matt's thoughts

worship confessional 11

some great new music

just discovered laura gibson. rick mckinley mentioned her in his book, this beautiful mess, and i was intrigued so i jumped over to her site and gave her a listen.  holy cow.  i'm hooked.  so smooth...so soothing.  my kinda music.  go listen.

love this quote...

"If you do not Sabbath, God will impose a Sabbath upon you."
more [here]

movie night update

this is all i have to say.   ben has a hysterical post on our movie night [here]

things that put a smile on my face...

uhoh!

its about 20 mins to setup time for our outdoor movie night, and this is my igoogle banner.  it is tied into our local weather.  ugh!  thankfully it isn't actually raining.  i've been diligently watching the radar and i think it will miss us.  say a prayer for us.  :)

crippled by not enough?

i'm amazed in a culture of such abundance, that so often those of us in the church feel crippled by lack.  we live and minster in the most affluent country in the world and i personally live in one of the most affluent portions of that country.  it breaks my heart sometimes that both corporately and individually we fall into a pattern where we feel crippled by our lack...materially...creatively...in our time.  this seems so contrary to me to the way that God wants us to function as His church...

i'm studying again the construction of the tabernacle in the book of exodus, and i'm amazed at the abundance of that endeavor.  i think it would seem amazing if they even close to a large city.  but it was built in the middle of the desert.  two key things happened there...

• the people's hearts were stirred (a phrase repeated over and over in this section) to contribute in the ways that God had enabled them materially and creatively.
• God's responded to the obedience of the people and gifted them for this endeavor, and then He showed up.

its interesting that the key ingredient in the "success" of Israel's tabernacle building experience was not their great resources, but rather the stirring of the peoples' hearts to respond in obedience and worship of YHWH.  what could happen in our community if we would respond to him like this?

bluetooth bandit

i'm sitting here in starbucks, getting my day rolling, and all of the sudden i get a passkey request from an LG phone trying to connect via bluetooth.  confused i look up and see a guy standing a few feet away from me staring intently at his LG smart-phone.   

perhaps there was no malicious intent, but to be honest i felt a bit invaded.  so i stared at him...until he left.  was that wrong?

oh yeah...and then i changed my bluetooth settings...

my wife is famous

just opened my copy of our local paper and my wife's face was there smiling back at me on the front page.  she has been blogging for just over a year now with Ben's wife Ainsley, and another friend from our church about being a mom here in Reston.  they have had huge success and their daily hits are really growing, so the local paper decided to do a story on them and their blog. 

i was excited to see how they are really connecting in a significant and influential way in our community.  in a place where we feel like so many doors have been shut on our efforts as a church, it is cool to see this thing go.  perhaps it is because this isn't a churchy thing...its just real women who love God, slugging through the trials of motherhood just like everyone else.  perhaps we need to find more avenues like this to serve our community...

way to go darlin'!

local guy sets new american record for the mile...

i was so excited about this news.  alan webb is from right here in Reston.  i was a miler in high school so i have a bit of affection for this sport and its fun to see some great runners coming out of this area.  the mile is such a beautiful race, so full of drama, strategy and pure brute strength...great job alan!