Below are my comments regarding this article and the whole situation enjoy the article and please feel free to submit your comments too.
Okay,
here we go again.. what in the world are we doing.. is this a government or an elected nursery of opposition parties with not so smart parents.
If anyone knows their history Quebec did not sign the constitution and therfore if you want to be technical still belongs in the hands of British and really has no power even though they run for a federally elected office
Plus how can you call yourself an official federal party if you only run with one goal in mind.. split the country! If the new government of the NDP-Liberal have to get everything run by the Bloc we are in no better position then we are now with a minority.
Stephen Harper did a great job in not allowing our taxpayers money to fund an election or a party. I do agree that he should have focused more on the economy but still did a smart thing.
Last time Harper was in power he to the best that he could fulfilled all of his promises. A Minority Government is not easy to work in and the babies on the other side are not making it easy.
If we let this coalition government go ahead we are placing the country in the hands of people who would rather take power then let Canadians decide for them.
Lord Helps Us.. Let keep this in our prayers and pray that we either go to an election or that Jean Michelle forces the government to work together as it was elected.
Posted by Matthew Dykstra on Nov 30, 2008 in Embassy, Life
Hello,
I can not believe where God is taken me over the last little while, I am always amazed at the improvment in myself and the people who have helped me along. Over the last few weeks I have been feeling like I do not belong anywere and that my volunteer work, my help in the family and even my own endevours have been useless and crap, pure crap.
It might have been that I have been feeling complacent and that I did not know what I wanted anymore or the face that there is a shift from a ME ME ME mentality in to a team mentality and that of replicating yourself so that others may move into their purpose.
After having chatted with a good friend of mine and my mentor I realize that I do belong and that my efforts are being appreciated. But now I have to shift my focus into being a team player.. I may not always like the way people are doing things but if I am going to succed as a leader and replicate myself so tht I am not doing all the work I have to first learn that
It is not all about my position and that I am being moved out
That an effective leader brings people to the top with him without the fear of them passing him buy
That we (leaders in the church) are in the people business and we have to learn how to get a long and work with all types of people.
I just picked up a good book by John C. Maxwell called Leadership Gold and started working through it to improve my leadership skills. I have seen a lot of growth in the area of teams at my church espcially in the area of Worship & Creative Arts (www.embassyworship.com) and as one of the leaders in the area of Creative Arts (sound, projection, recordings & website/promotional material) I need to be more effective.
This book I hope will really help me improve on what I have been lacking in this area. I hope that all of you who know me and work along side me to achieve the same goal will let me know when I fail in an area or when I have let you down. I want to be the best leader I can be. I want to be the best leader that God has always wanted in my life. There was a phrase that went “Some are Born Leaders” well I beleive that anyone can be a good leader but yes some are naturally good leaders like my mentor and some leaders are leaders because God has placed them in that position to fulfill The Great Commission of God (Matthew 28:16-20).
But I always in the back of my mind wonder why God has placed me in the church, why has God asked me to do the things he has asked of me.. Then I sit back and slap myself and say why wonder just do what God has asked of me and do them with a smile. I know right now that God is calling me to a 3 day fast but of what I will keep a secret because in Matthew 6:16-18 (NASB) it says
16 “Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full
17 But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face
18 so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”
and that is the kind of reward that I want.. not to post on a blog and let everyone know the kind of fast that I will be doing but just to let you know I am fasting. For you see a fast is different things to different people and for me to be an effective leader I want to follow the fast that the Lord has called for me. When the Lord calls you to a fast you will know it and trust me do what the Lord asks just as stated above from Matthew and you will be rewarded for it.
As a leader I want to lead by example and follow the orders of God.. but when God asked you what do you love more me or your __________ (insert your most treasured item/thing here) what will you say to him? what will your answer be? this is what God asked me and the answer was easy but the sacrifice is/was hard.
