Northplace Church Podcast

Join pastor Greg Hartmann as the host of our new podcast series, the Breakdown. In each episode, we will have conversations about practical applications to our weekend messages. As our frame of reference, we will be discussing our series "Get Up and Lead" that pastor Bryan shared in January, and we will explore how we can use those principles and apply them to our current circumstances. We wanted to remind you of a few ways you can stay connected with our church. ·  Visit northplacechurch.com for updates·  Subscribe to our email newsletter, at northplacechurch.com·  Text NPC to 31996 to receive updates during this timeOur team in the office has been working around the clock to bring you more ways to stay connected during this time. We have also created "The Official Northplace Community Online." (https://npch.us/2J3ywGF) It's a Facebook group that will help you get connected to other believers, people who want to grow in their spiritual journey. We have some great upcoming opportuniti

There will always be someone in your ear telling you how unachievable our dream is. There will always be situations in front of you, telling you it’s impossible. These kinds of voices of discouragement are a dime a dozen, especially in moments like this.To get involved and learn more visit : northplacechurch.com

This is a special edition of the Northplace Podcast. The goal of these episodes is to bring people who can add value to your life during this time. This episode's guest is Dr. Jeff Kerr; he is a chief medical officer of a local community hospital that is a part of a much more extensive network in the Dallas Fort Worth area. He's right on the frontline as many of the medical professionals are fighting this pandemic. We wanted to remind you of a few ways you can stay connected with our church. ·  Visit northplacechurch.com for updates·  Subscribe to our email newsletter, at northplacechurch.com·  Text NPC to 31996 to receive updates during this timeOur team in the office has been working around the clock to bring you more ways to stay connected during this time. We have also created "The Official Northplace Community Online." (https://npch.us/2J3ywGF) It's a Facebook group that will help you get connected to other believers, people who want to grow in their spiritual journey. We have so

Our world, our nation, our communities, and our church…we all find ourselves in new territory…beyond the map…off the beaten path. We’ve never been in a situation quite like this before. It’s an uncertain and ambiguous time for leadership, parenting, medicine, business, finance, education…every facet of life. It’s human nature to “huddle” together in times of uncertainty. Historically, in catastrophic moments like war or like the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, we were drawn to be together. We want to connect. We want community. We finally realize our deep need for each other. Research has shown that in nearly every significant moment of national uncertainty…whether it was the Great Depression or the more recent Great Recession or in times of war or after 9/11, attendance to church and attendance to movie theaters rises dramatically. Why? People go to the movies in times of crisis to escape the harshness of reality. People go to church to find refuge and connect with the eternal, something that tran

As we think about that phrase “For the one,” I want you to be tuned in to God’s heart for you. The whole story of the bible is the story of God’s pursuit of us. From the beginning to the end, no matter what page you pick, every smaller story is one piece of the bigger narrative. And if you boil the whole bible down to one phrase…it is the story of God’s passionate pursuit of broken people so he can love us, restore us, and be in a relationship with us. He wants to truly “know” us.I want us to think about God’s heart for us, in these terms, If you’re a Christ-follower, He “knows” you fully, intimately, and personally. But what does it mean to be known by God?

Are you calibrating your entire life by the metrics of Jesus? Is He the fuel that drives the engine of your life? Or has life become so full of everything else that he’s been pushed off to the side, becoming an afterthought? If he’s become an afterthought, that’s not wrong just because it grieves Him; in the end, it keeps you from experiencing your best life.Last weekend, we briefly looked at the promise Jesus made in Matthew 6:But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. - Matthew 6:33 NIVHere’s the promise: The very things we’re chasing that have displaced God from a place of priority in our life will eventually come to us in the right way, at the right time, and bring more fulfillment, that is, if we seek Him and His kingdom FIRST. There is an “order” that shows honor. And when you get the order right, it unlocks supernatural blessings.You’re going to be tempted over the next few minutes to minimize this conversation as one of those “been there, done

On November 10th, 2019, we had one united service in the Curtis Culwell Center that culminated the launch of our Unfinished Vision Initiative. We knew the day would be significant, and Pastor Bryan had a message burning in his heart, but I had no idea how one simple sermon illustration would become a battle cry that would shape the destiny of this church. For those of you who were there, it will be a shared experience we will never forget.In a world that is spiraling downward faster than we could ever imagine, the church is the lifeboat that rescues the perishing. Here’s the question we asked ourselves that day: Do we have enough lifeboats?Toward the end of the message, Pastor Bryan started calling people forward to get in small stationed lifeboats upfront in the arena. We crammed as many people as we could over the course of several minutes. His plea during that time was “Just One More!” Surely we can get “one more.” As people tried to press in anywhere, there was room, and it was apparent many would be left

