About Us

Matt

When you think of me, think driven, focused, and a bit awkward at times. I love Jesus and want so much for others to know the fulfillment, strength, and intimacy a relationship with Jesus can bring. I do love people. My personality, though, can be a bit abrupt and direct. I feel like I’ve been working on how to connect to people and have good relationships since I was a kid. I barely even talked at all before the eighth grade. For the longest time, I felt like I just couldn’t connect with others in a way that built lasting friendships. Yes, Jesus has changed me, but I still get insecure when I am around people that I do not know. (Truth? I still get insecure around people that I DO know!)
I am the husband of Jessica and the father of four boys (hoping to add a daughter soon). Being a husband and a father has been a tremendous challenge and challenged me with the changes that I didn’t necessarily want to make. Nonetheless, I am glad I am working on them. My life gets better and better with each challenge God has overcome through me.
I attended Oral Roberts University just down the street from where I grew up in the suburbs of Tulsa, Oklahoma. While attending ORU, I began coaching football at a local high school in 2001. Over the next decade, I coached in Mississippi, Florida, and finally back home at a school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Throughout my years coaching, I had the opportunity to win a State Championship and coach many great athletes who were able to play college and professional football.

RESOURCE

Here is one thing you can be certain of — relationships always bring conflict. God uses relationships as a mirror to show us the areas in our lives that He wants to enter and begin to work. Unfortunately, though we often focus mostly on the other person in the relationship – our spouse, our kids, or our friends. We find things that they do or say that we want to change. They may have attitudes and actions in their lives that need to change. BUT, God uses those things to reflect issues in our OWN lives that He wants to change IN US. Instead of submitting to the things God wants for us, we find ourselves trying to make other people change by force or by trickery. When we can’t get them to change, then we may find ourselves disconnecting from the relationship altogether. However, these choices are God’s plan. Rather, we are taking the relationship into our own hands trying in our own power to bring about a relationship that we think we want. All of this is indicative of trusting the wrong source of the relationship, ourselves. God is the source of close and connected relationships. First, He does a work in us and then in those around us.

RECENTER

When families face difficult challenges without the understanding of how God can work in their relationships, the fabric of their relationships begins to wear thin. As a result, we fight — each wanting the other person to change. This leads to relationships built on dominating, manipulating, and capitulating. But these are not the type of relationships that God wants for us. Nor are they fulfilling or enjoyable. God wants us to have relationships where we submit ourselves one to another (Ephesians 5:21). How do you submit to others when you have important expectations that you want fulfilled? At the Fighting for Families ReCenters, we teach you how to interact with your spouse, your children or your friends based on God’s expectations. Through these Biblical principles, you’ll find that not only are your relationships more fulfilling and enjoyable, you end up getting the best relationship you could have – the one that God has for you.