Hello. My name is Matt Bailey, former youth pastor now serving at a non-profit ministry called RightNow Media in McKinney, TX. We provide bible study, discipleship, and leadership resources for churches, para church ministries, and businesses all over the world. We’re known as the “Christian Netflix.”
My wife Katy and I have three kids, Morgan, Howard, and Nora. I love my family. Everyday I am a better follower of Christ, father, husband, leader, and all around human being because of them. Having three kids before you turn 30 in today’s western world is tough (and you get weird looks from your peers too…lol), but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love the challenge!
After finishing my B.A. in Speech and Communications (with a minor in history) from Louisiana Tech University in 2009, I moved to Dallas, TX for a fresh start. I enrolled in full time classes at Dallas Theological Seminary to begin my seminary training. 4.5 years later, married and excited about ministry, I finished with a Masters in Theology (a different degree from when I started) in 2013.
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Growing up in a rather large and prosperous United Methodist church in Louisiana, my view of God and religious life was grand and deep. Upon finishing high school and going to college I had a crisis of faith that led me to leave the United Methodist denomination and seek refuge in a nondenominational church community. I have no personal quarrels with the Methodist faith…though a few doctrinal ones. I still have many close friends who are Methodists, including much of my extended family back in Louisiana. I believe my journey of faith has led me to my current belief and way of life for a purpose that neither negates other denominations nor elevates my own. I feel I am simply better suited to serve Jesus Christ here, than I am there. That is all.
That brings us here. My story is marked by the very thing that defines me, my humanity. For me that existence is in a suburban world of ordinary. Plain…comfortable…vanilla…predictable. But no matter how boring my life looks from your perspective, I still with the same bad decisions, lustful thoughts, and periods of doubt that are both a plague and a blessing that has shaped all of us for thousands of years. I’m simply “navigating the jungles of ordinary…one block at a time.”
In this ordinary environment I live, too often we don’t want to ask difficult questions and hear their difficult answers. So my challenge for us is what I call a 5 minute conversation when I simply ask, “Are you willing to have an open and honest 5 minute conversation about your life?” This site serves to accomplish that and challenge us to examine our lives in a way that we might not have before. I pray that the struggle of my humanness brings hope to fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and answers to those who are still seeking.
I hope you enjoy what I have to say.
*The thoughts on this site are my own and do not represent any official position of my church, RightNow Media, or any organization I am affiliated with.
Emergence of the Soul 