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Showing posts from 2006

California Here I Come!

I just finished booking a trip to Lake Forest, California! Lake Forest is the home of Saddleback Church where Rick Warren is the Senior Pastor. Warren is also the author of several books, including the best seller The Purpose Driven Life . On February 20th to the 22nd, Saddleback is hosting the Purpose Driven Small Groups Conference . Being the pastor who is responsible for the small group ministry, and the fact that our church uses a lot of the Saddleback material in our ministries, this was a natural fit for me to head off for this conference. It's a bit of a drag that I'll be going alone but hopefully I learn of others who are going as well and be able to hook up there. Hmmm... I wonder how I can get the pastor community to be as big and fun as the Lotus Notes one... So this is great! Back to having a conference in the middle of winter AND this one is also very close to Disneyland. So it should feel very similar to Lotusphere but without the bloggers and the late night part

Going to Feel This in the Morning...

This afternoon I went and played squash. I used to play quite a lot in College but I haven't been on a court in at least 12 years. Needless to say, I was pretty rusty. During my sermon last week I made reference to the importance of walking along side someone to help you grow spiritually and used an example of going to the gym. Working out and exercising is so much easier when you have someone to go with. I then mentioned that the reason I don't have a six-pack of abs is because I'm lazy and don't have someone dragging me to the gym :) Well... one of the congregation members called me on this one and invited me to play squash. He's a pilot with Air Canada. His schedule is not a regular 9-to-5-weekends-off life so he's always looking for other to play with. Guest what? A pastor isn't a 9-to-5-weekend-off profession either I said I'd love to go. I had a real blast! I had forgotten how much fun playing squash is. Sure, he probably was going easy o

The Proud Montrealer

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Yes I know... I don't like hockey. So what's with me in a Montreal Canadians shirt? Well, you'll have to come out to our Christmas Eve service to find out :) The services will be at 5:15pm and 7:00pm at Woodside Bible Fellowship, 200 Barnswallow Drive, Elmira, Ontario. Hope to see you then.

Sermon Link Available

We had some technical difficulties this past week which slowed down the posting of the sermons online. It's all fixed now. Feel free to check out my last sermon at this link . Let me know what you think.

Accepted!

Today I received my acceptance letter for Heritage Theological Seminary . I'll be starting there in January. Registration is on the 5th . I applied for their Diploma of Pastoral Studies & Leadership. Doing this part time means I should complete the program in about 7 years. Originally, I was only planning on starting school next September. I had thought that it would be best to give myself the time to get used to the new role here at the church and to get better settled into life in Elmira. After thinking more about this I decided I would be a lot smarter to get the schooling as a regular part of my life earlier rather then later. This will make it a part of my regular routine much sooner since I don't really have a regular routine yet :) I'm really looking forward to starting this program.

My First Sermon Here

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Yesterday I gave my first sermon here at Woodside. I have to admit that I was a tad more nervous then normal. I'm usually quite comfortable with speaking in public. I was having some head games going on in my skull since this would be the first time preaching as a pastor and not just as a volunteer. Lots of prayer, quiet time and a wonderful, quiet date-night with my wife Saturday worked out all the nerves. I'm pretty upfront with the fact that I've never considered myself to be a teaching teacher... I'm not the guy that you bring in for deep expository preaching. That's just not my style. I believe that my gifting is in lifting up and encouraging people. So my sermons reflect that. I want people to leave one of my sermons with some simple take aways that they can hopefully incorporate into their lives as they continue to grow in a meaningful relationship with God and with each other. The audio version should be online shortly. Once it is I'll add a link here. F

Never Had a Sermon Finished on Thursday Before

This week I'm starting a new schedule here at the church. I'm now taking Fridays off. Sounds like nice executive hours... but now that I work at a church Sunday is a work day :) In order to get some semblance of a weekend I either wanted Monday or Friday off. Monday isn't working anymore since I just started up a new Men's Bible Study last week. The good thing of taking off Friday is it has forced me to finish all the prep work for my sermon before I start my "weekend". So instead of stressing over it right up to the last minute it's done 2 days early. Sweet. Now, here's hoping that I won't get the urge to rewrite it on Saturday night :) For anyone interested you can check out my notes here . I'll have the audio link by Tuesday.

