Special Note: Today I am taking part in a blog series on Prodigal Magazine. You should check out the other articles from a list of incredible bloggers. You can submit you own article there as well. Just visit: prodigalmagazine.com/living-story

The Beginning

You know, the biggest difference between a journalist and a storyteller is their attitude toward finding the rest of the story. Just like the difference between a writer and a would-be writer’s attitude towards revisions.

For the majority of my career in TV News, I walked a tight robe dangling above the mass media complex doing things differently, avoiding the typical; in search for the real. To buck the norm, I started writing and editing the middle of story first in hopes that it would allow me to answer this question “how can I allow the audience to leave with a lasting impression?” I would go so far as to wrap adventure, romance, and humility into all of my stories.

Line by line.    Shot by shot.    Graph by graph.    Sound-byte by sound-byte.

I did this to suspend disbelief to follow the hero of the story and how they triumphed over unambiguous antagonists from city council or Capitol Hill.

I became very good at it. I wasn’t playing with plot gimmicks tricking viewers into something other than fact or what played out in front of my lens. Rather I wanted the audience to see the beauty of humanity, see the extra-ordinary in the ordinary, and to leave people thinking.

Since 2005, I’ve been left thinking about a change in my story. I was at my zenith. Traveling the world, leading a great group of photojournalists, my news division had rocketed from being an after thought, to being among the best staffs in TV for storytelling.

The Middle

Things were good as the cobblestone line streets of Rome were barely lit by the sun as it set set behind the stone plaza known as St. Peters Square. Shortly after sunset the narrow entry-ways into the square became clogged from people gathered as the Basilica bells tolled. The papal apartment sealed off as mourners fell to their knees. Standing there, you could not help but turn your eyes to the heavens knowing Pope John Paul had just passed away.

I went through the motions of covering and assembling crews throughout the weeks coverage. One night, I was invited to view Pope John Paul with Cardinal McCarrick the Archbishop Emeritus of Washington. Given a minute apiece it was hard to collect your thoughts surrounded by the golden domes of St. Peter’s Basilica – Bernini’s Alter and Michelangelo’s Pietâ and in the middle of all of that beauty laid a man filled with humility and who was so beloved. Something began happen to me personally during my time there, while at the moment I would call it shock. It wouldn’t be until I was somewhere between Eastern Europe and New York where it would hit me. When it did, it hit me like a brick to the chest at 45,000 feet. It was almost a moment of clarity, where everything in ones life comes in focus.

It’s that plot turn. It was God writing the middle of story first in hopes that it would answer the question “how can I leave an lasting impression on Matt?”

I sat there in my seat on bound for Chicago and realized life was a series of moments that are strung together that make up our existence. Just like in a story there is that one moment, a definite period that changes the course of events. I realized I needed to do more with my life.

In the years that proceeded I walked away from TV News, moved my family to a small town and entered ministry. Nothing about this was easy. Matter of fact everything about it was hard. I had to give up a way of life, for something that was forcing me to be meek and mild.

I battled God in this time.  I’m not proud of it.  It wasn’t fair that I put him through that or myself for that matter. I just didn’t fully know what was going.  I was not in control, something the storyteller in me likes to be.  I remembering one day coming home to an empty house and screaming out loud to Him:

“God what are you doing, why are you torturing me here… why are you holding me back and what are you wanting from me.”

Nothing happened.    No voice.    No sign.    No parting of the clouds.    No gong.    No cymbal.    Just silence.

Then one day. After what felt like eternity. The phone rang. There was a job offer back in TV News. The next day the phone rang with another job offer. What played out was probably the worst period of my life. Every time I turned around I had a job offer. It felt like I was playing “Lets Make a Deal.”

Do I choose door number 1 or 3?    Maybe 6 or 10?

Then I felt like I had found the right fit. The pay, the city, everything was perfect. I was about to except, what would have been my dream job when I read this line in my Bible: “Faithful is He who calls you…don’t forget what He has called you to do.”

The End

Robert Frost said a “poem beings with a lump in the throat.” I believe that stories should end with the lump in the throat.

I realized God was faithful to me, but I was not faithful to him. See when I left my career in TV, I gave only 90% of my heart to him, because I feared I would fail at following my calling from Him. I knew if I couldn’t make it work, I could at least go back to my previous life. I was trying to write my own story and in many ways write my ending first. God showed me that he would provide if I wanted to go back to my previous life, if I didn’t want to follow what he had called me to do.

I believe the biggest difference between a Christian and a Christ follower, is their attitude on how they follow.

I gave Him the remaining 10% and since my life has been far from predictable, but I have been blessed immensely. I know that I’m under His authority and that I’m writing a story that He would be proud of… though it still has me thinking about what will my ending be.

Have you tried to control your life? Have you learned to appreciate the extraordinary in life… and God?

The work of art which I do not make, none other will ever make.

Did you ever get a feeling, have a strong inclination or hear a voice urging you to choose a certain path and discover something unexpected? There always comes a time in life when you find yourself at a fork in the road. Do you go down the road less traveled or the one which has been paved?

I have always have chosen the road less traveled, partly because I thrive in adversity and have a pioneering spirit. I have found in my life, life can be a series of thousands upon thousands of forks in the road. When you strip life down to its core, it’s all about making one choice after another. Add up all your choices and there’s your life. Life IS a fork in the road.

