Vision for Ministry

Vision - Campus Crusade at Montana State University from Matt McComas on Vimeo.

This was a video I helped put together last year to help communicate what we do in our ministry with college students. The guy talking is Bob Schwahn who serves as our director. Check it out.

Mac's are taking over

This is a graph of Campus Crusade staff and their increased use of Mac's over the past few years. Interesting.

Be careful out there.

November is over

My 30 days of November blogging is over today. I think I managed about 24 or 25 days of posting.

Not to shabby.

I can't promise much for December. We'll be on the road for Christmas and have a couple retreats before then. So who knows what the blogging motivation will be like. I may run into some circus performers, nascar racers or other missionaries that I want to tell the world about.

Today we trudged through the wet snow out in the Gallatin National Forest to bag and tag our Christmas tree. It's absolutely not a perfect tree, but I like the natural look. Besides, after it's all done up it looks pretty darn good in our living room. To bad I had to cut a foot and half off of Mr. Tree to fit it under our 9 foot ceiling.

Civil War

My wife is crying because her Alma Mater (Oregon State University) is being humiliated by the University of Oregon in the annual Civil War football game. I told her, "chin up young lady, your team still gets the most fashionable award with cool hunters orange jerseys."

In other news, we discovered recently that you can watch cable sporting events for free online at stoogetv.com. This website came in handy for Pete Zagorda, who used to live in Croatia.

Advent Conspiracy Promo Video

This is my anti-black friday video

Thanksgiving

Happing Thanksgiving!

I have a boatload to be thankful for. Including, but not limited to, my sweet wife and crazy little girl, my home, my job, the beautiful view of the Bridger mountains out the back window and of course the Spudzilla 9000 (more to come on this device in the next few days).

Last night, thanks to the History channel, I learned that the so called original Thanksgiving meal in 1621 featured a variety of meats such as turkey, swan, seal, duck, crane and partridge as well as some seafood, including cod, eel, clams and lobster.

Interestingly Cranberry sauce was not on the menu.

Today at our amazing Thanksgiving meal we had two guys from India join us for dinner. We were getting to know Nipun and Rajit when we asked them about the climate in the city they're from and Rajit responded,

"It's...(contemplative pause)

freakin' hot!"

much laughter ensued.

Courage

-Leadership is not defined by talent. Look for an opportunity to break from the pack and seize it. Those are the moments when leadership is discovered and defined.

-You're afraid. So what? Everybody is afraid. Fear is the common ground of humanity. The question you must wrestle to the ground with is, Will I allow my fear to bind me to mediocrity? If so there is no reason for you to finish this book.

-Don't let how get in the way of pursuing what? Leaders pursue opportunities way before the means and the maps are available. Your industry's unsolved problems are the gateway to the future.

-Leaders don't hide from the truth. The pain of discovery is the first step on the path to change. If you are going to fear anything, fear not know the truth about what's happening around you. In the world of leadership, denial is analogous to receiving the last rites.

-What could be? What should be? Write it down. Hang it on a wall. Broadcast it.

Next Generation Leader - Andy Stanley

Christmas Picture

I've missed a few days in my "30 days of November blogging" campaign...sorry about that. There is no excuse.

Maybe this will make you feel better. This is our Christmas card picture this year. Many thanks to Elliot Jenko a student at MSU who took our picture and tried to get Jenna to smile.

Jenna got tagged

Name/Meaning: Jennalynn Grace - God is Gracious

Age: 22.5 months

Nicknames: Jenna Bean, Peanut, Sweet Pea, Crazy

Favorite Activity (ies): Reading, going to the park and swinging, hanging out with our staff team, riding in the bike trailer, talking on the phone and lately pretending to be texting.

Favorite Food: Pizza, cold black beans (I know...weird), crackers, chocolate, cereal and quesadillas.

Least favorite food: anything nutritious especially veggies

Favorite Music: Hip-hop, and bluegrass and her favorite songs is Jesus Loves Me.

Favorite toys: Giant legos, blocks, books, little jungle animals, mommy and daddy's cell phones.

Favorite books: The Jesus Story book Bible (which I highly recomend for your parent out there), Good Night Moon, and Thomas the Train

What makes her happy: Being outside and being around people. Her blanky and seeing her grandparents. Lately her new veggietale movies...she goes craaazzzzy for them.

What makes her sad: I swear she has the spiritual gift of empathy like her mom, because she get's sad when others are sad. Other things include eating (about 90% of the time) and diaper rash. Diaper rash would make me sad too.

Jenna tags: Mckenzie, Lucy, Rosie, Z & A, Nathan

Friday night

It's 7:23 on a friday night and I'm ready for bed. I feel like I could go to sleep for 12 hours.

In other news, tomorrow is the 108th Cat-Griz game.

Winter Conference 08 - The Office Promo

If you're a fan of The Office you'll know how perfect this video is. These are our students in action.

November Posting

I've beening doing decently well with my effort to blog every day during the month of November. I've missed a few days but added an extra post the following day to make up for my apathy.

What's interesting about this November blogging campaign is that it's a little like exercising your brain. It takes some work to think and then blog and finally make your posts sound legible. It's exercise for your creativity muscle...although sometimes I'm more creative than others. For example, I woke up at 4:15 this morning and couldn't fall back asleep...thus I'm not feeling very creative.

My point is what if all Americans (or followers of Christ, for that matter) stopped watching reality tv and began to exercise our brains and begin to be creative and innovative? I'm guilty as the rest of of them, but what if we began to create instead of being consumers all the time?

Or maybe I should take a mid-morning nap.

Props to this guy for being creative.

Everything is amazing and nobody is happy

So true. Beware there is a bad word edited out in this.