A Different Pace of Life

With two months under my belt in this new life outside the computer biz I'm still adjusting to the completely different pace this brings. Losing my 1.5 hour commute to work each way has been awesome! And living 45 seconds from work is a big plus as well! Now, the alarm goes off at the time that I used to be standing outside freezing at the bus stop. Breakfast each morning with the family is wonderful... it did take a bit of getting used to at first. For years, I was always all alone in the mornings. It was quiet with everyone else still in bed. Now it's fast and furious as we get Cameron off to school and prepare Samantha for preschool. Being home for lunch is another great blessing. I'm already seeing the effects that less McDonald's and fast food at lunch is having on my waist line. Some parts of my brain are still wired with a business mentality. Last week I went for dinner with Pastor Brian Bartlett from Grandview Baptist Church . Brian is a super guy and I really e

Google Calendar

I've just recently started playing around with Google Calendar. There's a link under my profile on the right if you're interested in checking out my schedule. I was looking at this as a possibility of getting some kind of shared calendar here at the church for all the staff. We are using Outlook for our mail but since we're not on an Exchange server we're unable to do any type of sharing or booking appointments. There was a free Internet service that used to do this but that's no longer available. I'm reading through Microsoft's Knowledge Base (I never did find this easy to do!) and came across one that may help so maybe I'll give this a try this afternoon... If only we had a Domino server here... hmmm.... that's not a bad idea... I wonder if IBM gives out free licenses to churches... :)

Pumpkin Art

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Last year was my first attempt at carving a more interesting design in our pumpkin for Halloween. Since I enjoyed it so much I figured that this year I would try two! Both Cameron and Samantha helped me in picking the design. I thought the Tigger one turned out great. Next year I think I'm going to get very brave and pick up some carving tools and really go crazy with this.

Free Hugs

I definitely need to work this into a sermon on the importance of loving those around us!

I Hate It When This Happens...

Reading the news this morning I was quite bummed out learning about the accusations of Rev. Ted Haggard . He is the president of the U.S. National Association of Evangelicals and the Senior Pastor of the 14,000 member New Life Church. I really hope all the allegations are false... Thoughts and prayers going out to him, his family, and his church. I hope they can pull through this... This does really enforce to me the importance of accountability in our lives. I always worried about the leaders of our churches... as they lead and invest in the lives of others, I wonder who is walking with them and investing into their lives? Whether your the pastor of a church of 50 or 50,000 it's so important to find those people that God brings into your life in order to keep you real! It's always a major victory if Satan can take a leader like that down. And that just sucks...

Geeking Out Tonight

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It's been a long long time coming. I'm heading out to Phoenix Hobbies tonight for a fun filled evening of playing some Warhammer! With the move I haven't played a game in months. I was very happy to find this hobby store about 25 minutes from home so I can continue my gaming and painting hobby. Thanks to the Montreal Games Workshop store for letting me know about these guys! So the miniatures are unpacked and dusted off now and I'm ready for some gaming action! Since I sold two of my armies on EBay before moving that leaves me just my Dark Elves to play tonight. I haven't used this army in about 2 years so I'm sure to lose incredibly bad tonight but it will be fun anyways!

A month already!

Hard to believe it... September 20 th was the day we packed up the car and left Montreal, Quebec for Elmira, Ontario! We've been here for a month now. Amazing! Man, does time ever fly by fast! There is still some unpacking to do. The storage areas and garage are in dire need of some organizing. But it is coming along nicely and really starting to feel like home. I'll feel much better once all my Warhammer miniatures are out of boxes and all my power tools are put away nicely :-) Last week I was hit with a bit of homesickness... missing friends, colleagues and just the familiarity of Montreal. Thankfully, by yesterday that's been fading. Thank God for people praying for me in both provinces :-) The position at Woodside is going great. I've been meeting all the different small groups and ministry leaders. This has been a great way for me to get a feel for the church here. It's also been a really nice way for me to get to know more of the people here in the con

Here's Here I'm Working

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For those of you who have been asking, here is a shot of the church where I'm now working. Luckily it stopped snowing long enough for me to take this picture!

Sermon Podcasts

Since it only took about five minutes to set up I got our church's sermons up and running as a podcast in iTunes (still playing with some technology... I know... I just can't help it.) You can either go to the iTunes link here or else go use the FeedBurner link to subscribe via your RSS reader.

Never Had My Name on a Door Before

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Name Tag Originally uploaded by DominoPreacher . This photo is to confirm that, yes, I really did become a pastor and didn't leave my job to go and work for IBM :-) The last two weeks have been great. Everyone here at Woodside Bible Fellowship have been just wonderful welcoming me and my family to the church and the neighborhood. We're so thrilled to be here. The position is going very well. I'm really enjoying it and it's so great to see God working through so many really cool ministries here. I'm still in learning mode trying to absorb everything. Hopefully I'll get a more regular schedule set up in the next few weeks as I meet more of the ministry leaders and volenteers.