Anyway I am getting off on a wrong bridge here so I will stop and wish everyone a safe night and see you in church tomarrow
Posted by Matthew Dykstra on Nov 14, 2008 in Ministry
I had the privledge of helping out in October with sound and audio recordings for the Rob Brown Drum Clinic. I just wanted to share with you the videos from the night.. Rob tells me that more are coming so enjoy what I have so far. If you want more of his videos please visit his YouTube page at http://www.youtube.com/user/penski77 or visit his official home page at http://robbrown.synthasite.com
I Just thought that I would share one of many non-christian songs worth listing too for us Christians here is one that really begs the question “What I’m gonna live for, What I’m gonna die for, Who you gonna fight for I can’t answer that” and the last line is really only you can answer.. My question to us christian who are you going to live for.. are you living for Jesus or yourself.. are you letting your sins control you or are you getting the best of your sins.. I am not perfect in this matter and no one is but listen to this song and tell me what you think. Here is the video used in the song after the Season 5 Premier of Grey’s Anatomy
I’m leaving tonight
Going somewhere deep inside my mind
I close my eyes slowly
Flowin’ away slowly
But I know I’ll be alright
It’s coming stronger to me
And I know someone is out there
Lead the way
Lead the way
Show me the answers I need to know
Chorus
What I’m gonna live for
What I’m gonna die for
Who you gonna fight for
I can’t answer that
Verse 2
All my life/love it is
It is all my love
All my life/love it is
I know it is a life to live lately
From above I hear
I hear the sound of them sinkin’
I feel numb, I’m alive
I know I’m getting closer
Chorus
What I’m gonna live for
What I’m gonna die for
Who you gonna fight for
I can’t answer that
Bridge
My life has had it’s share of troubles
And now I found a place to go
I’ve said goodbye to all my troubles
’cause now I’ve find my place to go
What I’m gonna live for
What I’m gonna die for
Who you gonna fight for
I can’t answer that
Posted by Matthew Dykstra on Oct 22, 2008 in Embassy, Life
Hello,
You know something.. I was just talking about it this week.. it has been over two years since I started on the Creative Arts team of the Young Adults group at my church and I just cannot get over how much work it has taken to get where I am. First off as a ministry leader and a someone who is the right hand to one of our many Pastors I just cannot get over where God has taken me in the last two + yrs.
It all started in the Family Centre (the old portion of the church built 30+ years ago) when I came to what was then known as Embassy Student Ministries and began to find a home church a place where I belonged. Within in 1 months I was on the ushering team and within 2 months I was on the projection team (power point/media shout/easy worship) and was rockin’ but that was not enough for me I wanted to serve more. So one night I was listing to the sermons on the website… and I remembered something that God had given me an idea to fullfill back in 1998 and I thought to myself.. well lets see if this church would be up for it.
One night after the service I proposed the idea to our Young Adults Pastor and he directed me to the Worship Leader and well things just took off from there. I had a meeting with him and we began to setup my idea of Live Streaming the services all over the world. With in 6 months we were streaming the services and recording them to file to be put on the website. It took sometime but we finally got a setup that worked. I was overjoyed We had finally moved from a mini-recorded hooked up to the headphone jack to a full computer running windows media and streaming/archiving the services to to a computer.
Now if you know me well I can use anything in technology and make it work. I began my ministry with a Pentium 1 computer with 64 megs of ram running Windows ME and Windows Media Encoder and that is how we started streaming our services. To edit the file was the funniest thing I ever saw. We first had to take the Windows Media File and convert it to WAV and then the Pastor could edit the file and then convert that file back to MP3 (compressed to RAW to compressed) how funny was that. But on October 27, 2006 my first recorded sermon made the website and we have been recording from the computer ever since.
But that was not the best part. Sometime in 2007 I was approached by the Pastors to become the Worship Pastors assistant. This ment that my gifting were being noticed and that they were going to be used in the manner that God had always ment for me to be used. I was on my way to finding my purpose.
I was still at this point a baby christian and really did not have a lot of knowledge with the things of God.. I did start to know that God was calling me to Pastor and that was all I knew. I did not know that God had other things in store for me. Mom once told me that when I was born they could feel the Holy Spirit on me and they all knew that I would be in the church. I knew in 1998 that I was to work with Technology (hence the Geek 4 God url) but I never knew that they would both ever meet.