While covering the Death of Pope John Paul II in Rome, something happened to me. Something Big. Sitting on the plane as we returned after the Papal Conclave, God put a call on my life to use my talents to help the Kingdom. I really didn’t know what that looked like, nor how to go about making something like that happen; my life to that point was spent in Broadcast News and sitting in a pew on Sunday Mornings. God had a plan. Dana and I took the road less traveled when an opportunity from a church in rural Oklahoma called. That move was the hardest move we ever had to make, but it taught us so many things.

Three years a go my family joined Lawton First, a church birthed out of the great depression. It was a time of great excitement and change. I’ve spent the last few years helping the re shape it’s brand, develop a social media strategy to continue the conversation between Sundays, and most importantly develop a strong culture of storytelling. Those achievements pale in comparison to what God has done in the last three years and is continuing to do in our congregation and city.

Today with bittersweet emotions we let our Lawton First family know I would be stepping down from my role as the Director of Communications. It was a decision that we did not come to lightly, but a decision backed by God.

And after much conversation, prayer and fasting, I am excited to announce that I will be joining the team at Fellowship Technologies / Fellowship One in Irving, TX where I’ll be working as the Creative Director in the Marketing Department. I’m thrilled to be joining the team and working with my great friends there. Additionally, I have begun to work on a book with prospects it will be released next year, as well I plan on continuing to help the Church through speaking, consulting, and freelancing through Good World Creative.

While we venture down this new road, I know the next few weeks will be sentimental as we leave some of our closest friends, but we are very excited to see how God is going to use us in the future of sharing the story of Fellowship One and the Church.

Where do you think the church is when it comes to identification of relevance, community, engagement, and convenience?

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today. Yet what is the church missing when it comes to storytelling?

If you were to write a book… who would be your mentor?

I mentioned the other day that I sensed that I was slipping into a creative purgatory and there seemed to be a lot of noise in my life, and all of this is happening when my creativity is at it’s zenith.  Isn’t it funny that when all is most right with the world, the most unthinkable disasters descend upon us.  I’ve done some soul searching the last day or so and really feel to keep from slipping into creative black hole I need to simplify.

I started thinking of the story of the mighty sequoia trees in the Pacific North West.  They stand almost 400 years old and 240 feet high—as tall as some of the highest buildings in Spokane!  But a few years ago, one of them toppled over for no apparent reason.  No windstorm, fire, flood, or ice.  No insect damage.  The conclusion: foot traffic.  People walking around the base of the tree had damaged the root system and contributed to the collapse.  Park officials since fenced some of the oldest and largest trees to keep the public from trampling the root systems of these giants.

The plight of the sequoia tree is merely a metaphor for my life and your life.  These great trees lived for hundreds of years withstanding everything mother-nature could throw at them, yet they can’t survive when there is no protection—no sacred enclosure around their root systems.  I think I need, we need, a sacred enclosure too—an inviolable time to protect my art and my creativity because without that, my roots get trampled, my art suffers.  I need time to listen and focus.  Bottom line is I’m over stimulated and have allowed the noise to take root in my mind.

What do I hope to achieve? In our efforts to live the ‘good life’, it’s easily to find ourselves overwhelmed by seemingly endless choices, checklist of tasks, decisions and activities.  I hope to slow down, and give time to remember who I am and what’s really important in my life.  And as I simplify, I hope to begin to listen intently my inner creative voice more and allow my creativity to flourish.

How am I going to do it? This will be my last blog post for the foreseeable future, additionally I will be logging off of Twitter and Facebook, and I will be going 100% analog. Of course, because of the nature of our world and communication, I will have my wife @danaknisely check all of my communication platforms and relay information and correspondence.  If you need to get hold of me, feel free to email me.

For the last few weeks there has been a lot of fighting, arguing, with myself trying to seek the truth.  Can I be honest with you… I mean really honest with you?  Over the last few months I have been slipping into a creative purgatory.  To be frank, I feel at times I’m treated more like a machine spitting out domesticated creativity than really producing something truly meaningful from my inner depths.  Sadly I’ve been relegated towards people thinking creative excellence is a high-powered faucet that can be turned on and off at will.  I fear becoming a widget.  There’s nothing fun about being an appliance, unless your an espresso machine.  I’m not a shiny machine that people jostle in-front of in wonderment of my golden, tinkling display of mechanized, electronic joy!  Seriously, machines are predictable and boring; that’s not me.

Yet every day, I feel like I’m fighting the status quo and the willingness to come against the fear and apathy that wants to keep me in a place of living beneath my potential.  I feel that my creative soul has been ripped away from me.  What can one do?

Should we shun the counsel of the world to avoid trouble whenever possible?

“Learn to accept in silence the minor aggravations, cultivate the gift of taciturnity, and consume your own smoke with an extra draft of hard work, so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and soot of your complaints.” – William Osler

The Israelites crossed the Red Sea after God parted the water.  Then they spent the next forty years wandering in the desert before they crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land.  They should have been able to make the journey in about eleven days.  Why did it take so long?

When we read the story, we discover that one of their major issues was complaining.  Instead of remembering the victory of the Red Sea crossing, they complained.  They complained about the food and the conditions and their leader and each other.  Is that why it took so long?