Pastor Billy Joe Daugherty, founding pastor of Victory Christian Center in Tulsa, passed away quietly early Sunday morning after a battle with lymphoma, surrounded by his family and close friends.

I wish I had the opportunity to become a closer friend of Pastor Billy Joe. For the better part of our ministry lives, Cathy and I admired he and his wonderful wife Sharon from a distance. It was only recently that…

Categories: Church •General •Personal •Thoughts
Tags: northstar • church • america • mission • time • grace • building • courage • god • lives
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For the last few days, my thoughts have been full of all the blessings and opportunities God has placed in our midst at Northstar Church.  Each of these are things that make you go WOW… what a God we serve!

So I’ve tried to gather some of these thoughts and share them with you.

Categories: General •News •Personal •Thoughts
Tags: northstar • church • gospel • life • mission • grace • land • building • courage • construction
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This is the question Cathy and I, our staff and some very close friends have been praying about for the last several months.


Three years ago, when we opened the doors to Northstar Church, we determined to be a “going and reaching” church rather than a “clutching and grabbing” church. We all have seen too many churches who are more focused on keeping “the found” rather than reaching the lost. Really, I believe the more we focus on the lost in our communities, the more we will fire up the found to engage their gifts for God. The final words of Jesus were “Go!” He told us to continually look for new places, new people and new cultures to take the Gospel to.

Categories: Church •Church Growth •Church Planting
Tags: northstar • church • america • gospel • life • time • courage • times • god • jesus
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So what is God saying to His church? How do we interpret the cultural and spiritual skies that are overhead?

Allow me to take you back for a moment to the turn of the last century when God was pouring out His Spirit in Topeka, Kansas and Azusa Street in Los Angeles. The two most influential men in this fresh visitation of God that began in about 1903 were Charles Parham and William Seymour. Both were mightily used by the Lord to re-introduce the baptism in the Holy Spirit, along with His gifts, to the church in America. Thousands and thousands of people came to Christ, were healed, set free from sin and filled with the power of the Spirit. This revival absolutely changed the spiritual landscape of America and beyond.

Categories: Church •General •Holy Spirit •Spiritual Formation •Thoughts
Tags: church • america • life • mission • time • power • grace • land • god • jesus
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I am currently teaching on the ministry of the Holy Spirit at Northstar Church. We are a Spirit filled church and do not try to hide it.  We actively contend for spiritual gifts that will help the hurting people of our community. Each week, people walk through our doors that need healing, direction, deliverance from addictions and the list goes on. We believe gifts like prophesy are crucial for both edification and guidance in the local church. I scratch my head when churches that once valued the ministry of the Holy Spirit and exercised His gifts have now shut Him out of their worship. The very person that directed their steps in the early days, caused them to grow and help so many people has now been benched on the sidelines…

Categories: Church •Church Growth •General •Holy Spirit •Spiritual Formation •Thoughts
Tags: northstar • church • america • gospel • life • time • power • god • times • jesus
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“Then Saul took 3,000 of the best-trained men from all Israel and went to search for David and his men on the Rocks of the Wild Goats.” 1 Samuel 24:2

There were three things we see in this verse that David encountered as a young leader in his quest to obey God. Rocks, wild goats and a king named Saul. Each has application to the building of a new work for God.

The walls are now up on our new facility at Northstar Church. It won’t be long now before…

Categories: Building •Church •Church Growth •General •Leadership
Tags: northstar • church • life • mission • time • grace • building • courage • times • god
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Wow… what an amazing Easter weekend. We saw so many new faces at Northstar and I might add, we also saw some friendly faces return that we haven’t seen in some time.  I love it when lost sheep come home! I’m thinking specifically about a older man that I spent a lot of time with early on in our church plant.  He had been in and out of the hospital and was going through some very difficult…

Categories: Church •Church Growth •General •News
Tags: church • gospel • easter • next step
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Yesterday, we began a life changing teaching series that will lead us into an incredible Easter Sunday. “The Secret Power of a Surrendered Life” will revolutionize the way you approach every new day.

There is a power in God that very few Christians have ever tapped into.  In fact, the world has yet to see the potential of a church community that is completely abandoned and available to God’s plan on God’s scale.The scripture teaches, “You are not your own, you were bought with a price.” (1 Cor. 6:20)  Jesus provided the ultimate act of surrender when he shed his own blood so that you could be brought into a secret place of power found only in Him…

Categories: Church •General •Spiritual Formation •Thoughts
Tags: church • life • power • fasting • price • surrender • god's plan
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by Nathan Gregory

The show 24 is a weekly watch at my house.  I admit it…I want to be Jack Bauer.  That guy is amazing!  His life is filled with action, intrigue, suspense… what more could you ask for?  And the whole show cracks me up.  Every year, it’s a “different” story which feels oddly like the story the year before.  BUT, regardless, I keep on watching…

Categories: Church •General
Tags: northstar • church • local church • northstar church • jack bauer • characteristics • 24 • worship
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At the age of twenty-five, Mark Driscoll gathered a core group of twelve people in the living room of the Wallingford rental house where he and his wife, Grace, lived. For the next seven years, Mars Hill Church met in various locations throughout Seattle until, in 2003, the church (one thousand strong) moved into a renovated hardware store.  Today, Mars Hill is attracting eight thousand people in twenty services spread across seven campuses. Mark told me…

Categories: Church •Church Planting •Leadership
Tags: church • psychographic boundaries • mark driscoll • kaleo houston • lenexa christian center • church planting • acts 29 network • mars hill • seattle • round table
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So I hope you like our new blog site… because you know, that’s what this world needed was one more blogger, right?  Hey, I enjoy writing and if some of you enjoy reading my thoughts, along with those of our Northstar “staffers,” then that makes it all worthwhile.

I must admit I was more than a little happy to see a few comments on my first blog… wow… people came, they read, they commented and they left.  That’s nice. 

On to my observation today.  I like David Letterman.  Yea, he’s pretty darn funny.  Love the top ten list, which has become an American staple…

Categories: Church •Church Planting •Leadership •Personal
Tags: northstar • church • america • leaders • socks • dave letterman • pastors • funny
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