Kevin Presseault

I was away for school last week and didn't get a chance to upload the conclusion to our A Place for Everyone series.

This week we kicked off recording our messages on to video.

Our church is in the process of going from audio sermon recordings to full video. I'm pretty pumped about this and looking forward to finding more ways that integrate technology to help people connect with God and with each other. This post is mainly so we can test out how embedding the video on our site will work... the sound will be much better with the actual sermons. This was my practice run through of last Sunday's message on Esther. Furnace Faith - Esther from Greenbelt Online on Vimeo .

This Sunday I'm preaching about money. I love preaching about money. In fact, I love preaching about all the tough issues in the Bible. Why? Because they make me uncomfortable. And I love when God makes me uncomfortable... that's usually when he's going to do something interesting in my life! Last week I was away for a week class in seminary. During one of the class another pastor shared how he doesn't do any preaching on issues like sex or money because the families in his church don't want to hear those topics. And to be honest that shocked me. The idea of picking and choosing which parts of the Bible we will teach just because we don't want to upset people seems to be very unbiblical. I don't see Jesus avoiding the tough conversations because the crowds didn't like to hear that stuff. I don't see the apostle Paul avoiding dealing with hard issues to make sure that the people listening are happy with the message. Even sadder is the realit...

This Sunday I'm continuing our series on LIFE and living a life of encouragement. We are looking at the life of Barnabas and how he encouraged the early church. I'm reminded this morning of the verse in 1 Thessalonians 5:11 "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing." I am SO grateful for the men and woman who have encouraged me in my life. Especially those who have encouraged me in my spiritual walk with God. I remember too well the criticism I received from some people when I shared that I thought God was calling me to leave the IT profession and become a pastor. They were critical that God wouldn't use a new believer like me... or someone from my background... or someone without a masters degree and education. It was quite a discouraging and doubtful time. Was I just being conceited and prideful wanting to go into ministry? Was I not walking with God closely? But I had many others who were INCREDIBLY enco...

I gotta admit. I love costumes and getting dressed up. Always have... and probably always will. I dream of the day when I'll have this incredibly cool costume that would win me all the prices at every Comic book convention... but I digress. I've been reading a lot this week about Moses and his veil. In Exodus we read how Moses' face would shine because of the glory of God... but then it would start to fade. It's been challenging to me to think how do I allow God's glory in me to fade. Is it even possible? If I have the spirit of God in me, does it ever fade? There are times when I feel my life is shining bright with God's glory... and others, well, not so much. This Sunday I'm preaching on this text and Paul's comment on it found in 2 Corinthians. I'm looking forward to unpacking it and sharing with the entire congregation since this will be my first Family Service at Greenbelt (normally the kids grade 1 to 5 go to KidZone). I'm always a...

I've been doing a lot of reading on Sabbath keeping in order to prepare this Sunday's message. I've been skimming through Mark Buchanan's book The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath . GREAT STUFF! I particularly like the chapter called Play: Stopping Just to Waste Time. Why? Because he recommends to his readers to go and read a comic book! Ok. That's not the only reason. Play is such a big part of our lives as kids... and somewhere, somehow that goes away with the increased demands on our lives. It's interesting how it even affect how I play with my own kids... We love family game night in our house... but I find myself so scheduled with it sometimes that it can actually take the fun out of it. I begin to stress about it when we've passed bedtime... or if there are other things on my mind... or worrying that I should be finishing the basement. In those times, play just doesn't feel like play. It feels like obligation. God has...

This week I've been yawning like crazy. I've been having a hard time getting a good night's sleep and feeling a little restless. Normal, I'm sure, considering the recent move and all the renovations we're doing around the house... Next Sunday I'm preaching on the importance of keeping Sabbath. Not as a legalistic, religious tradition... but rather as a privilege and as part of our wireing as people created in the image of a Sabbath keeping God. I'm learning a ton re-exploring this topic. I've not always been a good Sabbath keeper. This past year I've gotten a lot better at it. This afternoon, while studying, I was just reminder of what Jesus told his followers after they've been doing the work of the ministry like crazy. Jesus told them in Mark 6:31: "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." I love that Jesus didn't say "Go somewhere by yourselves and get some rest" but rather he wanted them t...

Hard to believe we've only been here in Ottawa for a full two weeks... with the amount of work that's gone into getting our home set up you'd think we've been here a lot longer! :) Kids are settled into their new schools. Danielle has started her new job. And I'm learning the ins and outs of the church here. Last night was a nice quiet evening... even though there was more work around the house that I could have been doing, I simply relaxed and got caught up on some much deserved rest. It's funny how rest just doesn't come naturally to me. There's a something in me that just wants to keep working. With a basement to finish and repairs around the house I could easily be busy all my waking hours. Yesterday was a great reminder for me to take time to just relax and listen to God. In my message on the Journey of Obedience yesterday I touched on Exodus 15:26 "If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in ...

Life is full of different journeys. Some journeys bring us to far off places. Others are journeys of transformation... journeys that when we reach the destination, we are no longer the same. Yesterday, I began a new 4 week preaching series called The Journey. A lot of it has come from the journey that my family and I have been on over the past few months. Just last week, we moved from the Waterloo-region to our nation's capital, Ottawa. This was a journey that had us on our knees a lot in prayer, and LOTS of discussions with mentors and friends. The journey was exciting, nerve-racking, sad, joyful, confusing, and faith building. It's quite amazing all the different emotions you can go through when God is prompting! I kicked off the series talking about our Journey of Faith and the questions that can hinder the journey that God wants to send us on. Who am I? Who are you? What if? Why not someone else? These where the questions that Moses asked God at the burning bush...

