Matt the Intern

OBX Bear Factory

2009-07-22T13:39:00.005-04:00

This past Sunday, the OBX Bear Factory held a fundraiser for Nags Head Church. Being the adventurous intern that I am, I figured that I would go over there and help out by keeping all of the wild animals in line. There ended up being a great turnout, and none of the kids got eaten.

As you can see, there were a lot of animals to watch out for.

Larry stuffing a seal.

One happy hooded seal owner.

Me and Rocky the Lobster.

Rocky blends in with the bag.

This was the promo video for the event.

Thanks to Larry and Helen Czernik for making this happen!

Matt

Student Life Camp

2009-07-21T17:02:00.006-04:00

This past week, I went to Student Life Camp in Lynchburg, Va. I was there with my home church, Emmanuel Baptist, because NHC already had enough male chaperones.

As a Student Life veteran, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from camp. Basically, there are 2 big worship gatherings everyday that led by a drama team, band, and camp pastor. The camp pastor was David Nasser, whom I have heard speak many times at Liberty. I already knew most of the stories that he told, but I was still able to learn many new things from him.

The band was Unhindered. I had heard them before at a big youth event that I went to at the Nissan Pavilion a few years back. They have come a long way since I first heard them. They have a very upbeat, funky sound.

Another huge part of Student Life is family group time. All the students are divided up into groups of about 8-12, and that becomes your family group for the week. Some churches choose to keep their youth group together for this time, and some choose to split up. This year, I had the opportunity be a family group leader of 6 students from 3 different churches in NC and VA.

I had a great time with them, and hopefully they learned something from me during our Bible studies.

Here are some pictures of my group.

I decided to to a youtube search to see if I could find any videos of the worship gatherings, and this one pretty much sums it up. You can watch it if you want to see some crazy camp kids.

Matt

Chris and Cathy's Wedding

2009-07-11T21:55:00.003-04:00

Congratulations to Chris and Cathy Mauldin, who got married yesterday at NHC. Here are some pictures from the event.

Waiting for Cathy

Chris looks excited

Josh looks happy as always.

Reception.

Me with the newlyweds.

Matt

4th of July

2009-07-09T01:04:00.003-04:00

Check out NHC's 4th of July event from Saturday!

(Thanks to Les for the fireworks footage)

Matt

Lunch Live with Andy, Matt, and Nathan

2009-07-08T11:33:00.002-04:00

Watch us live at noon!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nags-head-church-live

Typical Day in the Life of Matt, Pt. 2

2009-07-06T11:53:00.002-04:00

Typical Day in the Life of Matt

2009-07-04T15:47:00.001-04:00

Hukilau Surf Camp

2009-06-28T14:03:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was the first Hukilau Surf camp of the summer. Hukilau is put on every year by NHC pastor Steve Wise and his crew of surf instructors. We had a great time out there, and a lot of kids caught waves for the very first time.

Getting ready.

Learning the basics.

Instruction from Andy and Steve

Learning to paddle.

Les and Carol's granddaughter Morgan.

Waiting.

After I put my camera down and got in the water, we got some great surf and a lot of kids did very well. There will be three more camps this summer, so I will try to get pictures of some kids surfing next time.

Matt

Nags Head Church Podcast

2009-06-25T12:18:00.003-04:00

NHC's podcast has been having some trouble for the past few weeks, so I have been working on fixing it and getting it fully updated. I deleted all of the 2008 messages to free up space, deleted and reloaded all of the Jan-May 2009 messages due to issues they were having, and then uploaded the new messages from June 09'.

Everything is working great now, and you can check it out by clicking here.

Matt

Happy Miles Day to My Car!

2009-06-24T15:43:00.003-04:00

Yesterday morning I got into my car, and this is what the odometer read:

After nine more miles, it looked like this:

And finally, after 18 years of life, my car reached the big 100,000:

And to top it off, I brought some Cheddar Bratwursts in for lunch, and they were sitting in the passenger seat next to me.

So that was a fun start to a good day. I spent most of it working on getting NHC's podcast working again since it has been having a lot of problems. I should be finished with it soon, and then it will be up to date and working great.

Matt

Sunday FlashBlitz - Happy Father's Day

2009-06-21T22:43:00.006-04:00

Happy Father' Day! This morning was awesome at NHC. Here's why:

I got to wake extra early and get picked up by Chris Jolly at 6:40am! Ok, so this wasn't awesome. We had a fun ride though, and we stopped by Nathan's house to pick him up too.

