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Matt's Blog rss feed http://www.chazownlife.com/ Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:35:27 GMT FeedCreator 1.8.0-dev (info@mypapit.net) Power http://www.chazownlife.com/Youth-Ministry/power.html Last weekend we were at Blizzard 2012. It was quite possibly the best Blizzard we had ever gone to. I had a great time connecting with the youth, the speaker was fantastic, the worship was fantastic, and we all had a good laugh over Zumba.

I wouldn't say I had one of those "climactic moments" that youth pastors often try to build into retreats to "help" youth a long their spiritual journey, but I God and I definitly had some good chats while on this retreat.

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:06:51 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Youth-Ministry/power.html Salty http://www.chazownlife.com/Life/salty.html Well this has been a pretty crazy week! We had avalanche, the winter Junior High Retret, the weekend before last, and we have Blizzard, the senior high retreat, coming up this weekend! I'm pretty pumped for Blizzard since Avalanche was so awesome.

The speaker at Avalanche had some pretty cool things to say. His name was Mike, and he was a really cool guy. His first talk was actually pretty deep. He was talking about putting things that hold us back from God behind us and moving on.

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]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:11:07 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Life/salty.html MNW 3 http://www.chazownlife.com/Monday-Night-Worship/mnw-3.html

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:14:54 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Monday-Night-Worship/mnw-3.html Reading the Bible http://www.chazownlife.com/Thoughts-on-Scripture/reading-the-bible.html 2011 was the first year I ever made a News Years resolution and kept it. I'm pretty bad at making resolutions, and often ended up deciding that my new years resolution was to not make any new year resolutions. In 2011 however, I decided I was going to read through the Bible, cover to cover. I had done it

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:07:23 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Thoughts-on-Scripture/reading-the-bible.html Monday Night Worship 2 http://www.chazownlife.com/Monday-Night-Worship/monday-night-worship-2.html

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:45:36 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Monday-Night-Worship/monday-night-worship-2.html Sick day http://www.chazownlife.com/Life/sick-day.html So I'm sick today. I might as well take the opportunity to blog. I keep coming up with things that I think I should blog about, but I've never written them down or done anything about it.

So what's going on in life these days. I haven;t actually been at the church office in over a week now. I worked from home over the holidays last week, and now I'm sick. It's been kind of nice, sort of like a working vacation.

I'm pretty excited for the new year of ministry. Stay Golden is getting better and better, I'm really excited about it's potential and Johnny, Shoolie's and Benson's

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]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:34:42 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Life/sick-day.html Monday Night worship http://www.chazownlife.com/Monday-Night-Worship/monday-night-worship.html ]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:09:25 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Monday-Night-Worship/monday-night-worship.html Monday Night worship http://www.chazownlife.com/Monday-Night-Worship/monday-night-worship.html ]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:09:25 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Monday-Night-Worship/monday-night-worship.html Early Christmas present! http://www.chazownlife.com/Life/early-christmas.html So it's December. The Christmas season is here which makes my life so busy! That's ok though, I'll just take things one step at a time!

I am excited for one thing: the Christmas season means winter! Now normally this wouldn't excite me, but this year I bought myself an early present; a snowboard!

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:41:40 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Life/early-christmas.html Monday Mornings http://www.chazownlife.com/Life/monday-mornings.html So it's Monday morning; I'm in at the church office. I'm working on collecting pictures from youth for all the events we did these past three months to hopefully update some of the albums on the site. I've also got a blog on Change Conference and Stay Golden that I could post, but this morning has been an eventful yet uneventful morning.

Yesterday was a bit of a complicated day. It was one of the worst Sundays I've had in a while, but it was also one of the best (I'm very bi-polar today...). Although it was a celebration for our churches 58th anniversary, I was in one of the worst moods I can remember, although I've probably had worse moods when I was 2. I won't get into why I was in such a bad mood, but I was.

But then last night I had some awesome friends over to play Settler's of Catan (and Jamie and I also watched a little football). It was an awesome night of games, Jamie and I were a team and we won! :).

Then this morning. Usually the church office is closed on Mondays, but that doesn't make it my day off. My day off is actually Thursdays. Because the office is closed sometimes I work from home on Mondays, but this Monday I decided to come to the church.

On my way I was thinking about what put me in a bad mood yesterday, and I was so sad, stressed and frustrated. I also haven't had the best prayer life this past while, which just makes things worse. When I got to the church, I just sat in my car for what I know was just a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Then, out of no where, I just started praying out loud. I don't really like praying outloud when I pray by myself, mostly because I just feel weird, but I just started praying outloud. Praying for the church, ministry, and my own personal life.

The weird part was, for the first time in a very long time, I felt like my prayer wasn't just a one way conversation. It wasn't just me begging God to intervene, or me telling God I'm sorry, but i felt God responding.

