I really got a kick out of this
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
I hope you do to.
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 11/23/2005 01:35:00 PM,
,
Encounter 11 16 05 / Recap
Thursday, November 17, 2005
So tonight was great. It felt so good to be back at church. I had been gone for an entire week. Amazing how time flies. I just love all of our kids and being around them is the most fun ever. I love Wednesdays!
On my health situation, I am feeling about 1,000% better, if thats even possible. Today was the first day I had no soreness in my throat at all and my neck is doing much, much better. Thanks to all who have been praying for me. I truly have been healed.
So tonight we had about 8-10 first time guests to CGEN. Good stuff. A lot of kids who have been coming to CGEN for a while went out and got their friends for the first time. Our BRING drive is really paying off. I'm sure the free iPod has something to do with it too.
The Café was a big hit tonight. Amanda Rodz is doing such a top notch job. It's great. Here are some pics of what the lounge area looks like after the re-model.
It's funny. I have gotten so many compliments on how good it looks, and even offers from people for me to come decorate their homes! But the funniest part is that I've never done an ounce of decorating in my life. I was praying to God that when I bought all this furniture, rugs, chairs and all the stuff that it just didn't come out looking like garbage. Haha, whatever works I guess. Amanda and Cassaundra helped me out a bunch too, so I can't take all the credit. But it's just something that I find amusing.
So in my message tonight I used my recent illness as an illustration and talked about How to be a "Stiff Necked" Christian. I used 1 Corinthians 15:58 as my main text (Steadfast / Unmovable = Stiff necked) . I brought 10 students on stage and spring the question on them "What do you believe?" Before we can be stiff necked, we need to know what we believe. If we don't, what are we going to be standing for? What are we going to be stiff necked about? I had a lot of fun with the students and their answers. I gave them 30 seconds to think and we played the "Think Music" from Jeopardy while they were coming up with their answers. Good times. Tonight is one of those nights I wish we had on video because, while the audio is great, it would just be that much greater seeing it live and in living color.
We had a total of 86 in the house tonight. A fine group of students thats for sure. I hope to see all of you next week!
+ Link to message notes
+ Link to message audio (.mp3 or podcast)
Technorati Tags: CGEN Café, Encounter, iPod
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 11/17/2005 01:16:00 AM,
,
So I ended up in the hospital ...
Monday, November 14, 2005
I said I was going to go to the doctor tonight, and I did. I went to a med. clinic. Waited forever. The doctor takes one look at me and says I have meningitis and that I needed to go to straight to the ER for a spinal tap. So anyway, I spent the evening in the hospital, naked, waiting around mostly. I don't get why as soon as you get to a hospital the first thing they have you do is take all your clothes off. It's so wild. All they ended up doing was taking blood (which really hurts by the way!) and doing some tests on that. I definitely could have left my clothes on! Anyway, I'm home now, no spinal tap, my neck is still pretty sore. The doctor at the hospital said that I wasn't showing any of the other symptoms of meningitis, headaches or vomiting, that I need to go right back for some more tests. Basically I'm just going to watch my neck real close and if I have any other problems go back in for some more tests. Thanks again for all your prayers.
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 11/14/2005 01:15:00 AM,
,
Pray for me
Sunday, November 13, 2005
I can't move my neck. I haven't been able to move my neck since Friday. Thursday it was really sore and stiff. But when I woke up Friday, it was worse, and if I move it just the slightest bit, I am in tons of pain. I'm going to the doctor in a little bit. I can't even drive. I went for 1/2 of the first service today, but thats about as much as I could stand being out of bed in the wild. So if you're wondering what I've been doing this weekend ... I have been laying in a bed with my iPod. Thats it. I don't know what I'm going to do come Wednesday if I'm not feeling significantly better. Pray for me and have a good week.