Today was my first Sunday playing in the band! Until now, I had helped with Kid's church for every Sunday that I had been at NHC. Nathan knew that I had many opportunities to lead worship at Liberty, so he wanted me to be able to get experience from areas that I am normally not involved with. This week, however, he needed me to fill in on bass, and I was more than happy to do so.

Rick gave a great message today that was aimed toward fathers. This is an area that I obviously do not have any experience in, but I am always up for learning as much as I can about it so that I will be more prepared when that time comes. Fortunately for me, I have a pretty great dad, so I have a good head start.

Today was the first Sunday for our new checkin system! I have been working out the kinks for a while now, so it was great to finally see it in action. It worked better than I had hoped for. There was only one minor problem that I know of, and it has already been fixed. I'm ready for next week to see how round 2 goes.

Here are a few of my pictures from the morning.

Checkin Kiosk, ready for action.

Bonnie checking in her children while Andy encourages her.

Our wonderful Guest Kiosk workers.

Backstage waiting to get our groove on.

Leading worship.

Nathan looking excited.

Chad H. and Bonnie

Me playing bass

Soundboard

(Thanks to Rich Coleman and Nick Nelson for taking the pictures of the band)

Matt

Outrigger Kayak Camp

2009-06-21T20:38:00.005-04:00

Yesterday morning was NHC's Outrigger Kayak Camp. This is an youth event that the church does every year. It is supported in large part by NHC partner Pam Landrum, owner of The Outdoors Inn & Outfitters in Manteo, NC. She supplies all of the kayaks, as well as her years of experience and knowledge. She took us out on a three hour tour (a three hour tour) through the salt marshes of the Roanoke Sound.

About halfway through our trip, we stopped at a small island and got out of our kayaks. We waded through the water with a net and caught tiny fish, shrimp, and crabs. Pam explained that the vast majority of the seafood that we eat is born in the salt marshes. We then got back in the kayaks, and listened to Andy share a few thoughts from 1 Corinthians 13 before heading back.

Here a few pictures of us getting ready to launch.

After I Kayak Camp was over, I came home for a few hours, and then I went over to Seth and Gina Harris's house with Les and Carol. Seth grilled us up a delicious steak and shrimp dinner. After dinner, we played the Battle of the Sexes board game, which the men won.

It was a great day.

The Outdoors Inn & Outfitters

Matt

Great Lunch

2009-06-19T23:45:00.004-04:00

This is a semi-random post, but I had an amazing lunch today. I had a sandwich from the Country Deli in Nags Head, and it was probably the best sandwich I have ever had. It was so good, that I decided to take a picture.

For desert, Carol made some homemade chocolate pistachio biscotti. It was so amazing, that I decided to take another picture.

Then I decided to take a picture of how good I felt after eating the food.

Yeah, I felt that good.

Then Les found a tree frog on his grill, so we took pictures of that too.

For tomorrow's lunch, I'm going to eat the other half of my sandwich, which has been patiently waiting in the fridge for me. Am I excited? You betcha.

Country Deli

Matt

Confession

2009-06-19T15:12:00.008-04:00

As you can tell from the title of this post, I have something that I have to admit to everyone. I know that this is going to come as a shock to all of you, but the truth is..... I haven't posted a blog update in almost 2 weeks. I know, I know, you are all stunned and can't believe what you are reading. But it's true. I know it will be hard, but I am hoping that you can somehow find it in your hearts to forgive me.

What's that you say?? You have already forgiven me?? Gee shucks guys you are the greatest.

Well now that we are all on speaking terms again, I guess I should tell you about what has been going on. Things have been very productive at NHC recently. I have really been getting a lot of things accomplished, and I have been learning a lot from the entire NHC family.

My biggest project so far while I have been here is implementing a new system for keeping track of NHC's children on Sunday morning. Here is what I wrote about it a few weeks ago:

At Nags Head Church we are modifying the way that we sign children into the Nursery and Kids Church. The whole process is being moved from a paper system to a computer program that will keep track of everything for us. My big job last week was to set up a new kiosk with a touchscreen, scanner, and label printer, get everything working together smoothly, and design name tags that are printed off each time a parent signs their child in. We partially implemented the system on Sunday, and the full thing will be up and running by next Sunday at the latest.

