Encounter Podcast
Monday, October 31, 2005
Okay, I think this is totally cool. Not because it's a recording of me speaking, but because I'm a computer nerd and I just think things like this are cool. I spent a good portion of Saturday afternoon figuring out this whole podcast phenomenon. I've known what podcasts are, and even have subscribed to a few good ones, but I didn't know how to publish my own. Well, Saturday I finally made myself sit down and learn something new. And I'm here to announce that CGEN now has a live podcast feed ...
feeds.feedburner.com/cgenencounterpodcast
What does this mean? Well if you use iTunes (free download), you never have to bother to go download the weekly Encounter message. It'll automatically download it for you and stick it on your iPod. I think thats so cool.
Here's a little tutorial to get you started.
1. Launch iTunes.
2. Click the Advanced menu and navigate to Subscribe to Podcast...
3. Paste in the link I provided into the box.
4. You're done.
It's that easy. Have fun.
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/31/2005 03:44:00 PM,
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Encounter 10 26 05 / Recap
Friday, October 28, 2005
Hola, Last night was great. We had a lot of people out, but still had a great group. Justin did a really great job leading worship. I think that was his first time leading worship at all. Pretty amazing stuff. The Photo Booth wasn't as big of a hit as I thought it would be. I guess I underestimated the girl's mortal fear of having their faces distorted a million different ways. I'll set it up again next week though. We'll see what we can do to incorporate it somehow into what's going down. I'll try and get some photos that were taken Wednesday up tomorrow sometime. I know I promised that this week we'd finish off of purity and move on to raising the bar in something else, but as I got more into preparing the message I realized that I needed two weeks to cover relationships. I broke it down into two categories. Week 1 (last night), was What We Do in Relationships. And I used our hands to represent that. Next week will be What We Give in Relationships and thats our hearts. I'm using lots of images of hands and hearts to illustrate what I'm talking about. So in addition to my message notes and audio, I've created a web gallery with the slides from the message that you can following along with, check out, or whatever. Alright folks. Thats it for me tonight. Have a great Friday and a save weekend. Oh, and Happy Birthday Heather! Total Attendance: 71 -- Last week we had a bunch of college students show up, some of which weren't back this week. So while our total attendance was down, we actually had more kids under 18 than the previous week. A good thing. + Link to message notes + Link to message audio + Link to presentation slides
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/28/2005 12:59:00 AM,
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Tonight At Encounter
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Hey everyone, hope you're all doing well. I just wanted to give everyone a heads up about tomorrow night. We're going to have a new face leading worship this week. While in no way is he new to CGEN, Justin Engler (from Abandon) hasn't -- as far as I can remember, which is pretty far -- ever led worship for us. So, this will be something new for him, and something new for us. New things all around. On top of that, I'm going to be finishing up the Sub-series on Purity with the Sub-sub topic of Relationships. If that sounds confusing ... don't worry, it is. Sorry. Our current multi-week series, as you might recall is "Raising the Bar" and the past few weeks has been raising your bar of Purity with a different focus each week. Sheesh. Next week we'll move off of Purity, I promise. Also, depending on how the day goes and if there's time, I'm gong to try my best to get some sort of Photo Booth setup going so we can all have tons of fun with that. If you recall that's the computer program that takes crazy pictures of your face. I'm excited about tomorrow night. It'll be new. It'll be fresh. We'll (hopefully) have some crazy fun with some insane pictures. But most important of all, we're going to have a great chance to meet with God. Hope to see you all.
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/26/2005 03:00:00 AM,
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Insanity: Round Two
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Well, they had the new iPods at the Apple store last night. You know, the one's with video. But they didn't have any out on display! And they wouldn't get them out for us either. They said we had to come back tomorrow. Sigh ...
Well towards the end of work today Michael said he wanted to go back out there today to pick up some presents for my dad's birthday (today). I said, sweet ... we can check out the new iPods. Anyway, the new iPods are cool and worth checking out, but this post isn't about new iPods ... it's about the additional pictures we took on the new iMac. So check them out and just try and not laugh real hard ...