Technorati Tags: iPod, sick, neck
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 11/13/2005 05:50:00 PM,
,
Encounter 11 9 05 / Recap
Friday, November 11, 2005
Sorry for my scarcity of posts recently. I've just been out of the groove so to speak. Wednesday was great. We had a good group out, even though there was another event that pulled a good 30 or so of our core folks. This week we launched the new CGEN Café. We had a lot of people working behind the scenes on this to pull it off. Three people who worked extra hard and that deserve an extra pat on back are Amanda & Aaron Rodriguez and Cassaundra Fernandez. These folks really stepped it up a notch and got in there and got it done. If you missed it this last week, I encourage you to come and check it out this week. We open CGEN Café at 6:30. Just enough time for you to come get that frappuccino & cinnamon roll and say hello to all your friends before Encounter starts. We also re-decorated what I'm calling the "lounge". We spent a lot of time getting everything just right and top notch and I couldn't be happier with the results. I'll post some pics first thing next week. It's really looking cool in there. A great vibe. Another new thing I introduced this week is something we're calling "BRING drive + Free iPod". The person who brings the most guests between November 9 and December 14 will receive a free iPod nano of their choosing. We're really excited about this and can't wait to see who wins. The third new thing I introduced this week was our Christmas concert / bash that we're throwing on Thursday December 15. We're bringing in our good friends The Red Airplanes (web, myspace) to come and have some fun. We'll also have some other opening acts and we are presently in the works putting those together. We'll also be awarding the winner of the Bring Drive with his / her brand new iPod nano. Anyhoo, lots of new stuff going on at CGEN these days. I don't think I forgot anything. No message notes this time. Be safe and have a fun weekend.
+ Link to message audio (.mp3 or podcast)
Technorati Tags: CGEN Café, Encounter, iPod, The Red Airplanes
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 11/11/2005 11:15:00 PM,
,
I hate being sick + MUTE MATH pics
I've been sick all week. It started off Monday with a mild sore throat. Tuesday the sore throat had gotten noticeably worse. By Wednesday I couldn't swallow without intense pain. On top of that whatever this thing is had started to spread into my left ear. And it's only gotten worse Thursday and today. I haven't hardly eaten anything because every time I swallow it's like someone is sticking an ice pick in down my throat and into my left ear. I wanted to go to the doctor, but my mom left out of town and she had the insurance cards. Grr. On top of all of that I've got an incredible crick in my neck. I can't hardly move it without it telling me "No, don't do that." If I'm not feeling noticeably better tomorrow, I am going to seek professional help.
Despite my failing body, I still managed to get out to the MUTE MATH concert in Austin on Tuesday night. It was a great show. They totally rocked the house and made all the other bands look like complete jokes! MUTE MATH is amazing and if you ever have the chance to see them live, do whatever you have to do, because it is worth it.
As promised I've uploaded the pics from the show. Enjoy and stay healthy.
+ Link to gig pics
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 11/11/2005 10:41:00 PM,
,
I'm MUTE MATHin it tonight
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
So, I've decided to go ahead and go for it. Thats right. I'm heading up to Austin today round 4PM to catch the MUTE MATH show. My good buddy Michelle T. has hooked me up big time and gotten me on "the list", which means I get in free with maybe even a backstage pass! Who knows. I'll probably be posting some pictures later on tonight. I usually would be pretty excited, but the past few days I've had a really bad sore throat and today it's crept into my ears. So now I've got like this ear acheage going on. Hopefully some of it will clear up before the show. Another thing thats keeping me from getting really super totally excited is we're launching the new CGEN Café tomorrow night -- which is going to be totally rad by the way -- and I've got a bunch of furniture to put together and a foyer to decorate by tomorrow night. Aww well, we'll get it done. See you at MUTE MATH tonight and Encounter on Wednesday.
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 11/08/2005 11:43:00 AM,
,
To MUTE MATH or not to MUTE MATH?
Saturday, November 05, 2005
I don't know. MUTE MATH is coming this Tuesday to Austin. I had previously thought I wasn't going to go, but now I find that 1/2 the youth group will be there. So now I feel like I have a reason to go, other than just for me seeing a good show. I don't know ... what do you think?