This project has turned out to be somewhat more complicated than I anticipated in that last post. A few days after I posted it, the computer we were using completely failed. It is basically useless now. Fortunately, Bernie Staples graciously donated an old computer he had, and it works extremely well. The only problem was that the main check-in software did not want to install on the new computer. After a lot of frustration, we finally got it all working. This Sunday will be the official first test of the system. I will try to take pictures of it in action.

I also have been working on the iMac that we use in our auditorium to run our slides and post our podcasts. It has been having a lot of issues, and I have been figuring them all out. I was also able to upgrade the memory in it from 1GB to 4GB, which is really necessary for a computer that is running such demanding programs.

Some other things I have been doing:

Took down an old basketball hoop in the parking lot. It was rusted beyond use, and it was disintegrating in my hands while i was removing all of the screws.
Helped build walls in our new Kid's Zone. We have outgrown our old Kid's Zone, and so a much larger area is being built for them upstairs. See pictures here.
Washed the outsides of all the first-floor windows on the church building. Rick said he could see them shining from the road as he pulled in the next day. I was hoping for more of a shimmer, but I guess shining is okay too.
Designed a new slide to promote the NHC Young Adults beach volleyball. It is now part of the announcements slideshow that rolls every Sunday morning.

I have also been participating in the volleyball every Tuesday, and it is a blast! Everyone should come out and play. Note: You don't actually have to be a young adult. You only have to think that you are a young adult.
Youth group has also moved to the beach for the summer. The first half is beach games/swimming/surfing/volleyball/eating hot dogs/etc, and the second half is lesson time and small groups. It is 5-7pm on Sunday nights at the Bonnet St beach access. All students and parents are welcome.

Thats everything I can think of right now. This would be a lot easier if I wouldn't go 2 weeks without posting. I wonder what I could do about that. Any suggestions??

One last thing. NHC had an ocean baptism last Sunday, and it was awesome. If you haven't already done so, I recommend that you check out this video. It is very worth it, especially 2:50 to the end.

Matt

Sunday FlashBlitz

2009-06-06T18:04:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow is Sunday, and I still haven't posted about this past Sunday, so it is probably about time that I do that. Here is my write up for Sunday, May 31.

At Nags Head Church we are modifying the way that we sign children into the Nursery and Kids Church. The whole process is being moved from a paper system to a computer program that will keep track of everything for us. My big job last week was to set up a new kiosk with a touchscreen, scanner, and label printer, get everything working together smoothly, and design name tags that are printed off each time a parent signs their child in. We partially implemented the system on Sunday, and the full thing will be up and running by next Sunday at the latest.

I participated in the 9:00 worship gathering this week. The band started off by leading the songs Made to Worship, Your Grace is Enough, and Lincoln Brewster's new song God You Reign. The first time I ever heard God You Reign was when I first visited NHC back in March while on a weekend vacation. The beauty and truth of this song powerfully moved me, and I was glad to hear Nathan and the band present it again.

Rick brought a message from Exodus 15:22-27 entitled "How to Pass the Tests Along the Journey." Here are a few of my notes/thoughts:

The Christian journey is tempered with testing. To grow and mature in faith, you must be tested. I know this is true, and yet so often I complain to God when I know He is testing me. There are way too many times when things get hard, and I just want God to get me out. The thing is, I am supposed to be growing as a Christian, and that can't happen unless I thrive through the tests that God throws my way.

One of my favorite things Rick said: "You can't be a grumbler and complainer and move ahead." Enough said.

The normal Christian life is one that is growing and maturing and thriving. How many times have we referred to the "normal" Christians as the ones who are content with where they are in their spiritual journey, while the "exceptional" Christians are the ones who are really stepping out and trying to grow. This is completely backwards. Being a "normal" Christian means constantly growing and becoming more like Christ. Anything less is stagnant Christianity.

God can turn the bitter in life into sweet. Tests are hard. Tests are not fun. However, when we trust Christ and obey Him, we can excel through the most challenging times. When that happens, we grow and mature, and Christ is glorified in our lives.

The band closed with the songs You Do All Things Well and You Never Let Go.

During the 11:00 hour, I helped with Kidmo, but first I got recruited to help collect the offering in the main gathering. I got to learn how they do this at NHC, which was different than most churches I have been in. They only use 4 guys to collect from 3 sections as opposed to using 6 guys to do the same job, which I am more used to. Way to be efficient NHC.

Kidmo was fun, but I can't remember at all what the kids learned. I guess I should have taken notes.