I just began to submit my ministry to God and submit to the authority that God had placed over my life. Pastor Matt became my mentor, spiritual father and friend. Pastor Derek and I grew closer as I helped him and Pastor Matt with the creation of CDs, & Books. I started to learn the way the stage was setup and how to turn on the sound board. (trivial but I was a newbie in ministry) This was all starting to come together.
I was already helping Pastor Dennis with the projection on Sundays and was on my way to become the man of God that I was called to be. I guess you could say I was in his kingdom and found my purpose. I was never more happier then I could ever be (all health issues aside). This had to be the best thing for me ever in my life. It was like Pastor Derek said recently When you find your place of purpose you never want to do anything else, you don’t even care if you ever get paid. That was me. I was totally excited. I wanted to do it all.
I was volunteering in the Young Adults on Friday/Tuesday, Youth on Wednesday and Projection on Sundays then it came to a halt for me. Youth and Young Adult leadership was changing Pastor Doug our head Pastor decided that Pastor Randy of JV was going to run the entire department of Student Ministries and Pastor Matt and Derek would be Young Adults only. Well this just dropped everything for me because Pastor Derek said that we would have to pick one or the other. Immedialty God spoke to me and said “I want you to stay with Pastor Matt” Well that just did it for me. I listened and it was the best move I ever made.
Sticking with Pastor Matt and Derek and listing to God has elevated me to new highs. I am doing sound, recordings and working on starting up our video ministry. nothing could be finer. I have a great group of people to work with and I am training up new people so that I can focus on the audio podcast and video. I have to give a shout out to Matt P., and Tim for all the hard work they are putting in to help make the Creative Arts ministry of embassy | this generation (we changed names in Oct of 07) work to the best it can be.
I am amazed at how my life has grown with Christ and how when we submit to the people that God has placed over us we get elevated as well. When we stuart the little God will be able to bless us with the lot. When I started to submit my ministry over to God things just started to take off and things started to work better. We had less problems and things did not break down as much. All the Glory must go to God and all the Glory is to be given to the people who have taken the time to work with me and get to know me.
Posted by Matthew Dykstra on Oct 11, 2008 in Durham HOP, Life
Hello,
I cannot begin to tell you the kind of week that we have had here with the family. I cannot begin to tell you what kind things have gone on. It has been stressful for all of us but espcially my mother. My mother who is a rock who has for the past 7 years given more of herself then I have ever seen in my life time and I am only 29. There has been no person I have ever known in my life time who would be willing to sacrifice the way my mother does. I cannot go into real detail on this but I can tell you this my mother loves her family and would go to the ends of the earth for us.
I look around the world and I don’t see alot of families that have the love that I experince from day to day. I have many friends who come from families of divorced parents, families who don’t talk unless they want something, parents who alinate their kids and even families were one parent lives in a different province. What ever happend to family unit. I have a mentor and a friend who has a wonderful family and they just reciently had a new child that is the kind of family that I want.
Now granted everyone knows that I don’t want kids but something at Durham Prays and this past week softened my heart to the idea of kids and the idea of having a family. I don’t know what it is but seeing all those kids pray and cry out to God for the region of durham or spending two hours playing games with my sisters daughter just changes a man. The bible says suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not but it also says we must come like little children unto God.
I personally think that it was mostly Durham Prays that softend my heart to kids because during the children’s portion of the 24 hrs of prayer my heart just went out to them. More then that when one of the kids wanted to pray for bulling in the schools and that no one should go through that I lost it. Why? well it is like this really. I went though that most of my life, I was not like the other kids, I did not ever fit in. I was the the target each and every recess and then in high school again I was a target and all because the teachers saw something in me and wanted to help me develop my gift. I hung out with a great group of friends but friends that were the out casts of the school “The Nerd Herd” if you will.Then in 2002 - 2003 I started to suffer with health issues. Issues that could be passed on to my kids if I ever had any.
