His glory, not ours! 

That's exciting and I am blessed to be a part of a house that does just that! 

Way to go D!  Keep up the good work.  Your family at Open Door is proud of you and cheering you and Sarah on!!

 

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Aaron

Worship Team Tryouts

Do you want to be a part of the Open Door Worship Team?

Here is your chance! 

We are holding tryouts September 1st starting at 7pm! 

We are looking for specific things this year. 

We are looking for a lead guitarist and an acoustic guitarist. 

We are also looking for a drummer and a bass player for our youth department. 

We will be taking several singers also at this tryout. 

Lastly, if you play a specialty instrument we want to see what you got! 

We can't take everybody, but we are looking for some particular things to help us out. 

If this is your gifting then sign up at the Information Center and we will see you there!!

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- Aaron