It is my honour to be able to highlight our third keynote speaker at Fluid14. I first stumbled onto Matt Carter’s preaching ministry after a friend of mine had told me how good Matt was at the Right Now Conference held in Dallas, Texas.
Not knowing anything about him, I decided to listen to a sermon that he preached about why church membership is biblical. By the end of the message, I had tears rolling down my eyes and my fist pumping in the air with a new resolve to serve Christ and love His church… b/c of a sermon on church membership… like c’mon!?!
Needless to say, I believe that Matt Carter is one of the best expositor preachers in our time and I’m so excited to have him preach God’s word from the book of Philippians.
So a bit about Matt then:
Matt Carter serves as the Pastor of Preaching & Vision at the Austin Stone Community Church in Austin, Texas, which has grown from a core team of 15 to over 7,000 attending each Sunday since the church began in 2002. Matt co-authored For the City, which explored what it would look like for a local church to be an advocate for the welfare of the city, and The Real Win, a book on biblical manhood co-authored by NFL quarterback Colt McCoy. He holds an M.Div. from Southwestern Seminary and is pursuing a D.Min. in Expositional Preaching from Southeastern Seminary. He and his wife Jennifer have been married for 16 years, and they have three children, John Daniel, Annie, and Samuel.
Matt grew up in Athens, Texas. Like many east Texas families, Matt’s parents faithfully attended their local congregation and made certain that Matt did as well. He prayed to receive Christ at 8 years of age. However, Christ was not the focus of his life on a daily basis. Matt is confident that he was saved at this point because he could no longer enjoy sin – even when he tried – but he had not yet touched the holiness of God.
He attended Texas A&M with plans to go to medical school after graduation. He was in the Corp of Cadets and was a Ross Volunteer. During his freshman year, he achieved the popularity and success he had looked forward to before college. He also began to realize that those things weren’t as fulfilling as he expected them to be.
During Christmas Break that year, he went on a ski trip with his girlfriend’s church group. Although she broke up with him early in the week, he couldn’t be more grateful that he went. As he was feeling awkward hanging out with his now ex-girlfriend’s friends, an upper-classman on the trip had compassion and befriended him. When they returned to College Station, Brett invited him to a Bible study that met on campus. Matt decided to check it out. He experienced a deeper level of worship than he had ever encountered when he did. The students around him sang a song he had never heard before, “Lord, you are more precious than silver/ Lord, you are more costly than gold.” As he joined their song, he recognized that the words were truth. He realized that his life and priorities would have to change drastically because of that truth.
He began attending Central Baptist Church and, for the first time, truly made the Lord the focus of his life. Things began to fall into place and have a sense of purpose for him. He had encountered the presence and holiness of God; his life was changed.
Here is a short clip of Matt Carter at the Right Now Conference. Enjoy!
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Paul Yoon is co-founder & executive director at Fluid. Follow him on twitter here!