Matt Smallbone

Hey guys,

I’ll be back in a week.

Matt

A couple of days ago I blogged that I had joined the Newsboys. It was April 1st and I thought that it would make for a good laugh. It did. I have never had my blog visited by so many folks!

In the process I learned some valuable things:

1. People wish the Newsboys had a bass player

2. People do think that I look like Phil Joel.

3. People do not read your entire blog. A number of people congratulated me on my ‘new job’ (including a bald, patriotic American Idol finalist… who is plotting revenge for April 1, 2011).

4. The Michael W. Smith Friends Online community watch me like a hawk!

When you think about it… pranking someone on April Fools Day is fairly lame. It’s pretty much the only day in the year when amateur pranksters like myself have a go. I’m surprised anyone believed me for even for a second.

Did I enjoy the experience?

Mostly… but not really.

I did feel a bit like a tabloid star at times… and that made me feel uncomfortable. It is strange having people that you don’t know so interested in your life.

I have never met her… but I bet that Britney Spears is a very strong person. She would have to be. I can barely handle this kind of attention once a year.

Smalls

I wanted you guys to be the first to know. The following press release is going out today, April 1, 2010.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Matt “Smalls” Smallbone, Aussie bass player has been added to the fluid line-up of the Newsboys.

“It was time for the guys to start using a real bass player, and I have the right accent and look a lot like Phil Joel”, says the ever humble Smalls.

It is a brave move for a young man who currently shares the stage with Michael W. Smith, the biggest name in Christian Music ever.

“I can see that some may question my sense in trading my Secret Ambitions for Breakfast in Hell. I understand the sentiment”, says Smalls, “but it is April Fools Day”.

HAHAHAHAHA.

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY EVERYONE.

Please comment this post with any great pranks that you have pulled off in your time. I know that this probably doesn’t rank with the greatest of all time… but I am in a creative lull at present… so send in some great ones to make up for it.

Have a great day!

Smalls

I’m glad for grace.

If it weren’t for grace I’d be getting some serious ‘homeschooling karma’ headed in my direction.

Over the last 15 years or so I have told more homeschooling jokes than I should have. I even created a homeschooling character ‘Nathaniel’ who had a gummy/ toothy grin and a ‘glass half full’ approach to everything. He showed up at about every party that I attended in the early 2000s.

Part of Nathaniel’s repartee is that he can see the positive side of everything. Nathaniel is super-sweet and uses the word ‘awesome’ a lot. If he was picked last for the home school soccer team, he says  things like:

“My mum says that the other kids didn’t pick me first because they really wanted me to be the goalie”.

and

“Home school is harder than real school, it only takes 2 hours to do all of your work and then you can play X-box for the rest of the day”.

Sometimes, I amuse my friends by pretending to dance at the home school disco.

Shame on me.

My home school jokes became even funnier when I married a home schooler. My wife grew up on a 25000ish acre property in south-west Queensland and home schooling was pretty much her best and only option. (She went to a private boarding school when she was 12… which is where we met! Can you spot us in the above pic?)

Our eldest boy will probably start school in September 2010… so we are standing on the edge of the biggest parental decision that we will have made thus far. Mary and I were both teachers in our pre- USA life… and the education of our children is becoming all we talk about after dark. It is a mother’s prerogative to worry about the education of her children and we are both uncertain of the right way forward.

Here’s the thing…

I loved school. I played heaps of sport at school (which was great for my self-esteem). I met my wife at school. I learnt to resolve conflicts at school. I realized that not everyone shared my belief system at school. I began to understand world view stuff at school. School prepared me for University which taught me about complex reasoning, and this alone was worth the 4 years and $15000.

My schooling years were very happy years for me.

However, I now find myself in Springhill, TN… where none of our friends send their kids to public school. NONE of them. I have found myself shutting my mouth at parties where I have heard discussions about the evils of the education system. With every school shooting that occurs my resolve weakens. Nathaniel barely makes an appearance any more.

What to do? We have about 6-months to decide.

In a purely ‘theological sense’ I lean towards public school. It seems like the ‘salt and light’ principles outlined in the gospels suggest that we need to be involved in the real world. My kids are on loan from above… and I know that I have to raise them so that they too can be salt and light in a sad world. I want them to be world changers. I don’t want them to fear evil. I want them to fear God.

My greatest criticism of church 2010 is that we it has become a ‘fortress’ rather than a ‘force’. We hide away in our four walls and hope that sin won’t find us. I blame this way of Christian thinking on the downfall of society. We need to be brave. We need to season the world around us. We can’t do that when we hide away. We can’t expect our kids to be salt and light if we protect them from all sin.

Now… I realize that there are many folks who home school for reasons outside of fear. I just don’t feel like I have met too many people for which this isn’t a primary motivator. I would love to hear from you.

However… I do know of a family where the homeschooling has been incredibly fruitful. Rebecca St James is my cousin and the eldest of 7-home schooling kids who are all healthy types who will probably all self-actualize at some point. Helen (mum St James) is the most influential woman in our USA lives… and she absolutely nailed it. Her kids are fearless and world changers.

This is gonna be a long 6-months as we figure this out….

I had to learn the following poem in the 4th grade at Crow’s Nest State School.I still know it by memory. Enjoy…

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling