Sermon Tone Analysis

*Grand Opening Service*

*Will the Real God Please Stand Up*

* *

*Musical prelude (taped CD  upbeat song) [5 minutes before the service]*

[Welcome to McFBC slide up]

[House lights on but not halogen lights]

 

*Opening (right at 8:45 and 10:45)*

*[*House lights go off*]*

*[*Slide dissolves to black*]*

          Gail’s tonal drama “/This is God/”

[House lights on]  John calls us to worship God

          /“We Bow Down”/

* *

*Prayer - Bruce*

 

*Welcome to the Grand Opening - Bruce *

*          *Welcome to the Grand Opening of McKinney Fellowship Bible Church.

I’m Bruce Miller, the Senior Pastor, and it is my privilege to give a special welcome to those of you who are worshipping with us for the first time.

I hope you feel right at home.

Today is a birthday for McKinney Fellowship Bible Church.

Over the last 12 months, McFBC as we like to call it, has been in gestation preparing to be born and today is the day.

Today is the birth of McKinney Fellowship Bible Church.

[applause]

          We are a daughter church, planted from Fellowship Bible Church North in Plano, pastored by Gene Getz, where I served on the staff for over 10 years.

In the course of the last 12 months a core group of over 400 people has come together as a team to fulfill our mission: “To reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ by establishing a Church in McKinney to impact our community and the world for the glory of God.”

As a team our vision is “to cultivate a Christ-centered, Bible-based, Spirit-empowered community which dynamically draws people to trust in Jesus, worship God, build relationships, grow to maturity and serve Him.”

We welcome each one of you here today.

Thank you for coming to celebrate with us the birth of McKinney Fellowship Bible Church.

Please take the blue Response Card out of your program and fill it out.

We want to have a record of each person here for the Grand Opening and we want to hear from you.

Note that there is a front and back to the card.

On the front you can let us know how to communicate with you and on the back you can communicate with us your interests, decisions and prayer requests.

Later in the service when we take the offering, please place the Response Card in the Offering basket.

Let me ask Louis Miller to come forward at this time.

Louis was born in McKinney.

His family represents five generations in McKinney.

In the 1960s Louis served as a the Mayor of McKinney.

Over the years as the President of McKinney Title Company, Louis has helped to build McKinney, Texas to be what it is today.

For at least the last 20 years Louis and his wife Syble have prayed for a Church like this in McKinney and God has heard their prayers.

Please welcome Mr. Louis Miller.

[applause]

 

[Louis and John Gay come on stage]

*Dedication - Louis Miller introduces John Gay*

* *

*Prayer of dedication     - John Gay*

* *

I’ve asked Louis Miller to cut this ribbon symbolizing the Grand Opening of a Church that we trust will maintain a vibrant ministry in McKinney for hundreds of years.

*[*ribbon either affixed Or John and Bruce hold it up for Louis]

*Ribbon Cutting by Louis Miller*

[John and Louis step off stage]

 

Join with us as we celebrate the Lord in what He has done in starting McKinney Fellowship Bible Church.

This Church is his Church.

And Jesus Christ is who builds His Church.

We have the privilege of being part of the process.

Let me introduce you to a couple of people on the platform with me.

On the keyboards are John and Gail Wasson.

John has joined our staff as Pastor of Worship Arts assisted by his wife Gail.

John, Let’s lift up our great God.

*Musical set*

*          /Our God is Lifted Up/     *

*/Celebrate for the Lord is Good/*

*/          Awesome God/*

*/          His Name is Wonderful/*

*/          Open our Eyes Lord/*

*/          I Exalt Thee/*

[House lights on and now turn on Halogen lights for the first time]

*Message*

          *What would you preach on* if you were speaking at a Grand Opening for a new church?

If you were me what would you chose to speak about on the Grand Opening?  What is the most important topic?

Love, strong families, faith.

What is most critical to a Church?

To you sitting in these chairs?

What is the hottest, most relevant topic of concern to most people today?

Moral values, security, balance in our lives.

Of every passage and person in the Bible, which is most important?

What is the foundation of the Church?

What is the foundation of your life, your marriage and your family?

[*slide*]

*God is . . .

*

 

          *God.

God is the most important.*

God is the most important topic.

God is the foundation of the Church and should be the foundation of our families, marriages and lives.

God is the most relevant and critical hot topic today, tomorrow and always.

*Who is God*?

There are many competing ideas about who God is in our society today.

God is a force.

God is the love we all share.

God is nature.

We are all God.

God is a heavenly ace in the hole.

God is a vengeful judge.

God is a loving Santa Claus.

God is a figment of people’s imaginations; a nice idea as a crutch for weak people who can’t handle life as it is.

In America we put God’s Name everywhere.

We say, ‘In God we Trust” on our money [hold up a dollar bill].

We say we are a nation “under God.”

But what do we really mean by all that.

Did God just create the world and now He has left us to run on our own.

Does He really care?

Does He hear prayers?

In our media we are bombarded with wildly different ideas about God: from Yoda in /The Empire Strikes Back/ saying that the Force is God and the Force is in everything to Shirley McLaine looking out at the ocean screaming at the top of her lungs, “I am God.” 

          Mia Farrow [/like arrow/] in her recently published memoirs quotes Frank Sinatra as saying, “I have respect for life in any form.

I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, in everything I can see.

If these things are what you mean by god, then I believe in God.