+ Link to more distorto pics
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/22/2005 01:02:00 AM,
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Insanity at the Apple store
Friday, October 21, 2005
Once a week I get together w/ a couple of guys that God has really laid on my heart. It's like a small group, but really it's smaller than a small group. I call it my Nano Group. We always have a great time. Share a verse or two, have some prayer, but mostly just have a lot of fun and build relationships.
Well tonight I picked my group up and went to Bill Miller's for some great food. After we ate we had our talk time there. When we were done the guys weren't ready to go home so we headed on over to La Cantera (its a new fun mall). Well of course we found our way into the new Apple store. How could we not? Lo and behold they had two new iMacs on display ... you know, the one's w/ the built in iSight video camera.
Well, the new iMacs come w/ this cool little piece of software that only Apple could write (well really, it's so simple ... anyone could write it, but only Apple could would do it, and do it right). The software is called Photo Booth, and well, basically it's just like a Photo Booth you'd see at your amusement park or whatever. But imagine that you could have unlimited photos forever, and that you could get these crazy effects on there. Now you're getting the idea.
We stood there for about thirty minutes just taking picture after picture. We were all laughing so hard. I've never ever laughed that hard in all my life. It hurt. Then, Michael showed up randomly w/ his Nano Group and then it just got nuts! Seriously, this was one of the most fun nights I've ever had. I'll remember it for the rest of my life. The coolest thing is that the Apple store employees love it when you have fun on the computers. I mean, we were making a big ruckus in there. They would come by every now and again to see the crazy photos. And people in the store were coming by too. It was a great time.
So, if you're ever looking for something fun to do, I highly suggest you get a group of your friends together, head down to the nearest Apple store, find a new iMac and open Photo Booth. Hours upon hours of good wholesome fun. If they would of had one in stock I would probably be typing this on a brand new iMac G5. Oh well.
By the way. We're setting something like this up in the youth room next week. We'll stick some of the best photos up on the projector and web. It'll be a blast!
Oh, and you can check out some of the best photos that we took here. You gotta check them out!
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/21/2005 12:03:00 AM,
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Nesty Hair
Thursday, October 20, 2005
So last night I talked about purity in our thought lives. One illustration I brought was something my grandpa John Bell used to say. Imagine birds are like thoughts for a second. He would say "A bird can fly over your head, but you don't have to let it build a nest." A lot of times we can't control what pops into our heads or what we may see flipping the channels or browsing the web, but what we can control is whether or not we dwell on those things. If we allow those thoughts to fester in our mind they'll build a nest and it will gradually start to effect your life. Thats why it's so important that our thought lives remain pure.
In case you weren't there, here's the image I used to drive the point home. Yes that's me. And those have to be the smallest seagulls I've ever seen. Thanks Micah.
(click for full size)
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/20/2005 12:03:00 PM,
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Encounter 10 19 05 / Recap
Hey hey hey, Encounter was great tonight. I really had a blast. Things are definitely starting to click. I know it seems like I'm saying that every week, but each Wednesday that goes by has been better than the previous. And that's cool. And I'm excited. We had a great group of kids out tonight. A lot of new faces, and thats really what I'm so excited about. I feel like our core group of kids is really stepping it up and making an effort to go out during the week and BRING their friends back to Encounter. It's great. I'm not even sure how many first time guests we had tonight, but I would say it was at least 10. Continuing the Raising the Bar series, this weeks topic was purity in our thought lives. Something that even I need to be reminded of from time to time. Tonight was the 3rd week w/ me speaking from the stage rather than down on the floor and I'm definitely getting more comfortable with that. At first it was real weird, but now I think it's working better, especially since the place is really filling up. Here are my message notes from tonight. I've had the series topics laid out for about a month. So I've known for a while that tonight was going to be purity in your thought life. Today before I started really getting into nailing down my outline I started flipping through every little teenager's black book on sex and dating by Blaine Bartel. I found a section entitled 3 Ways To Guard Your Thought Life. I was like "dude". So three of my 4 points tonight were directly from this book. What a great resource. I highly recommend his little black book series to anyone in youth ministry. Also, something new we did this week was record the message! So if you want to hear it again, or weren't there this week, check it out. You can download it by clicking the link is at the bottom of this post. Just a little FYI for everyone ... We're going to be launching the new CGEN Café on November 9. Everyone thats working on this is really excited. We're going to have a lot of cool stuff. I don't want to give it all away just yet, but I'll be letting more out as it develops. So stay tuned on that ... One thing I'm hoping the new CGEN Café will do is get people there a bit earlier. When we started tonight we had about 15 kids there. I was starting to freak out a bit, wondering if anyone was coming this week. By the time we finished worship the place was almost packed out. I'm definitely going to be tweaking somethings out the next few weeks to try and solve this. Anyway, like I said, I had a really great time tonight. I really is an honor to be able to be doing this. I having the time of my life. I can't wait until next week. I hope to see you all again soon. It's going to be great. Total attendance: 85+ + Link to message notes + Link to message audio
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/20/2005 02:04:00 AM,
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There's only one ...
