• (Almost) every day I bike 4 miles to and from my office, which is a coworking space called the Ravenswood Coworking Group.
  • I love working from a coworking space and networking with other freelancers and contractors.
  • I love biking to work. However, this morning the seat of my bike slipped and I suddenly looked like I was riding a low rider. Also, it started raining. Today was not my best day for biking.
  • The office is a shared space for all of my work. I work 30ish hours with Flaxen Design, 12ish hours with InterVarsity (I’m currently in transition between two jobs with InterVarsity, so it’s sort of an awkward spot), and then as many hours as I can fit doing freelance web design work with mattstaufferdesign. Oh, and I usually write two articles for Staffhacker every week.
• We live in Rogers Park, the most diverse neighborhood in Chicago and one of the most diverse in the country (as of the 2000 census.) We love Rogers Park. We also live 3 blocks from the beach. We love the beach.
• Tereva’s working for an after-school program in Rogers Park and applying to Loyola’s school of Social Work.
• I’m working kind of nutso hours to try to get us ready for the financial roller-coaster that will be school and school loans and less hours for Tereva and all of that. Most days are bike, work, bike, dinner, TV or book or conversation or a walk with Tereva, pass out, do it all over again. I don’t mind.
• We’re still church-hunting. We’re trying to give every church we visit at least two visits, so it’s moving very slowly. We’ve met some really great people, but haven’t quite found where we really want to settle. One of our biggest priorities is feeling like the church is calling people into mission instead of either merely talking about how if you do this and that God will bless you or be happy with you, or being so scared of offending people that you don’t follow Jesus on mission.
• I discovered an incredible barber shop called the Belmont Barbershop. I like the place so much that I want to go back and it’s not even time for a haircut yet.
• We’re still finding our “places”–grocery store, favorite restaurant, barber, hair supply store, doctor, dentist, eye doctor, etc.–slowly and surely.
• In a city this big, Yelp and smart phones are infinitely more helpful.
• CTA (public transportation) is glorious. 90% of the time we get in the car, it’s because we’re moving it for the street cleaning days. We almost never use it.
• The weather here is beautiful. I know we’re going to freeze in the winter, but right now it’s autumn, my favorite season and one I haven’t seen in about 9 years. Wind, cool days, occasional clouds, sunny but not so hot it fries your face off… these things I have missed.

Since I know this will continue forever keeping me from writing anything, I’m just going to break down and write something silly and modestly insignificant.

Every year many Christians celebrate the tradition of Lent, a 40-day period of the liturgical year that culminates in Holy Week and ends with Easter. The purpose of Lent is to prepare oneself for Holy Week and Easter, and while many people observer a broader dedication to prayer and a greater level of spiritual awareness, many folks primarily focus on fasting from something in their lives, or temporarily giving up that thing to commit themselves more fully to the LORD.

Since I can remember I’ve fasted during Lent, and my fasts have ranged from giving up a particular TV show to giving up “being mean” for 40 days. There are some fasts that are very common among Lent-observers of my generation: Facebook, Internet, TV, sweets, soda. This year I tried to think well on what things have become like idols in my life–among other criteria, without what thing in my life would I feel like my life was crumbling? This may sound extremely silly, but since I learned that I had low blood sugar, access to things that raise my blood sugar has become a bit of an obsession, and although I work hard to raise it healthily, I know a bit of a sweets problem has snuck in. So, I decided to give up sweets, sodas, and sweet tea for Lent.

I figured this would be easy, but it turned out to be extremely difficult. On at least a daily basis, I find myself craving something sweet–not always even a dessert, but even something sweeter than rice, or beans, or a salad. I’m constantly wrestling with what I expect and the ways I justify those things.

But that is the part of Lent I’m used to, even if it’s not usually difficult to this degree. What I wasn’t expecting is the way my friends and family have pitched in to show the depth of my dependence on sweets.

To give you a little taste, here are just a few of the items that I’ve either tried to partake, or have partaken, without thinking of them as sweets (only to be reprimanded by friends & family later):

• A breakfast pastry
• Chewy Brand Granola Bars (this was today!)
• A gas station cappuccino
• Several peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

My memory is failing me, but I’m pretty sure there have been significantly more incidences in which I blindly went about eating something that I was sure didn’t break my fast, only to have it pointed out how completely wrong I was. (However, I still maintain the argument that peanut butter and jelly is not a sweet!)

I write this primarily to point out even more ways in which fasting can reveal the state of our hearts and minds. Fasting is always a powerful way to devote our time, our attention, our addictions, and our lives more to the LORD. But fasting (and good friends) can also reveal blindness to the things that control us.

