Julian: Hi Matt! I’d love to learn more about your background. What work do you do and how long have you been here at Sutton Vineyard?
Matt: So I work for a housing association in communications and marketing. I'm married to Carys, and we have a little boy called Reuben, who's two and a half. I think we're coming up to about five years at Sutton Vineyard. That's gone very quickly which is incredible.
Julian: That's awesome. How do you find moments of spiritual growth in connection with God in the middle of working full time, being a spouse, raising a small child, and the way that you serve in church?
Matt: If I'm being completely honest, balance can be a hard thing to find when life is really busy with work commitments, with family commitments. But I think particularly over the last year, we’ve been a bit more intentional with letting God be part of our day to day life rather than just trying to book in specific God time at the end of the day or the start of the day, which can often not happen depending on naps or depending on other things.
It's about being present. In a practical sense I drive to work, so it's ensuring that for those 45 minutes I've got a talk or a podcast or some worship music or a playlist lined up. In terms of doing bedtime with Reuben, we factor in prayer time and Bible story. In terms of our time together as a family, it's also kind of incorporating reflection, prayer, maybe some worship. And that's been really quite a tangible way of staying connected.
Julian: I really love that because so often you can feel the need to schedule God in a little bit like, okay, here's my faith, here's my family life, here’s my work life. We can be a little bit boxed-in by that. I love the way you let that sort of bleed across, is that a fair way of describing it?
Matt: Yeah, and some of it is just because it has to be that way. I think over the last year in particular, it's just become a bit more of a staple in our lives.
Julian: Last year we spent a fair bit of time talking about growing up in the faith. We talked about foundations and the things that build the body of Christ, but we believe that happens for a reason. We believe that we're built up for a purpose. What are some of the ways that you have found to serve God with your gifts and talents?
Matt: So I serve on three teams. We run a small group that meets at our house on Thursdays, which has been a humongous blessing. We've really seen God move especially over the last year and actually just thinking about small group, that's been the biggest area we've seen. Being able to just wait on the Holy Spirit with a group of people and to pray into things and see God move and track how God has blessed us, has been wonderful.
From an AV team perspective, I really enjoy being able to use some of my skills to do things behind the scenes that make church happen. It feels like a real natural extension of who I am and some of my work life.
Then from a Welcome team perspective, I like a chat. Connecting to people, having conversations, being a friendly face is great and I love it.
Julian: So here's the thing. You're working full time, but also you're able to do something unique in the moment. Recently you've been able to give a day from time to time to serve on the Lighthouse Team. How did that come about and how does it help you extend the table?
Matt: Firstly, Lighthouse is amazing and the team that serve there are just wonderful.
I'm very fortunate that where I work I get volunteering days. I get three volunteering days a year to support various causes and I've used my time over the last year to volunteer at Lighthouse. In terms of what I've seen, I definitely went in with not zero expectations, but maybe not fully understanding how Lighthouse blesses the community, and I was blown away the first time.
I was just like, wow, this is just God moving in a very practical way, helping people, you know, being the hands and feet in the wider community. In terms of how it's extended, you know, it's just faith in action.
There's one particular story that stood out from the last time I was there. It was raining and we prayed in the storeroom and reflecting on our current stock. We were running low on buggies, in particular double buggies. About half an hour into Lighthouse a couple came and dropped off many things, including a double buggy. It was wet, so we took it into the back and dried it off. Maybe within 15, 20 minutes a family turned up and said, we really need a double buggy. I remember saying it’s not even dry, it's still got rain on it. Being able to bless the family with that was just, it’s just amazing.
I think that that articulates the power of Lighthouse and the power of God moving through that space.
Julian: That's incredible. The other question is like serving on ministries is not just about mid-week activities. These are formal ways as a church that we're able to be outward looking and serve our community. But it also extends to how we share our faith in our everyday lives. How does this look for you?
Matt: It's definitely evolved as I've got older and family life has changed.
I think the kind of pivotal thing of all of it is, it's not secret.
It's not a hush hush thing when I share with friends or colleagues about what I do on a Sunday. I'm very fortunate that I grew up in a Christian family. So that was always kind of a given. People knew where we were on a Sunday or a Friday evening or Tuesday evening or whatever.
But I think as I've got older and it's become kind of my own more personal faith, it's been about kind of articulating the ‘so what’ factor. For example, we have a neat group of friends that we met when we were expecting Reuben and we shared quite openly about how we've been blessed through meal rotas through Sutton Vineyard, which is a fantastic way of showing love to people.
And we've then tried to pass that practice on. Some of the people who we’ve met in NCT group, I remember one of the couples being like “Why do you do this? Like, that's so nice. Like who, why, why would anybody do this?” It's just to me, it's just kind of showing some love. And then that leads on to conversations about church or about our faith or, you know, what we do on a Sunday or what we do on a Thursday or various other day throughout the week. That's been really important.
But then I think in a slightly more difficult way, it's sometimes for me harder to share really constructive or tangible things about your faith or intangible about your friends and family that know you a little bit more and maybe who don't have a faith. And that's the area over the last year, which has been a real area of growth.
So in terms of praying for family members or praying into their lives, more sharing talks or words or things like that. And that's the thing that I'm really interested to see God extend in terms of my faith.
Julian: So now just thinking about the fact that you've been here for five years serving in different ways, but working full time, what would you say to somebody who's hearing some of these stories feels they can't give up a working day to serve in this way. What would you say is something that would spur them on in helping be the church and helping embody their faith?
Matt: It's interesting question because Carys and I were talking about that last night, because we are sometimes quite time poor as a family. And I would say firstly, just do it.
I think in terms of your relationship with God, you will see blessings that you don't even know. And in some sense it's kind of the least that we can do if we are part of the kingdom, the least we could do is give back to the kingdom.
And it may be uncomfortable, maybe time consuming, but actually what you will experience as a result is unfathomable.
In a tangible sense for those who are kind of wondering about, oh, I wonder what team to serve on. No, I'm not sure where my skills fit or I don't feel like I'm very good or I don't fit into that box. I think try and lean into your natural gifts and it doesn't feel necessarily like it's so much of a thing.
Julian: That's wonderful Matt, thank you.