Your most significant kingdom impact will not necessarily be a what, but a who.All of us have opportunities to develop the people around us. We may think, well, I'm not a pastor. You might say, I'm not some prominent leader in some significant leadership position, but all of us have different relationships where we can make a difference. Whether you're the boss of your company or department, a coach or a teacher, a parent, grandparent, brother, or sister, perhaps you lead a Bible study, still all of us have an opportunity to be a difference-maker by developing the people around us.Who's going to be a better version of themselves because you came into their life? Who's going to be more effective in what they do? Who will still be in the game a year from now, three years from now, five years from now, simply because you chose to encourage them to never give up?If you find yourself saying, I can't make a difference, this message is for you. Pastor Scotty's scriptural study isn&

You could have so many leadership qualities active in your life, but if you lack integrity, it would undermine the combined impact of every other quality. Your integrity is more important than your gifts and talents, your money and position, the size of your network or your reputation. Listen to the words of the Psalmist:Psalm 15:1-2 NLT1 Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord?Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?2 Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right,speaking the truth from sincere hearts.Our culture is absolutely obsessed with appearance. There are even companies that you can hire to help you manage your image. But God is not impressed by external images. He couldn’t care less about how you look. He doesn’t judge a person by their appearance, achievements, accomplishments, acquisitions, education, or wealth.God is more concerned about the authentic internal you, the purity and integrity of your heart.

The big dream is often so overwhelming that you don’t even know where to start. You’re paralyzed by the magnitude of it, so you never get around to doing anything productive about it. You sit around waiting on your lucky break or some blessing to fall from heaven. You’ll never do anything until you give yourself permission to dream small.What’s an initial step? It is a small thing that is possible to take the initiative to tackle, to move you forward to what God has put in your heart.There are some cultural trends, even church trends, and belief systems,…that will kill your personal drive and initiative. In this message, we will look at this from a practical perspective, a biblical perspective, and then we want you to see what initiative it has to do with the gospel and being a follower of Jesus.

Your ability to foster and maintain quality and meaningful relationships will be one of the most significant factors that will determine success or failure in every area of your life. Relationships are unavoidable. And if you’re bad at them, you will sabotage friendships, family, career aspirations; literally, everything will be impacted by the quality of relationships in your life.We want to look at this from a biblical perspective, as we have each of these qualities so far. But first, I want you to see what everyone else is discovering. Leaders in the field of education and leaders in business have realized what Jesus has taught all along; that quality and meaningful relationships are crucial to success.There are two often sited data points discovered by Gallup after thousands and thousands of interviews with employees. Here’s what Gallup found:1. Most often, people don’t leave jobs. They leave their manager or boss. This is a relationship issue.Here’s the second item their research showed:2. The number one

We can't overstate the impact of attitude in a person’s life. Outside of our relationship with Jesus, there’s probably no other factor that will determine your success or failure more in life. And you’ve probably noticed that attitudes run in groups. In other words, individual attitudes attract people with similar attitudes. And you can often see certain attitudes passed down from one generation to another, so much so, that families are commonly known by their attitudes. We have the old story of the two fighting families… the Hatfields and the McCoys.Families have distinct attitudes. Businesses have attitudes, the same is true with restaurants, airlines, and churches.Romans 12:2 NLT2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Don’t miss what Paul is saying. He’s warning us. Don’t copy the world’s way of thinking. As a follower of Christ

Self-Discipline was far and away the most requested quality to talk about during this series. We didn't all ask for self-discipline because we're all so good at it; most of us recognize self-discipline, or the lack of self-discipline, as the most significant growth barrier between who we are and who we want to be.1 Corinthians 9:24-25 NLT24 Don't you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! 25 All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize…  The minute we start talking about self-discipline, somebody's going to equate self-discipline with will-power immediately. If due to past failures, you've already labeled yourself as someone with no will power, you wrongly assume that a disciplined life is out of reach for you.If you struggle with self-discipline, you don't have a will problem, you have a reward problem. Paul said, the runners in a race run that they might win the prize. The value of the award fuels th

Romans 14:7 NKJV7 For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.In other words, our lives are forever woven into the fabric of other people’s lives. At work, with family, in the neighborhood, in our hobbies, at church: no man lives to himself. We live influencing others. And no man dies to himself. Even after our deaths, the ripple effect of our influence will impact generations that come after us. None of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.Our deeds, our actions, our word, or the words we should have said but didn’t; they’re all a part of our influence (for the good or the bad), that will impact people while we are alive and will continue to impact people after we are gone.We all cast a shadow, and that shadow can be one of healing or one of devastation.