Big Day Tomorrow

Tomorrow is my first day at as the new Associate Pastor at Woodside Bible Fellowship . It's going to be a big day so I really need to get a decent night sleep. We've been up late a most nights organizing and unpacking. Today we did a great job of folding up all the boxes from the move... but man oh man am I ever tired. I'll try to post tomorrow on how the day went.

I'm Back!

Well the move is done and we're into unpacking like crazy. I'll post more details soon on how great the move was but I thought I'd get this link to my Flickr group up here so everyone can get a look at the new place. Pictures from the move to Elmira

Shutting Down Till Next Week

I'm just about to start packing up my computer... so don't expect any blog entries or emails from me in the next few days. Hopefully I'll be back up and running by next Tuesday. Then I'll a bunch of new pictures and details of the move. The computer career is finished. The house is sold. The check has cleared. The movers arrive in the morning. The new house is purchased on Friday. Then a week after that I'm an Associate Pastor. HOW VERY COOL IS THAT?! God is REALLY great! This journey He has put us on has been the biggest adventure of my life. I wouldn't have changed a thing.

SOLD!

The house is now officially sold. We came back from the notary about an hour ago. Everything is full steam ahead now. Tomorrow is our last day of packing. The movers arrive bright and early Thursday morning. Hopefully they'll be done in a couple of hours so we can do a nice clean up of the house and then hit the highway. The drive is about 7.5 hours to Waterloo where we'll be staying in a hotel for a couple of days. I'm really looking forward to hitting their jacuzzi and relaxing!

Farewell at Westview

This morning was our last Sunday at Westview Bible Church. Gotta admit... that was a lot harder then I thought it was going to be. Saying goodbye to so many friends and people who have been so important helping us grow in our faith was quite bitter sweet. Everyone was so thrilled for the new adventure but sad to see us leave. Our pastor and friend Steve MacDonald had the family come up during the services to pray for us. Luckily I had a pocket full of Kleenex :) Normally I'm quite comfortable in a crowd... this morning I could barely lift up my head and look at everyone in the eyes... In about a hour we'll be heading out to the farewell party that Westview is putting on for us. Definitely got to go and grab some more tissues .

Last Day

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So here I am... sitting at my desk, drinking my morning coffee and I'm about to start cleaning out all my belongings. Hard to believe that the day has finally come. My last day working in the IT industry. I've had such a fantastic ride and had the privilege to work with some wonderful people and great gadgets. I got my first job in 1992 as a COBOL programmer. Those were some pretty crazy applications we were writing in that language! They were the company who first introduced me to Lotus Notes. When the office in Houston was shut down I was trained to become the Notes developer for all North American. That was a great job! I sure racked up the air mile points for those 5 years! From there I moved into the consulting side by landing a job with a firm who is now actually a part of IBM (I left before that happened). I moved into my current company 7 years ago as a senior consultant. Here I've had the great privilege to head up the Lotus Notes Practice, the Mobile Solutions Pr

I'm Now a Published Writter

I've always wanted to spend more time writting. I would dream of seeing my name in print in such great magazines such as The View or Lotus Notes Advisor ... but there just never seemed to be enough hours in the day to get on that. So almost 8 years since I've wanted to do this type of writting I've finally had my first article published. Of course it has nothing to do with computers since the big career change goes into effect Friday. I was asked by my new church to write an article for The Elmira Independant, a weekly local newspaper in Elmira, Ontario. I jumped at the chance and the article came out in last week's issue. Not bad. I haven't even started the new job yet and I've already accomplished one of my personal goals in life! Here is the article. So… Do You Trust Me? By Kevin Presseault, Associate Pastor, Woodside Bible Fellowship I’ve never been very comfortable around water. As a young boy I would spend summers at my grandmother’s cottage. My cousins a

One Week Left

Next Friday, September 15th, is going to be my last day working in the computer industry. The following week is our big move to Elmira, Ontario where I'll be starting at Woodside Bible Fellowship. My start date there is October 2nd. The two weeks in between will give us the time to move and get unpacked. As I've been handing off more and more of my responsibilities here and training my replacement, the reality of this huge change is starting to really hit. I'm incredibly excited and looking forward to getting started as an associate pastor while at the same time looking back on the great career I had as a programmer/analyst/consultant. I'm so grateful for the opportunities that were presented to me, for the great people I've met over the past 15 years and for the awesome teams I've worked with, and the great clients who have provided some very fun and challenging work. I'm sure the next 15 years are going to be just as rewarding!

