A couple days I began looking at our staff & the roles they play at The Journey. You may or may not know all our staff, and you probably don't know what their roles at The Journey entail.
Matt Lewis is the Co-Lead Pastor at The Journey. Matt & Stephani & Jennifer & I launched The Journey (a long with a small group of crazy Jesus-followers) 10 years ago. Matt left a very successful youth ministry. We both had a dream to create a church that was about relationships, not religion and where people who were disconnected with Jesus would experience life connected to Him.
Matt is good at most everything (or at least it seems that way to me). He probably could open a restaurant tomorrow if he wanted. He's a very good and creative cook. Matt also has a great design eye, is a good communicator, is a great worship leader, and a very good strategic planner. Matt cares about the mission of Jesus and people. He is a driver - he gets things done.
Matt's role at The Journey has changed throughout the years. Originally Matt focused a lot of attention on youth ministry and leading the worship team. Matt also was the brain child of much of our creativity and in the early days taught himself how to shoot & edit video and do our print design and Sunday graphics. Did I mention he's good at a ton of things?!!
Now Matt's role has shifted again. Matt now oversees the creative elements at The Journey working closely with Aaron, our Worship Pastor. Matt does an incredible job of making sure that our vision bleeds into everything we do. He remembers a ton of things and makes sure our staff is all moving in the same direction. Matt leads our Staff meetings from week to week. Matt also has led the charge in getting the North on M-120 site off the ground. With the birth of that site, Matt is also speaking most the time now at one site or the other. Matt also helps to coach the North Network.
There are a million little pieces that hold the whole vision together and Matt has a great mind for keeping those in mind and helping us get from where we are now to where we need to go.
I'm so grateful for Matt and his leadership at The Journey and his partnership and friendship through the years as we've travelled this road together. It hasn't always been easy, and there have been moments when we saw things differently - but I wouldn't want to have done this without him, and I'm better because of him, and so is The Journey.
Not that he needs encouragement (at least that's what his personality profile says), but you might just want to give him a little love anyway for all he's done for the Kingdom here along the lakeshore!! Or just get him a gift card to Mia and Grace :-)