Sunday, October 16, 2005
... Walker Texas Ranger. Okay, so I'm watching this Walker Texas Ranger movie (in HD non the less) on CBS tonight. It's like watching a train wreck. It's so horrific, but you can't look away. The acting is SO bad. I mean, it's indescribable. The action scenes are a mix of Texas Karate Judo Matrix style. It's insane. And I'm not even talking about Norris yet. This guy is off the charts. Seriously, off the charts. I'm sure this thing is going to be in reruns and if you ever have the chance to tun in ... DO!
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/16/2005 10:23:00 PM,
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Vacation Video Clip
Friday, October 14, 2005
So I get asked a lot -- and I mean a lot -- what we do for two whole weeks in Kerville, TX on our annual Bell Family Holiday. And while I always try to explain it, I never seem to get the point across. I say things like, "You know, it's just a time to kick back and not really do anything. We're so busy though out the year. It's just a time for us to be us and invest in our family. Get a little closer, and have some fun." But no one really seems to get it 100%. So I came across this little video today from this past year. I think it communicates the idea of what a Bell Family Holiday is all about a lot better than I could ever do verbally. So, consider yourself informed.
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/14/2005 01:00:00 AM,
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Encounter 10 12 05 / Recap
Hey folks, Last night was great. I really enjoyed it. The Presence was defiantly in the place. It was a fasting day which gives me extra time because I don't have to eat lunch -- although staff meeting went pretty long planning for the 23rd, so that pretty much canceled that out. But it's all good. The CGEN staff is getting used to being where they need to be on time. We're getting into a good routine -- me included. I'm getting a better idea of where I need to be preparedness wise throughout a Wednesday. A lot less running around trying to cram things in. It's feelin' good. SIDENOTE: While the youth ministry is going along real well, I'm focusing on it a lot. And I feel my other three areas of responsibility (publishing, IT, and live sound / projection) are slacking a bit. I'm having a real hard time focusing on everything. I'm forgetting things like crazy, even though I'm trying to do a better job of taking notes in meetings, keeping up w/ my calendar, and do reminders and stuff like that. So I really don't know what to do right now, but we'll get it figured out. So yeah, tonight was great. Here are my notes from my message. I'm getting a bit more comfortable with that as well. All in all, I think everything CGEN related is really looking up. We're working on a lot of great things behind the scenes right now that you're not going to want to miss. I'll be making some announcements about that stuff here in the not so distant future. It's going to be great. See you guys next week! Students in attendance: 43 College age in attendance: 22 Parents in attendance: 2 Total attendance: 67 + Link to message notes
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/14/2005 12:44:00 AM,
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and here is another
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Seriously, you gotta check these out ... Pure insanity
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/11/2005 05:55:00 PM,
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Fun Video
Hey kiddos ... Ryan sent this my way today. I thought I'd share it with everyone. You really gotta check this one out ... Click for some bball insanity
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/11/2005 05:42:00 PM,
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Bill Gates Goes to College
Friday, October 07, 2005
So I came across this little gem of a movie today. The quality isn't that great, and it's a little hard to hear, but Napoleon fans & Microsoft haters should defiantly check this one out.