I think to say all of this I” don’t want my child to ever go through all of this I don’t ever want him to get my health issues. With the world the way it is I am afraid to bring a child into all of what is going on. I don’t know if I could do it. So yes I joke around about them being brats and lap babbies and pains but really I love kids and if the world was not going to __________ in a hand basket I would consider it.
The only other reason for me is the fact that I am 29 and don’t know from day to day how my health will effect me and how I will be able to cope. I really would love to have a little me floating around. loving computers, helping me with my video work, making sure all my shows are setup on the PVR etc.. but alast this may never be. I don’t think I will ever find the right girl let alone have a child.
I really like this one girl at my church and really would love to get to know her. When I watch for her over the booth or see her as I do my thing my heart just melts for her. She loves technology and the media and she wants to bring about change in the area of the television and movies. She is awesome at graphics work and can write articles with the best of them. I hope that some day this Women of God will be ready to date and will be looking at me to go for Coffee reather then someone else. She is so beautiful and so wonderful I hope that God will allow me to Go after her.
Well I am rambling tonight forgive me. I just wanted to write and when I get going sometimes my mind wonders into random thoughts.
it is Monday evening and after having completed 24hrs of serving plus two full Sunday services I am please to announce that I am done and over done. I cannot begin to tell you what an amazing event Durham Prays and The NightWatch was two of the most amazing events I have ever had the pleasure of doing sound, projection and recordings for. Aside of the spiritual attack that happend just before my own worship leader came on I had the most amazing time ever.
The night did not start for me and the Durham House of Prayer team at 7:00 most of us started quite early in the afternoon I got there around 4:00 with my good friend Lorna and we started the finalization for the event. My job was to handel the first six hours of sound and though out the event just keep an eye on the Creative Arts end of things. Well that was so much and on top of that I took on the job of Creating the CDS for the night every time a new team went on a new cd was started. There was 24 cds which ended up being 2 cds per team.
Although there was some creative arts glitches during the event, every thing went off better then ever. But of the whole 24 hrs the best time for me was the childrens event. If you know me I am not one for having my own kids but this one spoke to me more then any part of the night. Maybe it was the topics or maybe it was just that some it brought up some unresolved issues from my past, such as being bullied in school. But most of all it was cute just to see the kids praying for the Region of Durham. These kids were so cute but there was one kid that made me laugh so hard when she asked for the “Country of Clarington” to be prayed for. Really what she ment was the municipality of Clarington but I give her credit for getting on the mic and praying.
I give credit to everyone who prayed on the mic and who lifted up the towns, cities municipalitites and townships of Durham Region. A Special credit has to go out to Justin West, Shandy Wheaton and Ray Quinn who went through the night justin who by my count did 8 hrs of singing and worship and Shandy by my count did a total of 6 hours. Then their was Ray who did about 6 hours of Sound and then did 2 hours of worship with his wife. What a guy and what a heart each of them have for this event and to prayer. I really enjoyed working with each and everyone who came to the event.
The creative arts team did an aceptional job Matt Pershon-Costa, Kevin Richardson, Seaton Brachmyer, Shandy Wheaton, Deb W. and Ray Quinn what a team I had to work with. I amazed at what the Lord can do when you work as a team. With everyone working together I had a chance to concentrate on the CDs and oversee everything going on. Well done team.
I do want to extend my apprecation to everyone who helped out from the Durham House of Prayer, The Worship Teams, The Creative Arts Teams, and Durham Jesus. Thank you to everyone you did an awesome job.
Posted by Matthew Dykstra on Oct 5, 2008 in Grey's Anatomy
I don’t know what it is about Grey’s Anatomy but the great videos on You Tube Just keep coming, here is another one from Callie and Erica that also has my favorite song from Bryn Christopher “The Quest”
You have got to see this amazing video by Bryn Christopher that debuted during the season 5 premier of Grey’s Anatomy.. I just thought that I would share it.
