My Updates for 2008-10-02
- Everyone who consideres themselves a MAN should read this: http://relit.org/porn_again_christian/. #
- Working on the website for the Evangelical Free Church of Yucca Valley #
New Mars Hill Church Content
Sex Sex Sex, that’s mostly what this post is about. Okay, I said it like that to rank higher on Google; but hey, it works. Honestly, the content of this post is sexual, so read at your own risk.
Mars Hill Church has been coming out with some great content lately, and I feel honored and blessed to be a part of a church that is doing so many powerful things for the advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the changing of many lives.
First, The Peasant Princess.
The Peasant Princess
This is the current series at all the Mars Hill campuses. The main content and goal of this series is how to honor Jesus sexually, both in and out of marriage. How can married couples honor Jesus and experience all the blessings of marriage; and how singles should navigate this sexually-charged world to stay holy and pure until they are blessed with a spouse. The series is chalk-full of practical and Godly advice for everyone. Go to Mars Hill Church’s website or the Peasant Princess site for video, audio, etc.
Porn Again Christian
The second topic that Mark Driscoll is focusing on is the issue or pornography and masturbation for guys. I know that this is a sensitive subject, but the reason it’s like that is because it’s a serious problem. Thankfully, Pastor Mark has the courage to get up out of the trench and take a stand for sexual purity. He’s probably going to take some shots for writing and publishing this content, and I’m willing to take a couple of shots myself in order to help him get the word out.
The content is a free online book that will be released chapter-by-chapter over the next couple months. I highly recommend that everyone that considers themselves a man of God should read this.
http://relit.org/porn_again_christian/
Finally, Pastor Mark and Dr. Gerry Bershears have a new book out, called Death By Love. This book corresponds to the Christ of the Cross series preached by Pastor Mark a couple years ago. The sermons themselves are very compelling, and the audio is available on Mars Hill Church’s Media page, AVAILABLE HERE. Below is a video that they made to go along with the release of the book:
Alright, I gave you guys everything, links to all the content, and videos to watch. That means there’s no reason not to check all of this stuff out. I am honored to be able to help spread the word. They (we) are doing HUGE things for the kingdom of Christ, and I hope and pray that I won’t even have the time to write about all the awesome stuff that’s going on, because there’s too much of it.
Cheers, Matthew.
Californication Part Two
Last Monday Marcus and his family picked me up from Beverly Hills. His wonderful family came along so they could come to the beach with us. We ended up at Santa Monica, right next to the pier. The beach, of course, was glorious and good :D. It was great to relax in such a beautiful place with wonderful friends. It was fun having Marcus’ kids there; trowing them in the ocean, burying them in the sand, which pretty much made be forget all the stresses back home, and allowed me to just be a little kid again for awhile.
But all good things are short-lived, cause we had to hit the road to beat the notorious L.A. traffic. Yucca Valley is about 2 hours east of Los Angeles, near Palm Springs. We arrived just in time to watch the Heroes Premiere. I’ve never seen Heroes before, and it was actually a really impressive show. It doesn’t rank anywhere near LOST or 24, but it’s fantastic in it’s own right.
So that week was filled with much relaxation. We did a lot of brainstorming regarding the website I’m going to be creating for them (www.efcyv.org). That link is to the temporary blog that I set up as a holding site while the main page is being created. The designs on there are old news also, since we went through a re-organization from the ground up, in order to be most effective in our approach. There will be more info on that project both on the temp site, as well as here.
We went to see two movies while I was there, both of which had opposite reactions from both Marcus and I. First, we went to see Tropic Thunder. This movie was by far one of the biggest disappointments that I’ve ever experienced in regards to movies. Both Marcus and I completely agree that the movie in no way lived up to the hype. The potential was great, and the theme was ripe for some seriously funny content. But the movie was just far too crass. There were so many raunchy jokes, that the overall movie just wasn’t funny. I’m totally for pushing the envelope in terms of content, but this was just pointless. There was no context for the lewd comedy, which made it worthless and unnecessary. The movie would have been mush funnier if the jokes were cleaner and fit within the storyline.
