Kevin Presseault

It's been awhile since I've blogged about anything Geeky... guess I've been spending way too much time doing house renovations :) This past weekend I picked up DC Universe Online , the new massively multiplayer online (MMO) game based on the super heroes and villains from DC Comics. These heroes and villains include Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Joker, Catwoman and many other that I've loved for years! I've only been playing it on and off over the past few days... but I thought I'd share my initial thoughts of the game. So here they are in no particular order. First off, I just LOVED the Collector's Edition of the game. Since I was trading in a number of my used games at GameStop , I actually had enough trade in credit to pay the full amount of the Collector's Edition. I've never bought a collector's edition of a game before... just never saw any value in playing a extra $20-30 for a game. For this one, I'm sure glad I did! The ...

I love Thursday afternoons! Since starting here at Greenbelt as the Teaching Pastor I've worked something new into my regular work week. Every Thursday afternoon I run through my Sunday sermon several times, sometimes as many as four. When I originally started this I thought it would simply help me to deliver a better sermon on Sundays. I never realized how much this would help me personally and spiritually. This has really turned into a wonderful relationship building experience between me and God. As I start the first run through, I feel like a little kid who's made a home made Christmas present for his dad. Sure, it's not perfect. Sure, I may have colored outside the lines or cut it all out crooked... but I gave it MY ALL! I tried my best! And I can't wait for my dad to have it. I look forward with anticipation to give this gift to my father. I just know that he's going to love it! And every week, I just feel it in my heart that he's well pleased wi...

2010 was a crazy year for me. God took our family on some pretty crazy emotional and spiritual rollercoaster rides. I'm grateful for all that he did and taught me this past year. And I'm excited for this New Year ahead. Since 2005, I've been reading the One Year Bible. This allows me to read the entire Bible in the course of the year. I also prayerfully consider how I want God to speak to me in while I read the Bible. I come up with a short sentence prayer that I then pray each time before I start my reading. I've been amazed at how each of those prayers have played out in my life as I spend time with God in his word. The emotional ride of last year makes total sense when you realize that my prayer during 2010 was "Break my heart for what breaks yours". I don't think I've cried in 10 years as much as I have this passed year! I'm preparing a six week preaching series based on the book The Christian Atheist by Craig Groeschel.... and already...

Our family Christmas celebrations start this weekend. That is just so incredibly weird for me to get my head around that. Already?!?!?! The past couple of months just seem like a blur... must be from all the drywall dust and paint fumes from my recent basement renovations :) I'm looking forward to celebrating with loved ones over the next couple of weeks. I'm excited to have family coming to the church to see the kids' Christmas play. I'm pumped for our very simple Christmas Eve service. I can't wait to see the looks on the kids' faces when they open their present on Christmas morning... they are going to LOSE THEIR MINDS! But even more I'm just SO incredibly grateful for all that God has done in my life this year. It wasn't a easy year by any means. We had tough decisions and hard choices to make... but God has been so faithful in all of this. It had a lot of stress. It had a lot of tears. It had a lot of stress (did I say that already??) Bu...

I love reading. I read a lot. Actually, let me rephrase that. I USED to read a lot. Seems I've lost my reading groove since moving to the Ottawa area. Between getting settled at the new church, doing basement renovations, and living out of boxes my reading has really dropped. This month I'm making reading a priority again. I usually have a few books on the go at the same time, so here's what I'm reading now. The Grace of God by Andy Stanley . I have a number of friends who work for grace based ministries... so over the years I've been given multiple copies of books on the topic of grace. This one blows them all away!! I've actually restarted this book and will be going through it more slowly (I may even blog about what I'm learning). I love Stanley's understanding of God's grace in the Old Testament. I've seen very little (if any) references to the Old Testament in the other grace books I've read. Grace isn't just a New Testa...

I've been using YouVersion as one of my primary ways to read and study the Bible since October 2007. I use it to search for texts when prepping sermons. I use it for my daily Bible reading plan. I use it on my Blackberry so that I always have a Bible with me. And now I'm playing around with YouVersion Live to see how we can integrate that to our Sunday morning services. Why? Because I want to encourage people to get into reading the Bible for themselves and not just listening to me reading it to them every Sunday :) I love how with YouVersion Live we can create Events and have people point there with their smart phones for seeing the key Bible passages, polls, prayer requests forms and whatever else we can think of to tie in to the weekend service. In order to play around with this I've created an event for this coming Sunday. You can access it here . Have a look at it and let me know what you think.

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...