I found out afterwards that the 9:00am Lil' K, which I helped with last week, was packed once again this week and they could have used more help. I think that I will help there again this Sunday, especially since there are so many boys in that class and they could use a guy helping out.

After church there was a new member's lunch that I went to, even though I'm not becoming a member (ok you got me. I went for the food.)

That was my Sunday morning. Tomorrow is Sunday again, and hopefully this time it won't take me so long to post my FlashBlitz. Tomorrow evening is Youth Group which will be meeting on the beach for the rest of the summer. I'm cool with that.

Matt

Night Swim

2009-06-04T23:10:00.008-04:00

I was bored at the house, so I decided to have some fun outside.

(Click on the pics to make them bigger)

Front of House

Back of House

Pool

I decided to play with the auto timer on my camera

Rethinking Worship

2009-05-27T22:02:00.002-04:00

For those of you who have never done this, I highly recommend reading Nathan Lawrenson's blog series entitled "Rethinking Worship." These will make you think about the things that we so often do and say when it comes to church and worship, and they will help those of you who are non-NHC members to get a perspective of how things are viewed here at Nags Head Church.

Death to the Worship Service!

Burn the Sanctuary!

Terminate the Worship Team!

Fire the Worship Leader!

Gag the Worship Leader!

Rick, the Lead Pastor at NHC, also has a great perspective about worship on his blog.

It's All Worship

Take the time to read these 6 posts. I think they are very worth it.

Matt

Sunday FlashBlitz

2009-05-27T19:54:00.003-04:00

In the spirit of being an NHC staff blogger, I have decided to do my own version of the Sunday Flashback/Sunday Blitz. Appropriately, it will be named Sunday FlashBlitz. Pretty original if I do say so myself.

This will be my write-up for this past Sunday, May 24, 2009.

During the 9:00 am gathering, I worked with the 4-6 year olds in the Lil' K program. I was supposed to work with the 7-12 year olds in the Kidmo program, but I got moved due to the number of 4-6 year olds that showed up. I was told that 5 preschoolers actually got turned away because we ran out of room. (Just today, the church got permits approved to build a larger preschool area, so hopefully that will get done quickly.)

Lil' K started with play time, and then moved into video time. The video was basically Christian Blues Clues. There was a guy that acted exactly like Steve, and a little K (i guess it was more like a "Lil' K") that hopped around and made funny noises. They searched for the secret item of the day, and sang a song about it while trying to figure out how it applied to today's lesson. I was honestly kind of annoyed by how directly it ripped off Blues Clues, but I guess it was okay since the kids enjoyed it.

The lesson was about Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. The kids were learning that since Jesus served people, we should serve people too. I'm not sure how well they understood the feet washing part, but I tried to make sure they understood the importance of serving. I asked them how they were going to serve somebody when they got home, and they said they would share their goldfish crackers with their siblings. I'm cool with that.

For the 11:00am gathering, I was in the main auditorium. I sat with some NHC college kids that I found.

The Milepost13 Band was joined by the NHC Worship Choir for the first few songs. One of the songs they sang, My Deliverer, was a new one for me. I think it is already becoming one of my favorites. The words are very true, and it was presented extremely well by the band. They also sang Today is the Day, and Revelation Song.

The teaching time was entitled Parting the Waters of the Impossible. It was part #14 of Rick's series through the Life of Moses. He went through the familiar story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. Here are some things that I took away from it:

We all have something that God can use. Yes, I already knew this, but I like the way Rick put it. What did Moses have that God used? A stick. Thats it. In Exodus 14:16, God says to Moses "Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground."(ESV) If God can use Moses' stick to part the Red Sea, then I think we have to admit that we must also have possessions that God can use.

We have to be willing to let God use those things. Here is a thought for you. What if Moses' response to the above verse had been different? What if his response had been, "Yep thats pretty funny God. There's no way I'm dumb enough to fall for that one." If that had been the case, the Red Sea would not have been parted, and the Israelites would have been killed. Instead, he trusted God, and allowed God to use Him.

The gathering ended with Bethany Dillon's song "Exodus" (a perfect song for the message) and "You are Good".

So that was my Sunday morning. That evening was my first NHC youth group, followed by a Memorial Day cookout on Monday evening. On Tuesday, I helped Andy with Children's ministry stuff. Today, I rode around with Rick in a U-Haul and helped him move stuff, followed by more Children's ministry back at the church. (Andy and I are putting together a cool new check-in station for Kid's Church that involves a touch screen and a barcode scanner. It's super awesome. Except for the fact that it is PC based. Thats lamo. But the rest is good.)