Now, what God said back I actually don't know (weird I know). I was consistently reminded of Eugene Cho at Change Conference talking about how todays media is consistently telling us that we "need this," or "that will make us better, richer, hotter." We are consistently being told we are not enough. Even in all of this though, in our deepest, darkest moments, where we just can't measure up, Jesus goes to the cross for us.

Now unlike in Eugene Cho's talk, I'm not someone struggling with an eating disorder, or someone struggling with self-harm, but more often than it should, my world sometimes feels like it is collapsing around me. The Scriptures are filled with lots and lots of promises of God, and perhaps the greatest one is that in these moments, Jesus goes to the cross for us.

I got a Bible Track at the mall last Thursday. It was asking me if I knew where I was going to go when I died (luckily I'm fairly confident that I know) and explained that I sin and that this seperates me from God, but Jesus bridges that chasm; the usual story.

However though, in my intense prayer time this morning, in my struggle with my relationship with God, I wasn't really thinking about where I am going to spend eternity. I had no concerns about what was going to happen when I died. That's the beauty of the Gospel though. I always talk about how the Book of Acts has such an "abrupt" ending. There is no closure, and many loose ends are left unsolved; I love this. I love it because the story isn't done yet. The story of the Gospel isn't just for when we die, or to ensure that we get to go to heaven instead of hell. The story of the Gospel is still alive, being lived out everyday.

This is why in our darkest moments. When our "religious leaders" are terrified of losing control, when the "Romans" are afraid of political unrest and social influence, or... when we are sitting in our car wondering where God is, Jesus goes to the cross for us. That's the Gospel.

I guess that is what God was trying to say to me in my car this morning.

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:23:31 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Life/monday-mornings.html Vacation http://www.chazownlife.com/Youth-Ministry/vacation.html So youth group is about to start, and I have stuff to do, but I'm distracted. These past few weeks I have been feeling awesome about youth ministry. I kind of dropped off the face of the earth when it came to AYN, but I'm back now at 100%, working out the budget for 2012, and planning the ministry for the fall.

I've decided I have figured what has given me all of my enthusiasm and encouragement: Vacation. It feels awkward writing a post about the importance of vacation when I'm a guy who worked 11 hours a day for 4 months straight without taking a single day off... yes for

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:46:06 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Youth-Ministry/vacation.html Update from Bathurst http://www.chazownlife.com/Bathurst-2011/update-from-bathurst.html Week 1 is almost over, and man has it been wild! The team is pretty tired as we have been busy here in Bathurst!

We have spent some time working in Sharon McMinn's Garden some more, painting the deck, and working at the volunteer centre. We also made sure we got some time to spend with Chaleur Generation, a multi-church youth partnership. We were able to go to the beach with them and have a riot playing volleyball. It was so much fun, and we were all so happy to have been there.

Along with all this work comes the preparations for VBS next week. Annie and Kimberly have been painting beautiful displays, Kristen has been making a welcome board,

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Sun, 24 Jul 2011 02:33:02 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Bathurst-2011/update-from-bathurst.html day 1 http://www.chazownlife.com/Bathurst-2011/day-1.html So it's our first full day in Bathurst!! After a very long drive, some very frustrating navigation through complicated french cities, we have safely made it to Bathurst, New Brunswick.

Even today, the entire crew is pretty tired from the drive. For those in Agincourt, you saw us last at Church on Sunday, and we drove from there to Quebec City. We stopped and gassed up our vans in Cornwall and went straight on to Montreal where we picked up Genesis.

Genesis is a fantastic girl, and has been an excellent addition to our team! She has connected well with all of us and we are so glad that she is joining us on our Bathurst adventure.

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:20:40 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Bathurst-2011/day-1.html 3 Days! http://www.chazownlife.com/Bathurst-2011/3-days.html In three days we will begin our adventure to Bathurst New Brunswick. God is moving huge, and excitment is building around the church as we make final preparations! I'm am so excited and proud of all the work our youth have done over the past few months.

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:13:33 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Bathurst-2011/3-days.html Living Intentionally for Eternity http://www.chazownlife.com/M4L/living-intentionally-for-eternity.html Expect great things from God, Attempt great things for God" - William Carry

I've spent the last couple days at Bernie Martin's house (the director of Missions For Life), and this is a theme that has come up frequently in our talks. It's made me miss Nicaragua so much! Tyndale has asked me to lead a mission team to Nicaragua, and Bernie "sometimes" has a few ideas about missions. As well as, my hope is that M4L is something my church can continue to slowly build a partnership with as we explore what God has in store for our youth ministry.

