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Ministry News

My message didn’t get recorded

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

My message last night at The Rock on “Faith and Forgiveness (or Jesus Goes Ballistic) did not get recorded. Our sound man didn’t show up so Luke VG had to run sound and neither him nor Paul knew how to operate our recording gear. They didn’t realize until I was about to start […]

Latest Rock Teachings finally online!

Monday, February 5th, 2007

We have finally resolved the system problems that were keeping us from being able to upload the most recent Rock Teaching series on the book of Mark. Go get them while their hot!

Mark 1:1-13 - Craig McClannahan Mark 1:14-2:14 - Matt Heerema Mark 2:15 to 3 - Craig McClannahan Mark 3 - Craig McClannahan

You can also have […]

Recent Changes in The Rock Music Ministry

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007

I have no picture to go with this post!! Why aren’t people taking photos at The Rock anymore??

You probably already have noticed some changes going on with the lineup of bands at The Rock on Friday night, and I wanted to take a bit and explain what’s going on.

The Lone Strangers (or one form of […]

Godbit Project Features RockISU.com

Thursday, January 18th, 2007

The Godbit Project did a kind review of rockisu.com

The first thing that grabs your attention when visiting the site is the texture. I love the way the look of ruggedness intermixes with the clean lines. The two conflict yet compliment each other, for a sort of modernly urban feel. The next thing that […]

Music For The Christmas Season

Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

As a worship leader (lead worshiper, music leader, whatever) for our church, the coming advent season is always an enigma to me. The following is an article I wrote over at RockWorship.com, reposted here for your benefit.

What in the world is a modern-rock / alternative service style church supposed to do around the Christmas […]

Friday night weather

Thursday, September 21st, 2006

I was just checking the forecast and I noticed that tomorrow is Friday and it doesn’t look too nice out. Then I realized how many awesome Friday nights in a row we had for having The Rock outside at the terrace! Wow, God! Thanks for blessing us!

(r)evolve is Almost Here!

Sunday, May 28th, 2006

The Lone Strangers’ latest, a record of 10 of our favorite praise songs from The Rock and Stonebrook is almost here. Pat posted a sampler clip on his blog that has gotten me really excited.. The album is currently off being mastered, and then to be pressed (in the mean time we are […]

Far From The Cross

Monday, April 10th, 2006

T.J. and Kirsten have been discussing the Rock’s vision of reaching those who are “far from the cross”, on their blogs. Great discussion. I’m linking to it here so I don’t forget to read it. :)

Jesus the Nice Guy, and Other American Myths

Monday, April 10th, 2006

Last night at The Rock I spoke about Jesus. A huge topic, true. I mostly just focussed on the “Blessed are the meek” aspect, and tried to define what he’s saying when he means “meek”. Give it a listen.

Jesus The Nice Guy, and Other American Myths (14MB mp3)

Dan Shea did an amazing […]

Name That Album

Friday, March 17th, 2006

The Lone Strangers are CURRENTLY in the studio (aka, Stonebrook Church’s auditorium) recording. (Check them out on their Web cam when they are there…)

We need a name for the album. Current suggestions are:

Noise Shout of Love The Stonebrook Sessions Things Have Happened

Got a better idea? Or at least an idea? Leave a comment.

God on Porn

Wednesday, March 15th, 2006

I’ve had a few questions since my message on Porn message. Namely “what does God / the Bible have to say about it”.

I wrote up a little piece about it on my other blog, and will probably include it in part 2 of my message a week from this Friday.

Check it out.

Porn in church

Monday, March 6th, 2006

This last week I spoke at the Rock about Pornography. You can listen to the message here (25 mins, 11mb-ish .mp3).

Overall I thought it went fairly well. It’s gotten an interesting reaction so far, and from what I hear, as I hoped, it has stirred much conversation.

I decided to split the message into […]

Leading Worship at the Rock

Friday, December 2nd, 2005

This pretty much sums up what leading worship tonight felt like for me:

It was a strange night.

Video Blog 3: ELG Day 2

Wednesday, November 9th, 2005

Probably the most boring one yet :) Didn’t have much of a chance to record video througout today as we were busy drinking from the fire hose. So we just recapped some of the highlights we took from the evening.

[flash]http://www.mattandnancy.org/media/elg-day2.swf, 280, 240[/flash]

Jeremiah 9:23-24, Ephesians 4

Also, had several complaints that flash video isn’t working […]

Video Blog 2: ELG Day 1

Tuesday, November 8th, 2005

Here is a summary of our day so far. Paul says I am spending too much time on this. Could be :), but it’s fun.

Also, because I’m a jerk, you need to upgrade to Flash Player 8 to see the video and not just hear the audio. :) It’ll only take […]

Video Blog 1: Live from ELG

Tuesday, November 8th, 2005

Well, not exactly live. Enjoy.

[flash]http://www.mattandnancy.org/media/elg-welcome2.swf, 280, 240[/flash]

Emerging Leaders Gathering, Noel Heikinnen

New Rock Poster - Shameless

Wednesday, October 5th, 2005

This will soon be plastered all over campus. We’ve been doing this series all semester long, and are finally getting around to putting a poster up about it :)

Ames Rock to Shreveport, LA - a news release… of sorts…

Monday, September 12th, 2005

We all sat and watched in shock as the Gulf Coast was pounded by hurricane Katrina. We followed the news in horror as the story of the ensuing chaos and devastation unfolded. We felt helpless. So we decided to go.

Several members of Mars Hill church in Iowa City and Stonebrook Community […]

A rose by any other…

Monday, April 25th, 2005

So… what should we call the new building we are working on for The Ezekiel Project?

Brainstorm your idea’s on Tim’s blog.

First inclinations:

-Zeke’s (thanks Angie Frerichs) -The Rock -Curtiss ++ -[something X-treme, or anything where you replace “ex” with X] -Strangers

By the way. My title was no cliche. It occurs to me that no matter what we call this, […]

What I think.

Monday, April 25th, 2005

Per Tim’s suggestion on my post linking to the various articles about One (and Tom Short) in the Daily today, I am going to respond with what I think.

On the lead editorial “Poor planning made ‘1′ controversial“

Catholics, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists and other churches have a significant student presence and were not adequately involved by the […]