Each time I’ve realized my mistake, I’ve felt shame and the desire to re-start my 40 day fast. But of course, fasting isn’t just some exercise of my will. It’s a devotion to the LORD, one which needn’t end on Easter Sunday. As both Holy Week and my fast come to a close, they continue to provide space for me to separate myself, my life, my eating habits, my devotions, my time, and my desires for the sake of my LORD. May these things be separated for him long after my 40 days end.

The money will go to benefit Dalit children in India, providing food, education, uniforms, school books, and health care.

Here’s what my wimpy beard looks like right now (day 6):

You can see me pointing the the tiny bit of stubble that is finally growing in.

So, I’d love for you to consider sponsoring my beard-growing. All of my sponsors so far are donating as little as $.25 or $.50/day–for total donations of only $7.50 or $15. We’re not thinking huge bucks here, but rather a little pocket change to help out disadvantaged kids.

If you’re interested in following along with my beard-growing (new pictures posted every morning!), seeing who else is giving, or supporting my beard-growing, check out Matt Stauffer’s No-Shave November Beard for Freedom.

It’s a two-part story, the first (long) part beginning in high school and the second beginning at Urbana 09. The first part isn’t quite as important, so feel free to skip it if you’re in a rush.

Part 1: It all began with Mrs. Marsh

I’ve always excelled in math and science. By the time high school rolled around my older brother (I’m the second of four) was already enrolled at the University of Michigan studying some form of Engineering and breezing through his classes. I aspired to study engineering because I was good at it and it paid a lot–and because I didn’t really think to consider anything else.

My dad sat me down one day and said, “Matt, I think you should decide what you’re going to do with your life based on what you want, not what Ricke’s doing.” This was a shocker, and threw my life plans around for a while. I loved art and computers, and my creative writing teacher, Mrs. Marsh, strongly encouraged me to pursue English, so when I considered colleges–UofM, MSU, Hope, Calvin, Northwestern, Duke, SCAD, and eventually UF–I was applying for journalism or graphic design.

A series of events, decisions, financial situations and scholarships led me to the graphic design program at UF, and two years of frustration led me to leave it to study English Education. While in the English program at UF I realized I loved English at a university level more than I loved the idea of teaching middle schoolers, and several professors urged me to continue on to further education.

At this time, I was reading Irresistible Revolution and considering joining InterVarsity staff. I shunned the suggestions to study further with disdain for the “Ivory Tower” and the desire to be “on the ground.” I even fought the call to InterVarsity staff, saying, “I don’t want to just minister to spoiled Americans who’ve heard the Gospel their whole lives–I want to work with people who really desire and appreciate what the LORD offers.” Berry, my hiring supervisor, said only this: “Where would you be without an InterVarsity staffworker who was ministering to a spoiled American who’d heard the Gospel his entire life?” Understandably, I joined staff soon afterwards.

I’ve spent my staff career sending out funding requests and prayer letters adorned with a quote from Charles Malik, the former President of the U.N. General Assembly: “Change the university, and you change the world.” I believed that college students and the things of the university would change the world, and I even spoke often about sending students to redeem the university rather than trying to rescue them from it. Yet I had been captured by a sort of Christian anti-intellectualism (one so prevalent in the American South), and even scoffed at theological and intellectual conversations held by my peers. This attitude continued for years.

Part 2: It continued on a very, very cold street corner

At Urbana 09, I was assigned to stand on a very cold street corner with my friend Dave Paladino, InterVarsity staff at the University of Michigan, and to pass the time we shared about much of our lives. I was for the first time considering taking some distance education seminary courses, and mentioned that I hoped to have time to look around the conference to learn about different seminaries. Dave spoke of a seminary I’d never heard of called Regent College, where they train laypeople for ministry. Everything about it, from its connection to a major secular university to its integral ties to the arts and the businessplace, sounded amazing. I wanted in.

Tereva and I visited the booth and I was even more in love: J.I. Packer, Gordon Fee, Eugene Peterson, and Bruce Waltke as former/occasional professors; the beauty of Vancouver’s skyline and ocean view; the cultural and creative climate of the college; everything I saw made me love it more. It didn’t hurt to hear Regent receive glowing recommendations from Roger Anderson (National Field Director for InterVarsity’s Campus Ministries), Mike Hickerson (Associate Director for InterVarsity’s Emerging Scholars’ Network), and other friends and colleagues.

