The Way Matt Sees It

I can say with confidence that I loved The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.   The story, the characters, the action, the visuals – I loved it all.   I felt that it lacked only in its resolution.   The book was detailed in describing what happened after the battle, but much of it was generally left out of the movie.   What happened to the Arkenstone?   The Lonely Mountain?   The men of Lake-Town?   Who knows what the extended edition will reveal, but until then… WHAT HAPPENED TO… …THE ARKENSTONE ? The Arkenstone is called, “The King’s Jewel,” and symbolized Thorin’s right to rule and authority to unite the Dwarves.   The jewel is buried with Thorin, placed on his chest, beneath the Lonely Mountain. …THE DWARVES ? Most of the dwarves of Thorin’s Company settled down in Erebor.   Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dwalin, Nori, and Dori all stayed in Erebor.   Balin was the only Dwarf to visit Bilbo at Bag End....

Today marks 50 days until the release of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.  In honor of it, I'm posting this blog.   The Hobbit movies have become something that I hold near and dear to my heart.   While they started simply as movies about a story and world I already loved, the Hobbit films have become to represent the deep friendship that has been fostered between my college friends and me. The Lord of the Rings films and the world of Middle-Earth was the glue that brought us together.   Our mutual love of the world of Middle-Earth brought us closer, and we eventually made it tradition to watch the films together every single semester. In a way, we kind of fed off each other, and grew to love LOTR and Middle-Earth even more.   Throughout the years, we all bought different bits of memorabilia that came to sort of represent us.   Every semester, we constantly talked about LOTR and when our next viewing would be.   A few of us learne...

For a good while I was fighting thoughts of inadequacy.  I began working at Searchlight Church as youth pastor during my sophomore year of college.  I drove two hours every single Sunday morning from Pennsylvania to the Jersey Shore.  During that commute, I was bombarded by thoughts of inadequacy. You have to understand, I was driving from Valley Forge Christian College .   VFCC is the hub of ministry-hungry students ready to serve their guts out for God.   So how the heck did I become the youth pastor at Searchlight?   I had no idea what I was doing.   I wasn’t the right major.   I wasn’t ready.   I didn’t have enough experience.   All four pastors who worked at the church had years of previous youth ministry experience.   They could have chosen anyone ; how did it end up being me? A QUICK DETOUR TO ONE HOBBIT’S ADVENTURE "I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure." -Gandalf, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journe...