The other movie we saw was Iron Man. By contrast, this was one of the best movies that I’ve seen in a long time. Dare I saw that it ranks right up there with The Dark Knight. This movie proves what I said about Tropic Thunder, that you don’t need nasty jokes in order to made a really good movie. The action was high, the personalities were great, and the story was noble. It all came together into an incredibly fantastic movie.
On Friday Marcus and I headed back to Culver City to meet Becky and Greg for dinner. Traffic on the 10 was pretty heavy so we got off in downtown L.A. to wind our way around to Beverly Hills. We stopped at Petersen Automotive Museum because of a rumor that they still have one of the three Gold DeLoreans.
One of three gold DeLoreans
I’ve been going to Petersen every chance I got for the past 3 years trying to see it, but it has been elusive; locked away in their ‘car vault’. But this time, the receptionist told me that it was sold at an auction. This leaves only one question for me: WHERE?! I have done some research, but so far haven’t been able to discover the whereabouts of this car. I have yet to see a gold DeLorean in person.
After that disappointment we headed over to Hollywood to check things out. Marcus hasn’t been there since he was a young kid, so we walked around there for awhile before we headed out to meet Becky and Greg. We all went to a really cool restaurant in Culver City; the Rush Street Grill.
Great times with great people. I will always be thankful for the conversations, meals, and time spend with some of my favorite people on earth.
But now I’m back, and there is much work to be done. Currently my hands are in 3-4 cookie jars, and I’m trying to pound through as much work as I physically can. I’ll give out updates as things get accomplished, but as of right now, I need to get back to work and get my hands dirty in some code.
Cheers, Matthew.
Californication Part One
On Thursday, September 18th, I had only one thought running through my head. There was only one goal I had; to make it through the day. That was because I was headed to L.A. for a vacation the next day. It was a much needed breather, and I feel blessed to have been able to go on the trip.
I arrived Friday morning; picked up by my good friend Veronica. She’s been one of the few true friends that I have, so if you’re reading this, V, you’re the best! We headed out through Malibu up to Thousand Oaks to meet up with Micah for lunch. Micah is also one of the few people I wanted to see while I was down there, which was a blessing as well. We grabbed lunch at In-N-Out before I had to get back to see Becky. So Veronica dropped me off in Beverly Hills and I hung out till my wonderful sister got off work.
From there it was straight to the Dodger game. Greg got some legit seats from work, so we met my good friend Mike (www.mikieskicks.com) at the stadium. It was a great game, and I forgot how good Dodger Dogs are! Going there made me realize how pathetic Mariner’s fans are. Going to Safeco is awesome, but it feels like everyone is on a corporate dinner-date. At Dodger Stadium, the whole place was electric. There was actual excitement; amazing.
Dodger Game on 9/18
Great first day! On Saturday Greg and I hit the tennis courts in the morning while Becky was teaching. After that it was Paco’s for lunch! Paco’s is the best Mexican food on the planet, second to none.
PACOS!
That night we went to see Burn After Reading. The movie just wasn’t that funny. Brad Pitt’s character was hilarious, but other than that, there was just not much to it.
Sunday was fantastic. We went shopping for the first half of the day, and then met up with my friend Eddie that night in Santa Monica. We had one of our famous Chill Sessions at Barney’s Beanery on the promenade. It was great to catch up with sucha close friend.
It was a jam-packed first few days, and it was awesome to see so many good friends. There’s still so much more that happened the following week, but I’ll save that for part 2: Yucca Valley.
Cheers, Matthew.
Scripture Visualizations
Visual Representation of all the cross references in the Bible.
I thought this was worth posting, it’s a visual representation of all the cross references found in scripture. Basically, the bar graph on the bottom is each chapter of the bible and the length of the bar corresponds to the length of the chapter. The lines are colored depending on how far the cross references reach through scripture.
For a more detailed description, visit the site I found it on: http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/bibleviz/.
Next post (hopefully later today) I will write about my California trip. I arrived home last night, so I am still getting things sorted out.
Cheers, Matthew.
My Updates for 2008-09-18
- Working on the new MIKIE site… #
My Updates for 2008-09-17
- L.A. in 2 days!! #