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Thu, 14 Jul 2011 01:05:53 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/M4L/living-intentionally-for-eternity.html CByouth and AYN http://www.chazownlife.com/Youth-Ministry/cbyouth-ayn.html Luke 10:1-20

This is the passage where Jesus sends out the seventy disciples (or 72 depending on whether your Bible is translated from the Septuigint or not). It is an awesome passage that I think has many lessons for us to learn about Jesus, missions and ministry, and about how we look at the Christian life.

I spent last week at Acadia Divinity College with the CByouth meetings. CByouth is a network of denominational youth directors from the 4 areas of Canadian Baptists, and I was able to attend representing CBOQ. We spent two days in meetings discussing the many different ways that we can partner together across the country to do youth ministry.

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Tue, 05 Jul 2011 03:52:41 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Youth-Ministry/cbyouth-ayn.html Faith Hope and Love http://www.chazownlife.com/Thoughts-on-Scripture/faith-hope-love.html 1 Corinthians 13 is a great chapter – it is poetic, meaningful, and insightful and… it is a passage that I believe is too often wasted on weddings. This is a blog that is adapted from the Valentines message at Bethel Mennonite Church

The apostle Paul never wrote this text for two people standing at the altar. However many people never think of this passage that way, it is too often categorized with the type of love that a Man should have for his wife (or vice versa). This passage isn't about this at all, it is about us; the church

1 Corinthians is one of Paul’s very early letters. It is written to the church in the city of Corinth – a church with big problems and not a lot of unity.

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Sat, 04 Jun 2011 20:27:22 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Thoughts-on-Scripture/faith-hope-love.html A Church on its Knees http://www.chazownlife.com/Thoughts-on-Scripture/church-knees.html Shane Claiborne writes in "The Irresistable Revolution," "I think the world would be willing to listen to a church on its knees."

I love the book "Irresistable Revolution," because Claiborne emphasises that we as a church, are not here for each other. The point of the church isn't to "separate the sheep from the goats" but is to be a community that lives out the power of the gospel, the Bride of Jesus, God's light into the world.

In this section he discusses Matthew 5:43-47. I have never read this passage so indepth before. I have read it a hundred times before, but this time I was actually amazed at what it said.

It gives the words that we are all so familiar with, where Jesus teaches not to just love our neighbours and hate our enemies, but he says "Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!"

But 46-47 is where Jesus really starts throwing bows. Jesus teaches that it is nothing extraordinary to love our friends, people who think, look and act just like us. Jesus says that even the tax-collectors and sinnerscan do that!

Loving those who are like us is just an ordinary human thing we do; it's natural for us to like people who believe what we believe. But Jesus never called us to be ordinary; we are to be extraordinary. Jesus wants us to love people who don;t think and look like us, even our enemies.

This is much easier said than done, and one thing I have been hearing from God lately is that it starts with prayer. Let's remember what Shane Claiborne wrote:

"I think the world would be willing to listen to a church on its knees"

Loving our enemies starts with us being on our knees in prayer.

Shane Claiborne writes in "The Irresistable Revolution," "I think the world would be willing to listen to a church on its knees."

I love the book "Irresistable Revolution," because Claiborne emphasises that we as a church, are not here for each other. The point of the church isn't to "separate the sheep from the goats" but is to be a community that lives out the power of the gospel, the Bride of Jesus, God's light into the world.

In this section he discusses Matthew 5:43-47. I have never read this passage so indepth before. I have read it a hundred times before, but this time I was actually amazed at what it said.

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Tue, 31 May 2011 01:34:24 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Thoughts-on-Scripture/church-knees.html Holy Spirit http://www.chazownlife.com/Thoughts-on-Scripture/holy-spirit.html So this might be a bit ranty, but I've been doing a lot of thinking. It seems very difficult to get things off the ground. Ministry is hard work and takes a lot of time. Motives, laziness, or just poor leadership often get in the way. All this is to say, I have had some thoughts about the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and wanted to rant about them.

You see, Acts 2 has the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and long story short, we hear some interesting preaching. This is a very important aspect of Holy Spirit. When we as Christians "testify", our words are the word of God. That is an awesome idea, and I love it.

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Wed, 11 May 2011 20:54:43 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Thoughts-on-Scripture/holy-spirit.html More than a nice idea http://www.chazownlife.com/Youth-Ministry/more-than.html So this might be a bit ranty, but I've been doing a lot of thinking. It seems very difficult to get things off the ground. Ministry is hard work and takes a lot of time. Motives, lazyness, or just poor leadership often get in the way. All this to say that I have had some thoughts about the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

You see, Acts 2 has the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentacost, and long story short, we hear some interesting preaching. This is a very important aspect of Holy Spirit. When we as Christians "testify", our words are the word of God. That is an awesome idea, and I love it.

]]> mksampson@gmail.com (Matt Sampson) Wed, 11 May 2011 20:51:49 GMT http://www.chazownlife.com/Youth-Ministry/more-than.html