Kevin Presseault

I'm heading off to school now for my course on Pastoral Leadership Foundations at Heritage Seminary. Today's lecture is on blogging and technology!  Should be right up my alley :-)  We were asked to bring our laptops to class so I may be doing some live blogging from class later...

During my vacation I brought the trade paper back edition of X-Men: Messiah CompleX to read with me by the pool on the ship. THIS BOOK IS AWESOME! X-Men hasn't always been one of the comics that I've read on a regular basis.  I've kind of jumped in and out of it over the years... mainly because I just found the whole everywhere you turn is more and more mutants with increasingly stupid powers.  The book House of M was great for finally getting rid of the over crowded mutant population and really got me hooked on the last remaining mutants struggling for survival. Messiah CompleX deals with the first birth of a mutant since the events of House of M.  And everyone wants to get their hands on this baby in hopes of controlling the future of mutantkind . Everything about this book was great.  The story was just fantastic!  The only thing I would have like to see more of would be the two different alternate futures that were talked about... the story only covered one of them.  ...

If chapter 9 is one of favorites in the book IT by Craig Groeschel, then chapter 10 is DEFINITELY my favorite! This chapter speaks to me at such a profound level that it feels almost like breathing! This is just as natural to me as that... let me explain. This chapter focuses on the idea that churches that have it think much bigger then their local ministry within the walls of their building. In fact, they have such a focus on the bigger picture of God's Kingdom that they are willing to give away what they have in order to partner and help other churches. He puts it this way: A kingdom-minded ministry is one whose leaders care more about what God is doing everywhere then what God is doing in their own ministry. A kingdom-minded ministry is generous and eager to partner with others to get more done for the glory of God. It's very easy to be excited that a church in the next town or city is doing well... but do we really celebrate when the church up the road is reaching more peo...

The last few days I've really been hit in the head with a very simple little verse that pretty much every regular church attendee knows by heart. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. - 1 Corinthians 11:1 (TNIV) Two reasons why that's hitting me... first... am I that example??? When people see me do they see an overly passionate annoying French Canadian or do they see Jesus? Do they see someone who once he gets more church experience he'll calm down and just do church the way everyone wants it, or do they see Jesus in me who is not content with religious tradition at the expense of the lost and the broken and the hurting? Or do they see just a nice guy who's good for a few laughs or do they see Jesus laughing and loving through me? As a leader in the church are they following my programs or are they following Jesus trying to do his work in this world? It's not about creating a following... that's for sure! But it is about living a life that ...

Chapter nine of the book IT by Craig Groeschel is by far one of my favorites. That chapter really hits it out of the park and makes the book! But it's also a very hard reality chapter to face... our attitudes towards people outside our church. I can barely read this chapter without stress, worry, frustration, anger, and a dozen other emotions as I think on how is the North American church continuing the mission of Jesus. One chapter in particular I want to put on a plaque on my wall: "If your ministry has become focused on the already-convinced, I'll bet that your ministry doesn't have it . You're not likely seeing many, if any, conversions. Baptisms are few and far between. Membership classes are tiny. You're not experiencing great works of the Spirit of God. New people aren't coming and staying. Long time members aren't growing." OUCH! I've only been in ministry for two years, but I can clearly see how it's SOOOO easy to be con...

Yup... I'm a tad behind... what else is new :-) Just going over some of my notes from Day 2 of The Sticks. Man oh man, there was some great stuff shared that day! Here's just a few of the big ideas that hit me. We don't make hard choices sometimes because of the fear of hurting people... Can someone who is not a Christian volunteer in our church? Is it easy for someone to start serving in our church? Rural churches are in bondage of religion... and need the freedom that comes from the true gospel. The most difficult decisions in small town churches: church structure, protecting your family, dedicating yourself to a red hot marriage, and be willing to be hated. An important reminder: "ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE WITH GOD" We pastors need to be able to say "Follow me as I follow Christ". It's about being me... and not trying to imitate other pastors or leaders. The church you are leading will take on your personality. The congregation will not do what we ...

The guys from New Hope put together this cool video recap of The Sticks conference. Check it out... and tell me how many staff from Woodside can you find in these pictures :-) the sticks | recap from thesticks.tv on Vimeo .

Today was just awesome!  I'm down in Ohio with the entire staff of our church for The Sticks, a conference for pastors and leaders who are ministering in small and medium size towns.  So far I'm just loving this!   I have a ton of things that I would love to blog about this conference... but I think the jet lag from last week's vacation is catching up on me :-)  So here are a few very quick highlights. The worship music was AWESOME!  I'm definitely a loud music kind of guy at this team just rocked!  Loved it. Mark Batterson was excellent!  His talk really set the stage for the day. Charles Hill was great.  I LOVED his points on being afraid of people and stepping ahead of God and how those two things can cripple our ministry. I was a tad disappointed with the workshop sessions... I was hoping the guys up at front would be more of mediators and get people into the conversation... Instead it's more of a Q&A and they do most of the talking... maybe that was the ori...

So Danielle and I are back from our Mediterranean cruise and readjusting to real life :) We had such a fantastic week! This trip was definitely a wonderful experience. We try to journal some of our highlights from the trip... here is just a quick brain dump of some of my personal thoughts about the trip. In the next few weeks I hope to blog a few more details about some great experiences and people that we met. Here's the quick list. I TOTALLY love my wife! She is such a great lady and I just loved spending time just the two of us. With little kids and a crazy ministry life we don't get to spend that one one one time like we used to. This trip was a great time to just connect with one another and served as a great reminder on the importance of making time together a priority in our marriage. I definitely need to get back to the south of France! I loved it there. It was just so beautiful. We had a great time there and would really love to see more of it. I'm offic...

Just got home a couple of hours ago... played with the kids... and now it's off to bed. It's now 3am in Barcelona and we're still on that clock. Hopefully a good night sleep will readjust everything. Our trip was AWESOME! Pictures and blog updates coming once we unpack and get settled.