An amazing project I worked on with some dear friends.

What happens when a city boy, with a pocket full of sermons, lands in a Scottish parish?

"This is the story of the places and people who taught me the pace of being known. My desire to modernize the church ground to a halt in a Scottish parish. But the first speed bump occurred in a class with Eugene Peterson, which I expected to be fresh and innovative. Instead our textbooks were dated and the lectures slow. My concern was for the future of the church. We didn't need to slow down, the church needed to catch up!

"The second speed bump was arriving in Scotland for further education, and putting aside my dreams to plant a church. Instead, I found myself pastoring a small Scottish parish which had been founded 1600 years earlier, by St. Ninian. That’s when I discovered I had entered a new seminary -  the school of the parish - and my teachers were the parishioners and their ordinary lives. By God’s grace and the patient mentoring of a mature congregation, I began my real formation not just as a pastor, but as a human being."

After thirteen years in Scotland, Matt and his family answered a call to return to their roots and pastor a church in Wenatchee, Washington. Together with the congregation they are translating what parish life looks like in a modern American setting.