a quick little synopsis for you on what I have been up to:

After taking August off as a church (mainly meaning organized gatherings), we got deep into it for September. Retreat, new home groups, 2nd Sunday, Community Forum, Even Tuesday and basically getting connected again.

Each of these spaces proved fruitful, but to get back into that rhythm was a little harder than I thought it would be. So now we are entering October and here’s to a rhythm beginning with the open house.

Personally I have been wrestling with some financial next steps for the church. We have been incredibly blessed to see our group continue to grow and be transformed by God but the truth is, funding with a new church plant declines in year three, and believe it or not but we have been officially planting for 2 years on October 1! Quite exciting looking back, but now we must find a way to make up the difference, and some. In fact I had an interview Friday with an engineering firm that came out of nowhere, but I didn’t get it because of my lack of experience (which is to be understood, I did a Masters and have been church planting over the last 4 years). And even though it was a little disappointing, it has given me a new found focus on why I started doing church planting in the first place. I see some good things ahead of me.

More to come on this…

I have been reading a few books right now. For fun I have been reading Hey Nostradomus by Douglas Coupland which I have really been enjoying. On the study front over the last month or so I have read Signs of Emergence, the Starfish and the Spider, Liquid Church, Paul in Fresh Perspective and am currently reading New Testament and the People of God, The Dust off their Feet and Colossians Remixed.

Anna and I have made some serious progress in our renovation of our basement into a rental suite. And it looks like we are going to be finishing the basement floor this Friday! We are quite excited, especially as I sit here in what seems like a foot of dust because of the prep work.

Anna has left GiveMeaning as some of you know in order to try some other lines of work. And she is currently working with a friend of ours on a cool new website called Tint of Green, which is basically a website to help home owners “green” their home. She is also making our new home look quite cool, and on Thursday nights she is taking a class on the History of Furniture.

We are both on our way to the Bahamas at the end of October for our 5th year anniversary and I will be attended a conference while we are there. We are super excited for this trip, it will be the first intentional holiday for just Anna and I in a long time (most holidays are related to weddings and family), and I know come November a long of changes may be in order (although I am not sure what that really means at this point).

Anyway, that gives you a little update of our lives to this point. Feel free to drop us a line if you would like to catch up.

cheers

Thanks Bob.

My friend Jessie, who I met through my wife Anna when she worked for GiveMeaning is the free download in Canada on itunes for this month.

Congrats Jessie!

download here

via

Prices range from 88-99 cents and albums form 4.99 to 9.99. And they are DRM free so they can play anywhere.

pretty cool…i wonder when the amazon.ca version will be out?

link

Having listened online to Mark go off at a recent conference (thanks bob), i am following suit of Josh and Adam, motivated by Doug and letting Mark know that this wink is for you.

I’m thinking that there is somewhere in the Bible where it says that those with clever words will deceive the crowd…Mark is quite the entertainer, and that’s all i will say on that.

I would like to continue to celebrate the creativity and diversity of our crew at the open house and today I want to put a spotlight on Kristin Cato.

I have worked with Cato for a couple years now (as we have started this church), and have known her for almost 5 years. She has been a great team member, but one of her side gifts (which should be occupation I think sometimes) is photography. Her gifts in this are awesome and here is a picture from her photo blog.

Drop by her site and take a look, you won’t be disappointed.

ZZZZzzzzzzz

Originally uploaded by wanderermatt.

This is a sad post to share that our roommate, friend and participant at the open house is now on his way back to OK-city.

This wasn’t any of our choice, but when Bruce took a trip home to Oklahoma in order to attend a friends wedding, the Canadian authorities wouldn’t let Bruce back in the country because of suspicion of him working illegally which is ridiculous.

Many of us are going to miss Bruce for his friendship, the church will miss him for his service, and the community will miss him for his selfless volunteering.

We will miss you bro, so stay in touch and hopefully you can come and visit all of us in the near future.

This is one example of what I call living a resurrected life.

Good Nova Scotia boys…

via

This weekend our church had a retreat in White Rock where the main exercise was to discover our strengths and thus learn a little about ourselves…I guess a sort of personal development time.

Each of us took this online test and it determined 5 top strengths.

My strengths were Maximizer, Arranger, Achiever, Self-Assurance and Competition.

I think it ended up being a great idea, and was worth the risk. Most people seemed to get a lot out of it and were able to begin to see how these strengths shape and will shape their lives.

I am currently working through all the gifts, specifically mine so that I can have a better understanding of our people. It is amazing the depth of talent and gifts within the open house, now I just need to surround myself with restorative people to take my ideas and think up a plan, and get an activator around me to make it happen.

pretty cool…

via