 Virginia and I were married at the end of college and spent our first years together in teaching and medical school. After five years of residency, we took our three young daughters and started practice in a small town in costal South Carolina. The town was all Spanish moss and low country charm, and the tiny Episcopal church featured some of the kindest, most welcoming people we had ever met. Instant family! Tiny towns though are not all idyllic. The church's youth program was nonexistent, and nearly everyone we knew sent their children away to boarding school by the seventh grade.
After much deliberation, we moved to Birmingham for a year of additional training at UAB, and afterward decided to join a large practice in the tidewater area of Virginia. We love many things about Virginia, but life in the Norfolk-Hampton-Virginia Beach area was fast paced and frenetic. There were lots of opportunities and great schools, but we had lost the close-knit community of our little southern town. When we finally received the opportunity to return to Birmingham we knew that we wanted a church and a community that was a combination of all the best of our previous experiences.
Saint Luke's is a large church with several thousand members, dozens of educational programs, community programs, missions opportunities, and outreach activities. It has a vibrant and diverse youth program that covers the whole range of childhood/teenage life and provides not only a Christian education, but a Christian culture that is essential to how we want to raise our girls. In Saint Luke's we have found a Christ-centered home based firmly in its community. It is not only a place to raise children, it is a place that allows us all to reach out to those around us. We were looking for a church that is in the community, for the community. We have found that church here at Saint Luke's.
Matt is married to Virginia and they have three daughters: Molly (15), Annie (12), and Maddie (12). |
