The Way Matt Sees It

MY FAMILY I honestly believe that I have the greatest family.   My parents have loved me with all that they are, have provided for me, instilled values in me, and have guided me.   My siblings are…my siblings!   I love my brother and sister to death.   I love my extended family.   I have had an incredible home life.   I am so thankful that in my family, I have a firm foundation on which I can stand strongly and proudly.   And of course I have to include the words of my sister: “What is the Jones family without movie quotes?”   MY FRIENDS I am blessed to have the friends that I do.   My best friend, Ronnie DePasquale, whom I’ve known my entire life, and now his wife, Tiffany.   The entire DePasquale family.   My college friends.   My youth group friends.   My church friends.   It’s crazy how many friends I have!   It can be upsetting thinking about how life separates us, and we don’t see each other as...

THANKSGIVING 2014 Thanksgiving is coming up shortly.   This holiday isn’t important just because of what it represents (giving thanks, which is sorely lacking from our society today), but also because of how it came to be. The First Thanksgiving 1621 , by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1899) I find the story of the Plymouth colonists to be fascinating.   Originally coming to the New World to escape religious persecution, some extraordinary pieces came together to help the colony succeed, and eventually to Thanksgiving becoming a national holiday. If you find no other reason to read this blog post, at least you can say you’re smarter than your friends on some fun facts about Thanksgiving. Here are some of the major people and events that contributed to Thanksgiving as we know it: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND By the mid 1500s, the Church of England had beco...

As a recent college graduate, I love engaging in the intellectual side of Christianity.   As I’ve noted before on my blog, I think this is something that is often missing from American Christianity.   Thinking critically and asking hard questions need to be encouraged by churches today.   And I love doing this. Recently I’ve spent time thinking about intellectual issues like, “Is the Bible inerrant?” and, “Are Mormons Christian?”   However, we can’t overly focus on theory.   As fun as it is for me to talk about the infallibility of the Bible, is this what Jesus really intended? THE NEED FOR BOTH As Christians, we can’t have one or the other.   We need both.   Immanuel Kant once said, “Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.” Practice without theory is blind.   When the Assemblies of God first formed as a fellowship, there was an enormous outpouring of the Holy Spirit.   Many...

I love the Fall.   And I love taking pictures.   That means that this is prime time for taking beautiful pictures of nature here in New Jersey. “He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.” (Colossians 1:17) “ACTS” is a prayer model I use frequently.   Each letter represents a different part of the prayer.   This really works well because the focus isn’t just on me and my “to do list,” but rather helps me to focus more on God.   It goes like this:             A: Adoration             C: Confession             T: Thanksgiving             S: Supplication (requests) “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power.  For you created all thing...