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/07/2005 09:33:00 AM,
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Dude, it's like 50º outside!!!!!
I'm flipping out. It's been sooooo hot outside lately. I think we were still in the 100's last week. I was starting to really get upset. I mean, this is OCTOBER!! So anyway, I'm really excited. I love cool weather. The cool weather always brings with it the best things. Monday Night Football, taking drives for no reason w/ your windows down, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and great times w/ the family. I don't know. Something just comes alive inside me when it's cooler outside. I was ready to get out the Christmas tree last night. Now if I just had a window in here to open ...
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/07/2005 09:12:00 AM,
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Encounter 10 5 05 / Recap
Thursday, October 06, 2005
So we had a really good turn out tonight. I've been meaning to assign someone to take a head count so we can keep track of such things, but I keep forgetting. Next week though. This week we had at least 8 new people who have never been to a CGEN event. You guys really took up the V.21 Challenge to BRING a friend. That's awesome! I'm really excited about what's going on in CGEN. One of the things I've been working real hard on is the atmosphere at Encounter. I think it's really starting to pay off. My prayer is that when you walk in on a Wednesday evening, you'll be able to just feel the love of God all over. I think we're getting there. I want to give props to the leadership team. They're playing a HUGE role in making that a reality. You guys are awesome! This week I started the Raising The Bar series. The first topic in the series is Purity. We'll be spending a few weeks on Purity. I didn't do a great job of time management speaking this week and only had time to hit the 1st point under Purity, Purity in our Motives (Hearts). Doing a recap of the previous weeks message is really eating into the time. However, I feel that repetition is so important if anything is going to really sink in. I think I just really need to work on time management in the future. Afterwards the atmosphere was real cool. Lot's of people hanging out having a good time. That's what it's really all about for me. Having a place where young people can come, hang out, have a good time, and leave knowing they're loved. And not too far off we're going to re-launch the CGEN café. We're working really hard behind the scenes to make this a top notch production. You won't want to miss it. And trust me when I say this ... it's gonna be HUGE.
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/06/2005 02:04:00 AM,
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New series at Encounter: Raising the Bar
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Just a little FYI: I'm starting a new series on Wednesday nights titled Raising the Bar. The theme of the series can pretty much be summed up by the statement "Being the best you can be. Doing the best you can do." Let's be honest, we all have areas in our lives where we're coming up short. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of who we are and who we're called to be. The bottom line is that God didn't send His Son to die on the cross, shed His blood and deliver us from a lifestyle of sin and bondage, so that we could be 2nd rate people who don't give Him our all. Now is the time to step it up. It's time to raise the bar! This week's topic: Purity. I hope to see you there ...
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/04/2005 11:42:00 PM,
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HUGE zit
So, for some reason my face decided to all fifteen years old. I've been getting this huge pimple all week. I can feel it coming in, but it's taking forever. I'm starting to think it's going to be one of those that never really develop all the way, but just get red and big ones. So we'll just have to see. Just thought I'd share that w/ everyone. Peace.
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/04/2005 11:07:00 PM,
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Bizaro
Saturday, October 01, 2005
So I'm house sitting for my grandmother while she's out of town at her 50th HS reunion. She's been gone almost 2 weeks and comes back Monday night. Well, she's got this cat that has to be let out at 5:30 a.m. No big deal, you just let it out and go back to bed. Well, today I wake up and I was having a hard time breathing. I didn't think much of it. I let the animals out and go home to get a shower, get dressed and go to work. Well after I got home it just kept getting worse and worse until I finally just had to lay down. I tried to go back to sleep, but had a real hard time with that. Which is totally weird. I eventually fell asleep. I woke up about 3 hrs later. I was still a little wheezy and short of breath all day. I guess it was an allergic reaction to the cat or an asthma attack or something. Who knows.
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 10/01/2005 02:21:00 AM,
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