Greater Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Favorite hymn/worship song:

"Days of Elijah” by Robin Mark and “Lord of the Dance” by Sydney Carter

Type of church context:

I grew up primarily in a small Evangelical Lutheran Church, but experienced Non-Denominational, Catholic, Methodist, Episcopal, and Baptist traditions throughout my youth and college years.

Commune:

I remember there always being a voice outside myself that I could look to and trust, which I identified as God during my early Sunday school years. It was through this connection that my reading of Scripture and listening to teachings in church would be confirmed or redirected as needed. Years later, it was watching my pastor stop mid-sermon or activity to listen and feel which way God was leading that I realized my relationship with God could be even more central to me than it was. Since then, I’ve endeavored to nurture and abide in this constant, daily conversation with God (with varying degrees of success, of course).

Create:

In terms of being inspired to create, I’ve felt led to abandon the traditional sermon-central church model at times. As I’ve tried to remain in tune with God’s daily leading, too often my schedule and expectations get in the way. I realized a lot of my time and resources were going to holding traditional church, often at the expense of meeting people in their needs. Instead I’ve tried to remain nimble to the Spirit’s leading, supporting churches and individuals without rigid expectations for what it should look like. This has led to creating interactive Sunday services, meditation and contemplation workshops, more engaging tithing experiences, and walking alongside troubled youth and adults. I continue to seek God’s leading in the future of His Church and support those who have found the prevailing model inadequate for the times.

Connect:

Christian community to me is an interpersonal connection that supersedes and undercuts all other societal norms and allegiances. It should be our first and primary identity, above all societal, cultural, and political affiliations. Though, this often isn’t the norm. Being what it is, Christian community to me is distinctly messy, in that doing it well is often quite stretching and uncomfortable. It calls us to sit with each other in ways that we normally wouldn’t endure. We’re bound together in Christ, and so cannot really go our separate ways without losing something of our Christian selves in the process.

Presently my Christian community is a scattered assortment of friendships and connections that come in and out of my life, but remain loosely connected through the digital world of email, text messages, and social media. I have a few close friends to confide in, both in person and digitally, but otherwise have occasional check-ins with a broad range of Christian brothers and sisters that helps keep me in tune with what God is painting with broader strokes. The downside to this is I’m less in tune with the smaller detail strokes He’s making locally in my community, but I hope to remedy this with stronger connections with local Christian neighbors as we settle into a new city in our current season. My hope as I go is to always encourage and be encouraged by those brothers and sisters I have the pleasure to meet along the way.

Articles written by Matt:

https://www.projectarctos.com/archive/tag/Matt+Reffie