Try something different

I was reading Jason Boucher's blog post called I have a Crush on you found here: http://www.slicesoflife.ca/ and in it he sums up everything that I have felt when making the decision to go into ministry. It isn't the lack of experience that stopped me, the lack of support or the opposition from family and friends it was fear. The fear of failure, the fear of looking like an idiot, the fear of disappointing my teacher and mentor, the fear of embarrassing my family, I was afraid! So it took me almost 1 year before making the decision and accepting the call that God had for my life. I made the commitment and have stuck with it for almost 3 years of studying and over 4 years of serving my church, serving The Church.

Last week I preached a sermon on the Future and the fact that if we want to serve we need to leave. We don't have to necessarily have to leave geographically sometimes you have to leave a situation, get out of our rut get rid of the " same-ol' " lifestyle, just leave. Sometimes it can be easy but a lot of times it is really hard. Staying is comfortable, it's reassuring, you know what's coming and can prepare for it. On the other hand leaving can be scary it's unpredictable, it can surprise you and startle you, it can leave you feeling uneasy and unsure of yourself you become afraid. Please don't think I have all the answers because I still get scared, I still worry sometimes and I still fight fear. It took me a long time to accept the Youth Pastor position, I thought long and hard, debated looked at all the pros and cons, analyzed and rationalized and couldn't make a decision. Not because I didn't want to do it, it certainly wasn't because of the Youth, because they are the reason why I wanted to do it they were the pros, it was because I was afraid. It wasn't until I stopped doing it on my own and actually prayed about it that the answer became very clear that I had to do this. One thing is sure when I stop doing things on my own and trust God with Everything in my life those fears stop instantly and worrying turns into excitement of the great things to come.

So for the next couple of days or weeks I encourage you to do something different, try something that you have always wanted to try but mostly have faith that God will lead you through it.

Talk at you later

Marty

Restart 09

I spent the evening last night at the Life Centre to celebrate the end of a 21 day fast. Don't get excited I didn't stop eating for 21 days, well I guess I did sort of. I gave up snacking after dinner so from 6pm to 6am only water. For a guy who could become a professional snacker trust me it was hard. I learned some very valuable lessons over the last 21 days like:
1: I can't do it all by myself
2: When I trust God with EVERYTHING in my life, things run a lot smoother
3: People disapoint, God doesn't
and
4: A life of faith is a life of leaving.

Over the next weeks and months I will try really hard to teach these life lessons to the youth at The Journey. I will also keep you posted on how things are going as we "RESTART" the program. The 21 day fast was very eye opening and it was also a time to get excited about things that will be happening in the very near future. It was like a kick in the pants to GO, get started, leave the old behind and get restart with the new!

Talk at you later

Marty

I'm Baaack!

Hi everybody glad to be back I hope you didn't miss me too much. I'm glad to be back in the saddle as they say. As promised as soon as it was possible I wanted to give you information about me and what's going on in my life and now the time has come.

As you can see by the new blog title some changes have occurred in the last couple of weeks that I wasn't able to share with anyone until now. I just wanted to make sure that all parties involved were told and understood what was going on before I made the official announcement. Well here it is as of 7:30 last night it has been officially announced to the youth and to the members at Bikers Church that I am now the new Youth Pastor for Bikers Church. This is very exciting for me because I have felt called to do this for a while. Clive the previous Youth Pastor has been there for 6 years and has done an awesome job taking care of the youth group and I wish to thank him for EVERYTHING he has done. He was there when most people would have bailed and will still be around on occasion to help me when I need it. He has really helped me fit into this role and for that I will always be grateful. So Clive brother as you move on to new challenges and new beginnings I wish you all the best. I pray for success and prosperity in everything you do, any organization will be lucky to have you. We will miss you and I want you to know that you are always welcome to come and visit. Thanks again brother!

As for me this is a whole new chapter that is starting in my life. I really look forward to restarting, revamping and refocusing the new youth group at Bikers Church. The first thing that we needed was a new name. After much discussion, voting and praying the youth decided on a new name so from now on we will not be called Bikers Church Youth anymore, from now on we are:
The Journey! What an awesome name and I love the fact that they chose it. We are also working on a new website and it will be called: www.thejourneyyouthgroup.com. We will also be creating a blog and will be working on a forum where the youth of the city can come and participate to different Q&A sessions, surveys and discussion groups . I would like to have guest "speakers" and have all kinds of questions and topics. Anything from religion and spirituality all the way to cars, today's events, fashion, WHATEVER. So keep your eyes on this blog for more details as they come up.