Who you believe yourself to be, determines where you place yourself. You are a child of God.The knowledge that you are a child of God changes everything. It's not the fact of being a child of God, because you are, but knowing and acknowledging that you are indeed a child of God.The awareness of being a child of God tends to stabilize the ego and results in a new courage, fearlessness, and power. I have seen it happen again and again. - Howard ThurmanJohn 10:3 New Living Translation (NLT)3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

Throughout December, our Christmas and Advent theme has been: Joy to Your World, with an emphasis on “your” world. It’s pretty evident if you have any familiarity with the Christmas story, that the birth of Christ was a monumental event, both historically and spiritually. And that event was marked by incredible joy.On nearly every page of scripture that details the events of the Christmas story, there’s some reference to an expression of extreme joy. The central passage of the Christmas story is the announcement of the birth of Christ by the angelic hosts and the thesis, or the principal theme of that announcement is “great joy.” Listen to it:Luke 2: 8-7 NLT8 That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. 9 Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, 10 but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. 11 The S

We have this sense that God wants you to experience joy at a profoundly personal level. He wants to bring joy to your world, your life, to the people you love and care about. This can’t just be about the general “joy” of the season. It has to be felt and experienced on a personal level for it to impact our lives in a lasting way. Otherwise, we’ll pack up all of our goodwill, peace, love, hope, and joy when we put the Christmas stuff back in storage. The message of God becoming a man…the story of the incarnation…Christmas joy…is so real and so powerful…it has the potential to impact us far beyond December. It has the power to change us.In week one, we talked about Waiting in Joy. In week two, we talked about Receiving Joy. This week, we want to talk about Choosing Joy.To “take” something means you forcefully grab it. You make a choice. It’s intentional. You exert the effort. And to “take” something assumes it’s available for the taking. But to take joy? Really? Joy seems so intangible. So subjective. So fleeti

If you could understand the narrative of the bible, it would fill you with wonder. This righteous, all-powerful, and majestic God that has been continually rejected or ignored by mere mortals continues to pursue us. Not because we are worthy, but because we are wanted. He wants you. He wants me.He wants us so badly that he left the splendor of heaven and robbed himself in the frailty of human flesh. God became a baby. He became a tired fellow traveler with sore feet, so like Sarah, we would see him as gentle, approachable, and accessible.He's the hero from outside us that chose to put himself into the desperation of our human story. He became one of us that he might rescue us. But the wonder, joy, and laughter he promises to bring doesn't fade after you close the back cover the book or slip away in your drive home from the theater. It's a love that lasts, and laughter filled with wonder that springs from the deep places of the soul.

one that is finite. There is a set date on the calendar when the waiting will end, and we know that when we get to the end, we will find something desirable. But much of the waiting that occupies our lives is open-ended.  We spend much of our life waiting on a promise.The most challenging thing about waiting is not knowing when it’s going to end. Waiting brings questions without easy answers. When you’re in long seasons of waiting, you start asking questions like: Should I change course or hold out for my heart’s desire? Is my unfulfilled yearn an indicator of sinful discontentment or merely a blessing God hasn’t yet fulfilled in his sovereign time?All the feel-good Christmas movies intensify the hope of a happy ending in time for Christmas. The lonely find families and the lost make it home. But in the real world, Christmas often comes and goes without fulfilling the longings of our hearts.Advent is about more than anticipating Christmas. The word “advent” signifies “coming.” Yes, we remember that Jesus came

There’s a subtle but significant difference between gratitude and thanksgiving. Where gratitude is a feeling, thanksgiving is an action. The psalmist didn’t say, “enter his gates with gratitude (feeling).” He said, “enter his gates with thanksgiving (action).” There’s something significant about the act of thanksgiving that opens up access to the presence of the King.Gratitude is important. You can’t express genuine acts of thanksgiving without true feelings of gratitude. Otherwise, it’s just a show. It’s not authentic. Nobody wants a cold kiss, especially God. So, the sense of gratitude is essential, but it can’t stop there. We have to act on it. We have to turn our gratitude toward God into action. Thanksgiving is gratitude expressed.Through your words, your worship, your service, your generosity…act on your gratitude.You enter the gates with thanksgiving. Remember,  the gates were not only a place of access, but:A place of Wisdom on Counsel A place of justiceA place of renewalA place of preparation for bat