Butterfly Circus

Posted by Matt in OtherFeb 12th, 2010 | No Comments

If you have not yet seen The Butterfly Circus, sit down, relax and watch it. It is only 20 minutes long, but is something you will not want to miss. While there is so much that I can say about this film (and I really want to say a lot), I don’t want to ruin it for anybody. While the video is shown below, I highly recommend you click this link and watch it in fullscreen.

The Power of Social Networking

Posted by Matt in Hands & Feet, OtherJan 20th, 2010 | No Comments

For those that didn’t know, I am a geek to the core. Having said that, one of the most fascinating phenomena for me to watch is the rapid growth of social networking and the power it has to get the word out to a large audience quickly. Today was another perfect example of that. Long story short, in a matter of hours, $4000 in donations were gathered to get a group of neurosurgeons on planes to Haiti. You can read more about it here.

So what does this mean for me? It means that we can leverage technology in a way today that can help us be God’s hands and feet here on Earth quickly and effectively. Thanks to everybody that donated to this effort and for those that put it together. Because of a few people acting quickly, a group of much needed medical professionals are on their way to help those in need. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what it’s all about.

Cracked Pots

Posted by Matt in OtherJan 18th, 2010 | No Comments

I’m sure some of you have seen this before, but I hadn’t and thought it worth sharing. It is a story from India, though I don’t know the original author. Enjoy!

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishment, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only lf half of what it had been made to do. After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you. I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. “The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.

“Moral: Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But it is the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are, and look for the good in them.

I think this is one of the hardest lessons for us to learn; so often we are trying to be perfect before God when He can – and more often than not, does – use our brokenness to do great things. Thank God for crackpots… err – I mean cracked pots!

New Year, New Class

Posted by Matt in Classes, SeminaryJan 7th, 2010 | No Comments

Well, 2010 is here and along with it I am just starting my 3rd class at Rockbridge Seminary. So far, I am really impressed with the classes and the level of interaction between the students. I have taken online courses through a few other colleges and for those most part have been disappointed at each one because of the poor interaction between students/students and students/professor. Rockbridge has been a breath of fresh air in this area – I have learned just as much,  if not more, from the interactions as from the actual reading and assignments. One of the reasons for this, I believe, is that all of the students have to be involved in ministry already. Because of this, we are all able to pull from each other’s experiences and learn from them.

The class I am taking now is call “The Theology & Practice of Ministry.”  The course competency is listed as:

Provides spiritual guidance in helping others analyze how God has shaped them for ministry through spiritual gifts, heart for ministry, abilities, personality, and experiences.

Now, if that’s not something to be excited about learning, I don’t know what is. Here’s to another great start of what looks to be a wonderful class!

Community

Posted by Matt in Classes, Other, SeminaryNov 18th, 2009 | No Comments

I am now in my second class at Rockbridge Seminary and am loving the experience. The class I am taking now is called The Theology and Practice of Fellowship. Its focus is on the reason for and the how-to of biblical community. In reading a book, called The Connecting Church: Beyond Small Groups to Authentic Community, I found a story that sounds so truly American that it hurts. It talks about a family that desires true relationship so bad, yet for all that they are involved with are unable to find it.

Then, I had a strange desire to watch Rent the other night with Ginger. While I have seen the Off-Broadway show and seen the movie already, something really struck me watching it this last time, curled up on the couch. What I was seeing in the lives of these friends was real community. One shared money they had.  Another shared what food (okay, and drink) they had. Sounding familiar yet? Not only did they share what they had, but they were there for each other in the good and the bad. In other words, it wasn’t a relationship of convenience.

Mentors

Posted by Matt in Classes, SeminarySep 29th, 2009 | 1 Comment

This week in my Developing the Focused Life class at Rockbridge Seminary, I really had to do a lot of introspection. The week’s instruction dealt a lot with the need for mentors in our journey. To be quite honest, this is an area that I have been lacking. I have never actively sought out a mentor, or at least someone that I specifically keyed in on specifically for a mentor role. Yet the bible gives tons of examples of the mentor/mentoree relationship when God is calling someone to something.