Tomorrow I will talk about where do I/we go from here. Where will The Journey take me and where am I going with The Journey.

Talk at you later

Marty

Don't give up on me

Wow I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post but there is a reason and I will share it with you shortly! But for now all I ask is for you to be patient with me as I work out all the details, dot all the i and cross out all the t's. Some new and exciting challenges for me up ahead which will mean some funny stories for everyone to read.

So keep your eyes on this blog as I will be posting some stuff very shortly.

Thanks for your patience and talk at you later

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Believe it or not I made it through

A couple of weeks ago (I think) I mentioned that if I could make it through that week then everything will get better! I was right! Last weekend was terrible, we were so busy that when I got to work on Monday it felt like I never left. It was actually nice to get caught in yesterday's and today's snow storm to slow things down a little. My work life is getting back to normal and homelife also pretty much back to normal(as normal as normal can be)! Saturday night I had a blast, I went out with some of the best people I know and we went to a comedy club! I was really tired and wasn't sure if I wanted to go. Man am I ever glad I decided to go because I had the best time I've had in years! I haven't laughed or had this much fun in I don't know how long! What a great night with some awesome friends!
This weekend has really put stuff into perspective and I have a new outlook on life. I just finished working on my sermon for Thursday and actually started working on the planning stages for next week's message with the youth.
So I would like to thank God for getting me through these last weeks and months, thank Roxanne for being so patient with me and thank my friends for the awesome night on Saturday, you guys Rock!

Talk at you later
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Small rant!

Last week I had the most expensive sandwich of my life! I went to this new restaurant in my building for 3 reasons 1: I wanted to try it, 2: it was in my building and 3: I'm lazy and it was in my building! I won't mention their name because I don't want to promote or bash this restaurant I'm just using it as an example. So back to my rich man sandwich, this restaurant promotes themselves as being "green" or "enviromentally friendly" by using "organic produce", "recycled materials" and "bio friendly energy" to power the restaurant (and by that they mean that they use sunlight for lighting the restaurant). I was proud of myself I'm getting a healthy sandwich and "helping" the environment. Well I get to the cash and the sandwich and a glass of tap water cost me over $10.00. ARE YOU KIDDING ME OVER $10.00 FOR A SANDWICH! I'm getting really frustrated with these companies that use catch phrases like environmentally friendly or eco-friendly or whatever friendly to a jack up the price! Why do I have to pay more to be environmentally friendly! Don't get fooled people some of these companies use these catch phrases just to raise prices to increase profit. They guilt us into a sense believing that we can make a difference and by paying more you're helping more and in some cases that's just a lie. It's marketing, really good marketing. If they trully believe that they want to help the environment these companies should sell the eco-friendly products at the same price as the regular non environmentally friendly products! But I'm not sure they want to cut into their profit margin to help the enviromnent or anyone else for that matter. If I had the choice to buy something that is good for the environment at the same price at the other brand I would easily make the right choice but why should I pay almost twice the price for the same thing that is enviromentally friendly made by the SAME company. Did you notice that a certain cleaning product company came out with "green line" of cleaning products however they still produce the non-green product and have those on sale while the eco stuff is twice the regular price!

Read the labels, be informed when making choices and don't get fooled by all the marketing out there! These companies pay millions of dollars a year in marketing to get our cash. Just be a wise shopper sometimes a green sticker is just a green sticker.

As for the sandwich it was good, but definitely not worth $11.00!

Talk at you later

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Small Stuff

Funny how you can read a book and say to yourself, " Wow that is so true, or I really wish I could do that" Well that just happened to me. I finally had a few minutes to myself and started reading some blogs that I haven't had a chance to read in a long time and it hit me! Look at you're own blog, Wow November 18th was my last post. My how time flies when you sweat the small stuff. I know what you're thinking how busy can he really be. Well for once pretty darn busy. I'm working 10 hour days at work coming home to 5 year old twin girls and trying to plan and restart the youth program at church. And if that isn't busy enough I had an elective that I had to complete at school with a 4 to 6 page essay due tomorrow. So it's been a little hectic lately. Everything should start settling down by the end of this week and I'm really looking forward to it.

So if you can say a little prayer to help me get through this week and into the weekend trust me I'm going to need it.

Talk at you later

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