Matt

Weekend

2009-05-24T14:47:00.004-04:00

This weekend has been great. It started for me on Thursday, when I left Northern Virginia, and made my way down to the OBX. This drive, which should take 4 1/2 hours, can often take up to 8 hours depending on traffic. Fortunately, it was completely clear for me and I made great time. I arrived at my tiny little host home where I will be staying for the summer with Les and Carol Petrie. Here's a picture:

Ok so maybe it's not that tiny. Anyways, Carol and Les and great people, and I am very excited about staying with them. Their kids are all grown and married, meaning they are both in grandparent mode, and that I am getting the grandkid treatment,which I am completely okay with. They are a very Godly couple, and I can tell that I am going to learn a lot from them. They will also be reading this, so I have to make sure that they sound good : )

Thursday afternoon, I headed to the church where I met with Nathan (creative arts director) and Andy (youth pastor) to discuss my role for the summer. I will be kept very busy working primarily with the youth and children's programs, as well as with aspects of the creative arts program. After that was band practice and a dinner at the church for the Nags Head lifeguards.

Friday, I went shooting at the Outer Banks Gun Club with Les and his friend Jerry. I had shot many .22 rifles and bb guns as a Boy Scout, but I had never shot a pistol before, so it was a fun experience. Saturday, we went for an 8.7 mile bike ride, which was nothing for Les and Carol, but was about as much as I could do as someone who was riding a bike for the first time in a few years. Other than that, I have mostly just been eating lots of delicious food and watching hockey games. And trust me, hockey games look pretty good when you watch them on the TV I've been watching.

So as you can tell, my internship has been full of intense work so far. Ok so maybe it has been more like a beach vacation. My real work starts on Tuesday, so I will have much more interesting things to write about then.

Matt

How I Got Here

2009-05-23T22:45:00.003-04:00

Since I am interning at NHC this summer, I figured that I would explain the backstory on how I got here. Its a pretty simple story. You see, when a man and a woman love each other very much....

Oh wait, I guess I should be telling you how I got to NHC, not how I got to the world. My bad. Lets try this again.

I visited the OBX for a weekend in March with a big group of my friends. We wanted to go to church on Sunday, so we did a Google search for local churches. NHC was one of the many that we clicked on, and so after much prayer and fasting... Ok it was actually more like:

Me: "Hey this one says that they have contemporary music."

My friend: "Sweet lets go to that one."

Despite the super-unspiritualness of our decision, that Sunday morning ended up being a great experience (I would say life-changing, but that would be way too cliche). As soon as I walked in, I could tell that NHC was different (which is something that I have found out is very intentional). The people were just so friendly, and I felt very welcomed. Top that off with an excellent time of worship and teaching, and I walked away wishing that the gathering had lasted for another couple of hours.

After that, I kept thinking about the church. Finally, I got the idea that I wanted to intern at NHC for the summer so that I could learn what it is that makes them who they are. I emailed their Lead Pastor, Rick Lawrenson, with the proposal, and he emailed me back saying that I was crazy and that I should go find a real job.

Just Kidding. I found out that they had already been thinking about the idea of having an intern for the summer, and so he invited me down for a weekend visit. The weekend was great, and I came away being sure that I wanted to be at NHC this summer. I was lucky enough to stay with an awesome family, Randy and Ginny Holcombe. Randy has the same name as an NBA player, which is the reason he is awesome. And he is a super nice guy. Ginny has a store in Nags Head, so if you are ever in the area, check out Cloud Nine.

A week later, I got the word that everything worked out, and I could come on down. So now I am here, and I'm lovin it. Tomorrow I will post a review of my first couple of days.

Anyone else want to share their story about how they ended up at NHC?

Matt

Welcome

2009-05-23T21:41:00.004-04:00

Welcome to my first blog. For those of you who don't know, here is a little bit about me:

I am from Manassas, VA, where I have lived my whole life.
I am a junior at Liberty University, where I am majoring in Worship and Music Studies.
I am currently serving as an intern at Nags Head Church (NHC) in the Outer Banks of North Carolina

The goal of this blog will be to document my summer, as encouraged by the staff at NHC. I will try to write about pretty much everything important that happens, whether it be internship related or otherwise. Hopefully I will write things that are insightful and thought-provoking, but I can't make any promises.

To any NHC members who read this, feel free to leave a comment and introduce yourself (it will go a long way in helping me to remember your name).