Newer Beginnings

Posted by Matt in Classes, SeminarySep 11th, 2009 | No Comments

Wow, has it really been that long since I have posted? So many things have happened since then, so let me bring everybody up to speed!

While taking my online courses through Denver Seminary, I became discouraged with how things were going. The classes were fine and the material was fantastic, but the interaction between the professor and the students and even the students/students just wasn’t really there. I got the idea that they were trying to take a physical classroom approach and force that into an online environment, which really doesn’t work well at all. It seemed kind of like trying to put a square peg into a round hole – doesn’t really work all that well, right? On top of that, realizing that the entire program was going to cost well over $45,000, I just felt convicted that I could be doing something much more substantial with the money that God was entrusting me with; especially given the fact that there are so many people in my area that need basics like food and clothes.

Feed the Forgotten

Posted by Matt in Hands & Feet, OtherJun 4th, 2009 | No Comments

I run into people all the time that have a desire to reach out and help, but have no idea where to get started. Well, there is no one right way to get started – but any help you can give anywhere is doing something. The point is to help wherever and whenever you can. My wife and I started with sponsoring a child through Compassion International. That has been a huge blessing not only to the girl in Haiti whom we sponsor, but also to our family in seeing how we are able to positively impact others’ lives through organizations that are out there in the field. We love hearing about how with the extra gifts we sometimes give, the family is able to buy goats to support themselves.

I ran across another organization today that is helping to feed starving people in Uganda. The organization is Children’s HopeChest and they have a campaign called “Feed the Forgotten” that they are pushing hard to try and get donations for. Their goal right now is to be able to provide food for 3-4 villages that they are currently tareting; they are hoping to expand that to more villages based on the donations given. Did you know that for $20 you can feed a family for 20 days? A lot of us spend at least that much money feeding ourselves for just 1 day. I encourage anybody reading this to visit the site and donate today! Here is your opportunity to do something today!

Amazon Bookstore

Posted by Matt in Other, SeminaryJun 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

All right, so this is a shameless plug, but hey – I’ve got to pay for school somehow, right? On the top menu bar, you will see a link entitled “Bookstore”. From there, you can purchase books that I have read and recommend; the plus side is that you are really purchasing from Amazon, but I would earn anwhere between 4% to 10% of the purchase cost. In addition to the store, you will find a couple of widgets in the sidebar that list various books on Amazon that you might be interested in.

Why do all of this? Well, I do have to pay for my seminary education somehow, which is going to cost quite a bit. I would really love to be able to do that without incurring any additional debt, so I’m look for ways to make some additional money to put towards tuition and books. So, while this may be a shameless plug, I hope that anyone out there looking to buy anything from Amazon would help me out in this effort and buy it through me. After all, it won’t cost you a thing!

* Not looking for a book? Use the search box in the sidebar to find anything else you might be looking for.

Book Review: The Blue Parakeet

Posted by Matt in BooksJun 1st, 2009 | No Comments

I just got done reading a wonderful book by Scot McKnight, called “The Blue Parakeet“. This book really grabbed my attention from the very beginning. The basic idea behind this book is figuring out how we read the bible; or rather how we should read the bible. One of the main concepts, and one that I had never thought about before, was the author’s explanation that God spoke to Moses in Moses’ ways in Moses’ days, to David in David’s ways in David’s days, to John in John’s ways in Johns days, etc. Basically, the idea that God speaks to different people throughout the bible in their ways, in their days. When we don’t understand this concept, we struggle with trying to understand what the heck God is doing in certain situations in the Bible and how we are supposed to apply that to our own lives today.

This really fits in with the class I am taking on Hermeneutics. One thing that I think we as Christians need to be doing is really trying to understand how to read the Bible. Though I’ve heard it brought up before, this book really does a fantastic job of explaining the need to read the Bible as story. When I say that (and the author as well), it is not talking about reading it as a fictitious tale, but rather as an accounting of the history of humanity and it’s relationship with God throughout the ages.