This Sunday at LifeSpring we're wrapping up our series "Wild Goose Chase" based on the book by Mark Batterson. This series has been INCREDIBLY exciting for me. It's been a real blast to teach on this topic that was so important in my own personal spiritual growth last year! It was sooooo cool to see people at LifeSpring get excited about it as well. It was so amazing to see people working through their own cages in order to start getting out of them and truly desiring to live a life of following and trusting the Holy Spirit. It was so humbling seeing people getting excited about what God wants to be doing at our church. And it just floored me that God started bringing new families to our church through this series! GOD IS SO AMAZING!!! I just gotta shout out a HUGE thank you to Mark Batterson for writing the book and the team at Threads Media for putting together the small group curriculum! You guys rock!!! I'm actually going to be kind of sad when thi...

This Sunday I'm wrapping up our Resurrection series with a look at 1 Corinthians 15.  It's pretty interesting started in a new church that already has it's preaching schedule put together... for the next couple of months all the topics have already been chosen :) I'm having a great time studying this and one pretty big truth is hitting me... and that is the fact that many of us Christians don't seem to be living our lives with confidence that Christ is really in control and that all our hope can be found in him.  We all do it eventually... that's pretty normal... but it just seems like a lot of churches are going through the motions of doing the church thing and seem like they've settled for the fact that they don't see lives transformed by the power and spirit of God! And that's just sad. We believe the Bible is true... but we live by the lies of the devil... we live with a lack of confidence in who God is and what the resurrection of Christs means ...

I'm nearly completed my sermon for this Sunday.  Since I only preach a couple of times a year I really don't have a very good system in place for putting one together.  The course I took at seminary on Intro to Preaching helped... but I find with my regular work load I'm not able to stick to that format very well.  Oh well... I guess this is just one of those things that comes with more practice :-) Since I'm preaching on Resolutions I've spent a lot of time thinking about my own life and areas where I would like to improve.  This year I'm keeping the resolutions to three.  This way it's much more manageable and more attainable then having a list of 5 or more...  so here they are in no particular order. Drop 20 pounds .  I've been getting really pudgy around the mid section... and I just don't like it.  I starting to look at an exercise and diet plan which would help me to reach this goal.  I'm also hoping that this plan will help to get my chole...

Christmas has come and gone... (Insert sigh of relief here) ... and now I begin my yearly ritual of seeking God's will and direction for my life in the coming year. Every year around this time I like to look back at the past year, review what God has done in my life. I like to examine where did I listen closely to God and see his blessings, and where did I try to go it alone in my own strength and see things crash and burn :) Mark Batterson has a great post on his blog on how to go about setting resolutions for the New Year. You can read it here . This is pretty similar to what I've been doing the past few years but I've never broken it down to specific categories. I really like that idea. In fact, I like it so much that as soon as I'm done writing this post I'm going to refill my coffee mug and spend an hour or so in quiet time and prayer and put some of the ideas that come to me down on paper... well... that is if the kids will give me an hour :) This Sunday...

If you want to hear my incredibly geeky sermon on the Armour of Religion you can give that a listen to HERE . I'd love to get your feedback on this.

I really when I have the opportunity to preach at my church. I don't do it very often so I always have such a great time doing it. Way back in May when I spoke at the Youth Retreat I was personally really REALLY challenged by the message that I did on Salvation by Works... which was a look at how we create religious armour around our hearts instead of depending on the full armour of God, which only comes from a right relationship with Jesus. I've played around with this one more and more... shared it in Montreal the first Sunday of August... and now I'll close off August with this message for my church. Praying that God will be glorified and his people really grow on this topic as much as I have.

Continuing to look at the Armor of Religion... Piece #4: The Shield of Doubt I love this one. For some odd reason, religion creates an INCREDIBLE amount of doubt. I've talked to way too many people who doubt that God loves them, doubt that God wants to do something through them, doubt that God would accept them... and it goes on and on. Why do we carry around a shield of doubt in religion? Because we listen too much to religious rules and regulations instead of listening to the words of Jesus. "Why are you frightened? he asked. Why are your hearts filled with doubt ?" (Luke 24:38). We allow our hearts to be filled with doubt because the reality is NO ONE can live up to the expectations of religion! Religion sets up too many dos and don'ts... Do read your Bible ever day. Do pray for 20 minutes a day. Don't dress that way. Don't listen to this. Don't watch that. Do your ceremony this way. Don't do your ceremony that way. You can drive yours...

I've been out of town for a couple of days so I didn't get a chance to continue looking at the Armor of Religion... so... let's jump right into it. Piece #3: Shoes of Uproar In Acts 23:9 we read: " So there was a great uproar . Some of the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees jumped up and began to argue forcefully. " Ever get REALLY surprised at what upsets some religious people? Wear the wrong shirt or shoes while preaching... play too many unfamiliar songs... change the pulpit stand to a cafe table... why is it that these little, totally insignificant things in our church services seem to create the greatest uproar? Because we are not wearing the shoes of peace... but, rather, the shoes of uproar. Peace allows us to realize that there may be things in a religious celebration that we don't totally connect with... but someone else in the crowd will. Peace in our hearts helps us to remember that I'm to be more and more like Jesus Christ after e...