matt's thoughts

Music I'm Lovin' Right Now

Blogging has been light lately, but here are some tunes that have been the sound track to my crankin' schedule:

A Matchlight in the Dark is the debut record for New Spring worship leader Lee McDerment.  Wow.  Great stuff...rock your face off worship.  I'm was happy to hear a worship album with out the overuse of a delay pedal.  :)  Also McDerment has a couple of piano tracks that are really stunning.  Get it.  Today. 

Spring is the third solo installment from Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman.  It is just as fabulous as the first two, Fall and Winter, but it peppy for Spring.  This collection of albums is a must have on your ipod.  Foreman proves to be a brilliant songwriter...again.

We Cry Out is a live album from Jesus Culture Music.  I found it after I was linked to this video.  Holy Cow.  Something is happening there...I listened to this albums several times this week and found myself weeping each time How He Loves Us came on.  Kim Walker has such a unique and haunting voice.  I appreciated the arrangements they have on here of United, Tim Hughes, and Phil Wickam.  It is well worth the price of the cd just for How He Loves Us, but I found it refreshing to hear something newer arrangements, and some different songs being used. 

what i look forward to at the end of the day

easter is a couple of days away

Man am I feeling it.  I am super excited about my message for this Sunday, but Easter has this kind of pressure to it like no other Sunday...its like the Super Bowl of church. :)  I know I'm going to get a ton of emails because of that comment, but there is some truth to the fact that this is a big Sunday for any church whether you pump it up or not.  Anyhoo...I totally have butterflies in my stomach for this one already!

I'm starting a series called Tough Pills.  We are going to look at the bold in your face statements that Jesus made throughout his ministry that really set Him apart from anyone else in history.  I get psyched about this topic because I've found that if you really take Jesus for what He said it forces us to either run at Him with reckless passion or reject Him as a nut job and a liar...He doesn't really leave room for anything else. 

oh yeah...and Terry is playing a bit of Sufjan this Sunday...sweeeet.

fun with my girls...

being a dad is the best...

New Website

We just redid the website...still needs some tweaks, but I'm pretty happy with it so far.  Check it out here.

Transition Series

The series we've been in these past couple of weeks has been called Finding our Way.  We looked at the transition that the disciples faced in the beginning of Acts as they established the Church.  It was a cool study to walk through, and I think that it really resonated with some of the life transitions that our folks are going through.  You can listen to it here. 

Back to blogging?

i've been wondering when i would get back to blogging.  the stats say that you all haven't completely gone away, but my faithful readers have definitely dwindled.  with this transition in my role the margin in my life has been less and less, so as things were falling through the cracks, blogging was an easy first for me.  i am feeling a bit more in my own skin though, and thought that i'd give it this thing a go again. 

these past couple of weeks have been pretty intense.  lots of meetings...lots of praying...pretty conflicting emotions...but all in all i'm really excited about where God has me and where he has our church right now.  funny how God has a way with shifting us around to get us in a situation where He can get at our hearts. 

its taken a couple of weeks, but i feel like i'm getting back into the groove of regular preaching.  its a lot more work, but a different and strangely satisfying kind of work.  so hopefully there should be a bit more blogging out of me in the near future...stay tuned.