Life & Work with Matt Rose

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Rose.

Matt, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I moved around A LOT when I was a kid… probably 17 times by the time I turned 17. Naturally, that created a sense of instability that kept me anxious and wanting to fill whatever was lacking in me… more friends, more success, more stuff… more clout. Because surely adding social status would make me feel understood and magically filled up. Right? Like many who have moved around a lot, I never felt like I fit.

All the southerners around me in Texarkana, AR loved my California birth certificate (psych). All my SoCal family members enjoyed emphasizing my southern accent as they pondered whether “ArkanSAW” was a state. The fact is, I never felt truly at home. As I grew up, I realized that no one feels heard, understood, or truly “at home”. They may have a home, a community, and even an extended family that exhaustively uses family reunions to remind people where they came from, but even then, most struggle to feel a genuine connection with others in their lives.

My story started taking shape in high school when I opened the Bible (yup…. the Bible… just got real spiritual on everyone) and realized for the first time that my present loneliness and fears about the future were universal and, at the same time, solvable. It clicked to me (in 9th grade of all places) that no amount of moving, staying, studying, working, networking, clout chasing, or even investing would provide me any more peace than I started with. It was only in revolving my life around something greater than myself that I would find the peace and purpose I wanted from this life. So I jumped on the Jesus train and have been following Him ever since.

One thing that has always been weird about me… but super helpful… is my inability to disconnect my beliefs from my actions (You might think this isn’t weird, but it makes for some awkward social conversations once in a while). What I mean by this is that, for example, I can’t be in my Netflix queue without thinking about how it relates to my relationship with Jesus, which made it pretty weird when watching a Game of Thrones episode.

It also means that I’m good at puns, which helps with preaching I guess. [On a side note, if I wrote a book of Dad jokes called Corporeal “Pun”ishment, would y’all buy it? For real… I need to know] While I joke about it, this activity of constantly connecting one thing to another has caused a near impenetrable desire to match what I believe with what I do and say, which brings me to my point… What’s wrong with that? Yet we all struggle with a prominent gap between our dreams and reality! What happened is… many forgot their dreams and settled for less than they wanted and less than God had for them.

I became a pastor in 2012 (gosh, I’m so old now), married Hanna the same year, had two kids (Lukas and Mikah), and have been (essentially) waiting for my purpose to come together. Even in… especially in the church, I have seen people struggle through pain, loss, transition, addiction, insecurities, infidelities, and a million other issues. In every case, every person simply wants someone else to understand where they are at and help them get to the place where they have a greater level of peace… and a bigger reason to push through the struggles.

My job is to help them close the gap between their current reality and their dreams. I believe Jesus is the solution, the gap-filler if you will. I guess it was in September 2021… Hanna and I were on the way back from Iceland–That’s where you go to think and dream btw– when everything culminated for me. I’ve been in big churches, small ones, deep churches, and accessible ones. Through those experiences, I have come to realize one major thing: The church is a pathway, not the destination. In other words, I can go to church my whole life, but never introduce Jesus for the rest of my life.

This is where my awkward character trait (described above) meshes positively with a possible solution. What if we ran a church in such a way that encouraged people to find God in every part of their life, rather than compartmentalizing him to Sundays? The Netflix queue, the dog park, the job site, the off-site, the hiking trail, the biker bar, the family dinner, the daily commute… I can keep going…. the kid’s sports, the PTA meeting, the football game, the shopping spree, the hotel room, and the c-suite. Every part.

At that moment, my wife and I decided to build a church for people to start revolving their lives around Jesus. What if revolving your life around Jesus is the better route? The route to peace, the beginning of true purpose? Maybe he’d give you a bigger imagination about what your life could be like. Phoenix is another story in itself, but let it suffice to say that we have an intense desire to connect with people in the West Valley who are ready to imagine more for their life and consider Orbit Church. That’s how we got here… The rest is yet to come! Stay tuned!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
If anyone reading this has had a smooth road, I’d love to know how they did it! While it could’ve been harder, my journey has been filled with twists, turns, reversals, and dead ends. I, like millions of others in the country, graduated college with a degree meant to make me money rather than a clear vision of what I wanted to do. My first job was in public accounting.

While many readers may be great with spreadsheets, math, and sitting in break rooms bugging clientele during audits, I was not. I’ll never forget what one of my managers said while we were in the middle of the busy season at a client in Savannah, Georgia: “Matt, everyone expects you to be on call 24/7 and it’s exhausting.” Those words stuck with me. Whatever I’m meant to do, I should expect to be on call 24/7. The lesson? Find a job you would enjoy doing 24/7.

That moment, I went back to my room, applied for seminary, and got on track to become a pastor. It’s what I love, so it’s what I do. Since that moment in 2011, I’ve continued to remember, resiliently: This is what I love, so this is what I do. That doesn’t mean life is easy though. The things you care most about are the very things that keep you up at night. The stress of public accounting kept me busy, but the passion I have for people to revolve their lives around something different keeps me up at night. Failures and unmet expectations feel more personal and setbacks seem as if they are start-overs.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a pastor and a Christian. More specifically, I am planting a church in the West Valley of Phoenix (set to launch in 2024). I’m not a big deal at all. I’m not known for anything huge, my social media is average and my family is similar to other families (wife and two kids–a boy and a girl). We deal with the same struggles most of the world struggles with: battling insecurity, maintaining stability, staying safe, finding community, and doing something that matters.

I will say, I am proud to have come from a family that never pushed me in any direction, supported me when I became a pastor, paid for way too much schooling, and made radical transitions that only my wife and I truly understood. I’m proud that at the age of 34, I have a loving wife, and two beautiful children and communicate weekly with people in such a way that many of them make incremental changes to their lives. If there is anything that sets me apart from others, it’s probably the fact that I’m willing to say things others think but are scared to say.

As a pastor and communicator, I view my role as very similar to the role of a comedian. Comedians speak the truth about the world in a unique way that allows people to put their guard down, feel accepted amid deficiencies, and simply appreciate creative expression. While I can’t be quite as crass as some of the comedians out there, I can carefully craft vision and content that enables a stress-free, distraction-free, and encouraging environment. Full disclosure: I think I’m funny, but the jury is still out on what you’ll think.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up.
I will never forget the moment I realized what my mom was willing to do to provide for me and my twin brother. When I was in 7th grade, I was really into Pokemon (not to play… for some reason I just liked trading and bartering for other people’s cards). I had ambitions of building up a collection that would one day be worth tons of money. The problem was that we were poor. We lived in a trailer park, and my mom was singlehandedly raising us AND working full-time to make ends meet.

Anyways, she knew I wanted lots of Pokemon cards for Christmas, so she went and got a side job at a Pokemon kiosk in the mall and worked there during her off hours to make money, get discounted Pokemon cards, and bring home remnants from already opened packages. The amount of Pokemon cards we got was ridiculous and we were grateful. Then we grew up over the next few months and forgot about Pokemon… She kept them all though. We just gave them to my kid. They are worth thousands of dollars!

Contact Info:

• Website: orbitchurch.org
• Instagram: @orbit.church
• Facebook: @https://www.facebook.com/orbitphoenix