Lead Pastor & Biblical Counselor

Matthew has served as Lead Pastor at Oak Grove Church in Shellsburg, IA since 2017 (located conveniently between Shellsburg, Urbana, Vinton, and Center Point). Matt grew up as an Air Force brat and so has lived in several places (but has a fondness for CO, SD, AK, TN, MD, NJ, KY and of course IA).

He has been married to Cherilyn since 2005, and together they have two amazing boys, Braden, and Skylar, which they homeschool together! As a family they love getting out to hike (especially in cooler temperatures), swim, and throw frisbee, play football, baseball, and soccer.

During his adult education years, Matthew earned a B.S. degree in Biblical Studies from The Moody Bible Institute (Chicago, IL), his M.Div. degree in Church Ministry from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and is pursuing his D.Min. degree in Biblical Counseling from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (Kansas City, MO). He is also a certified biblical counselor with the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).

While in TN Matthew grew tremendously under the personal discipleship of his pastor, college leader and friendship with the church’s youth pastor, with whom he served and partnered in ministry. These discipling relationships provided an opportunity for Matthew to get his feet wet in ministry and was a positively challenging environment for Matthew’s pastoral and theological development. It was also the local church which affirmed his call as he surrendered to the ministry.

Matthew has been in local church ministry in varying staff roles since 1998, serving at churches in TN, NJ, KY and IA as Worship Pastor, Youth Pastor, in Discipleship, and Lead Pastor. Through these experiences the Lord has developed in Matthew a passion for loving his family well and leading the church to practice a culture of one-another care through intensive and varying degrees of discipling and biblical counseling.