Superman Returns: The Novel

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Last week I finished reading the novel Superman Returns by Marv Wolfman. I've always read the novels of my favorite movies. I find sometimes this really gives an interesting addition to the film. There were some great stuff added to the novel which didn't appear in the film. This could be considered spoiler material if you still haven't seen the film and don't want to know anything. If this is the case then stop reading now. By far the most interesting different between the novel and movie is Superman's trip to the planet Krypton. This was definitely the biggest disappointment of the movie for me. I was really looking forward to seeing how today's modern technology would be improving on the design of Krypton we were introduced to in 1978. The book did two great things with this part of the story. The first was simply the description of Krypton's history and architecture. The second was Superman's near fatal escape from the planet of his birth. A scene wi

The Journey - Next Step Nearing Completion

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As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm in the process of leaving the IT industry and heading out into the world of full time ministry as an associate pastor. This journey so far has been incredibly exciting, scary, humbling, and just a time to really learn to trust and put my faith completely in God even more. Back in July when all this was really taking shape, my wife and I decided to break this journey into three main steps. First, get the job. Second, sell the house. Then third, find a house. Step one was completed on July 31 when I officially received the offer for the position. For for the past 2 weeks we've been deep in step two - sell the house! Last night we received an offer. After a little bit of negociating we all came to an acceptable offer. This is just huge! The house market right now in Montreal is a little slow and was not really expected to pick up until mid-September. Having the house sell now in this market, for a fair price, and having the dates work out per

Hmmmm...

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Interesting... These are the types of pictures you find after you get your digital camera back from your five year old son! Not bad... He has a pretty good eye! Maybe we're looking at the beginnings of a future Jimmy Olsen.

A Lot of Dead Blogs Out There...

I was doing some Google searching while drinking some green tee today. I'm trying to expand my blog reading. Seeing as how in 6 weeks I'll be out of the computer biz I figured I look around and try to find some interesting blogs in the area of church ministry, especially in discipleship, member integration, and pastoral care. I did find a few good ones. I'll add a link to them on the site here once I sort through them. But I was even more amazed to see the HUGE number of blogs that are started and just drop off the face of cyberspace. Too bad. Some of them really looked like they had awesome potential.

Great Things About our House

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One of the things I really love about our house is being so closed to the river. It just gives such a country feel to everything even though we live in the city. It has been great to sit out on the porch and be able to see the water through the trees. Some mornings we'd just sit outside and look at the water and just praise God for just how awesome and wonderful His creation is. It has been great to be able to put my kayak on my shoulder and walk to the end of the street and jump in and go. I haven't been taking advantage of that nearly enough the past month... Gotta get more trips in there fast! And last weekend we found another great thing about it... a new family of ducklings have moved into the neighborhood. The kids and I had such a great time feeding them. Those little ducks had zero fear and were coming right up to us and eating out of our hands! Very cool! I'll definitely miss all these things when we move.

Big News!

This past couple of months have been really exciting in our house. We've been making some big plans and we can finally share it. After spending much time praying and discussing this I have decided to leave the computer industry and go into full time Christian ministry. After almost 15 years in the biz this decision was both incredibly exciting and incredibly scary. Luckily we know we're in good hands to make all this happen! I have been going through the interview process with a church since the end of May and recently that was completed and the job was offered. And we accepted it. I've accepted the position of Associate Pastor. The start date will depend on how fast we can sell our house so we can hit the 401 and get settled outside of Waterloo Ontario where the church is located. Leaving friends and colleagues is never easy. I've been in Montreal since I was 17 years old and made many life long friends here. I'm very grateful for the role that each of you

My Jesus

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I've heard this song by Todd Agnew entitled "My Jesus" from time to time on the radio but never really got the chance to sit down and listen to the lyrics. I was hoping to get the single from iTunes but it's not available in the Canadian store. I did find that Todd Agnew is on MySpace.com and you can actually listen to the entire song from that site. VERY COOL SONG! I'll definitely be picking up that album. If you want to sample some of his songs, simply click the image to head over to his MySpace site.

More Fall the Necromancer Images

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Here's my newest addition to my Lord of the Rings miniatures: The Castellans of Dol Guldur. These minis are fantastic! I'll definitely be getting more of them.

Fall of the Necromancer Image

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As mentioned in my last podcast, here are the first minis I have painted in the new Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Games supplement. I hope to have completed more this weekend.

Episode 1: The Necromancer and the Bronze Snake

In this introductory podcast I discuss Warhammer, The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game and the Infinite Crisis comic series. I also mention the theme of my next sermon on June 4th. Episode 1 I would love any feedback you may have on this podcast. Please fee free to email me your comments.