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 11/05/2005 01:20:00 AM,
,
Encounter 11 2 05 / Recap
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Man, last night was awesome. We had 93+ students in the house and we just had a total blast. GOD is really doing some awesome things. We had a lot more people out on time tonight. Go figure! Maybe it's the time change. Whatever it was, it was cool. After last week, I decided to just fast every Wednesday. It makes a difference. A real difference. A tangible difference. There is something that happens when you say "GOD, I can't do it on my own. I've got nothing and I'm relying on you 100%." He honors that. He shows up. Yesterday was kind of a crazy day. I had planned to focus on my message all day and just really invest time into that to make it top notch, but with a long staff meeting taking a chunk of the morning, constant interruptions during the afternoon, and other different things (not youth related) that had to be set up or torn down before the service ... I found myself at 3:30 with my day gone, a 5:00 sound check quickly approaching, and a message untouched. What to do ... I sit down to write out some thoughts. I've been working out the general direction I wanted to go for the past week or so, so it was just time to get it on paper. I hear ... "Go pray." What? Are you serious? I've got to get this message together. I'll pray later at 6:30 the scheduled prayer time. "Go pray." Okay, okay. I decided to walk around the building and pray a bit. As soon as I got out there I felt like, and this will sound totally nutty, I needed to do a prayer walk around the building seven times. I was like, "Seriously, I've got to get this together for tonight. This is going to take some time. I haven't eaten anything all day! I'm going to pass out. And on top of that everyone is going to think I'm totally nuts when they see me pacing outside around the building." So I finish the 1st lap and think to myself "why not?" So I had a great time of prayer walking around the building, binding, loosing, building hedges - all that great stuff. It took a good 45 minutes. And it was well worth it. I got back into my office about 4:15 and everything just fell together nicely. Printed up my message notes at 4:59 and hit practice at 5:00. Everything just fell into place superbly. And it's all GOD. Worship was amazing. We're totally getting into GOD's presence every time. Kids are entering in. You can actually hear them singing. How amazing is that? We had a great time of prayer ministry at the conclusion of worship (something I'm praying will continue to grow). Moved onto our guest routine. Accept that there is nothing routine about it. We had at least 11 first time guests to CGEN this week. On top of all the returning guests from the past few weeks. It's really starting to fill up in there. Praise GOD! It's all Him. We bring all of our guests up front, hit the music, and the rest of the kids come up, walk through the line and introduce themselves. I absolutely love this time of the service. Actually, I think this is my favorite time of the week. I love walking through the line and shaking these peoples hands, many for the first time. It's great. After guests, we had a new fellow, Corey, play an amazing drum solo during the offering. Really blew me away. Did a great job. This was his 2nd week to CGEN. For the message this week I continued the Raising the Bar series. This week's topic: Purity in Relationships part 2 / Hearts (get the podcast). I had ten or so girls volunteer and line up on stage and I went down the line "dating" each one of them. Giving each one a piece of my heart along the way. Of course we had a killer presentation going to just drive the point home. You can check out the slides from the presentation here (they're just not as cool without the transitions). So I had fun with the ladies on stage. I really took a lot longer than I had originally planned, but it went well. I finished up my message and gave an opportunity for salvation. At least four people made first time commitments for Christ. It possibly could have been more, but those are the ones who came and told me afterwards. Three of those four were first time guests. I'm so excited for them! Anyway, I could write about this all day, but I've got to get the bulletin done for Sunday. Have a great night and a safe weekend! + Link to message notes + Link to message audio (.mp3 or podcast) + Link to presentation slides
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 11/03/2005 04:39:00 PM,
,
Encounter 11 2 05 Podcast
The podcast is up for this week's Encounter message. The audio quality isn't so great. We had some technical difficulties. So I apologize for that. You can subscribe in iTunes by clicking this link. Subscription is free. Or you can just download the .mp3 here. Enjoy.
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 11/03/2005 01:20:00 PM,
,
Encounter Podcast Update
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
The podcast has now been added to the iTunes directory. What does that mean? All you have to do to subscribe to the Encounter podcast is click this link. Or, if you're the kind of person who likes to do things manually, you can search for CGEN in the iTunes Music Store and then click the Subscribe icon when it finds the podcast. As of this writing, searching for CGEN only brings up our podcast.
posted by MATTHEW JOHN BELL @ 11/01/2005 05:58:00 PM,
,