At the same time a friend told me the story of an InterVarsity staff who developed such a close relationship with his university that they actually invited him to teach religion courses there. My desires to use my mind, change the university from the inside, and engage with non-Christians about matters of faith in a way integral to my own intellect were all sparked by hearing this.

The combination of hearing this story and falling in love with Regent jolted me awake to the realization that I deeply desired to reconnect my brain and my heart. Tereva encouraged me to consider us moving to Vancouver, and I’ve spent the last nine months having every conversation I can about my future and calling and gifts and interests.

I’ve spoken with many people, but here are a few:

• Gainesville’s Christian Study Center‘s Richard Horner
  Dr. Horner runs the Christian Study Center, a place for Christians and the University to collide in beautiful ways. Richard provides a place for intellectual discovery for Christian students and faculty, for the networking of Christian scholars, and for the development of a conversation between the University of Florida and the Christian community within and without the University.
• ESN’s Mike Hickerson
  ESN’s Stan Wallace
  The Emerging Scholars Network is a ministry of InterVarsity called to identify, encourage, and equip the next generation of Christian scholars who seek to be a redeeming influence within higher education. They are collecting, connecting, encouraging and training people who want to be a redeeming influence in the academic community.
• C. John Sommerville
  C. John is a former professor at UF who wrote, among other books, The Decline of the Secular University. He has much to say about the roles of Christian intellectuals and Christians in the University, and it’s all powerful and fitting.

I’ve spent much time dreaming about my future–about possible careers, paths of education, and about where we’ll live–and much time thinking about whom I want to emulate–C.S. Lewis, John Stott, N.T. Wright, Tim Keller, and in many ways the gentlemen on my list above. I don’t know where everything will end up, but I know a few things for certain:

• I would love to stay tied to (and, if possible, working with) InterVarsity as long as I can. I’m extremely motivated to find a way to work with IV in whatever I do with my life.
• I feel a very strong tie and call to Regent. Something significant will have to happen in my life to convince me not to seek to attend there.
• I’ll most likely pursue a Masters of Christian Studies there. I’ll most likely fight to take as many classes from John Stackhouse as I can cram in.
• I have no idea when this will be. It could be as early as next fall; it could be as far out as five or ten years from now.
• Despite my desire to attend Regent, Vancouver’s ethnic makeup (and in part the less temperate climate) makes it not a viable long-term living situation for Tereva and me, so we will most likely only take a short trip through there (around two years) for the purpose of education.

The end results of all of this remain too far out in the future to be seen. I could imagine what they could look like, but things change so much and so quickly that such imagination is hardly beneficial. I will just say one thing: a lot of my dreams include a certain city in the midwest that lies between two lakes. Just saying.

Postscript: The blog Wondering Fair is created, I think, by Regent alumni, and they all, I think, have ties to the aforementioned John Stackhouse. Almost every post they’ve ever written has been strongly influential in encouraging and developing these thoughts, and the things they’re writing and doing are a lot of the things I hope to do one day. I strongly encourage you to consider joining this community.

Recently the nature of our business has changed. Where we once were a designer/programmer team, both working out of Ann Arbor and both with similar amounts of free time, our situations have now changed a lot. Ricke is one of the lead programmers at a very important international consulting firm, and I’m now working 10-15 hours a week doing web design to supplement Tereva’s and my incomes from working with InterVarsity (and to engage a different side of my passions and talents.) Our business is now a lopsided designer-hackprogrammer(me)/awesome-programmer(Ricke) team, where I get clients in Gainesville, I try to make the web site, and Ricke fixes anything I break.

Basically, all of this leads to needing help from you, faithful reader. I have 2 directions I can go from here.

Little old me
First, I can move toward a more casual, open relationship with my potential client. I’m not Stauffer Design–I’m just Matt Stauffer. Part of this transition would be to make the web site more personal and comfortable (since, in reality, the clients are just dealing with me anyway); part of this would be because stwd is a frustratingly incommunicative domain name, and staufferdesign.com is already owned by someone else.

If I move to “Matt Stauffer Design,” I will be focusing on my individual strengths. I’ll be able to work more with boutique firms and be hired as a consultant more often for larger clients, but it will reduce my appeal for small businesses that want a whole corps of designers, not just one guy.

Going corporate
Or,  I can focus–both in message and in how I run the business–on providing a more corporate appeal. I already have a name I very much like for this business* (not putting it here for fear of domain snatchers–I’ll be buying the domain name today just in case); I have Ricke as an advisor and several subcontractors who do work for me regularly enough. I have the groundwork laid for a more corporate culture.

The benefits are plenty: peace of mind for my clients, more approachability for local businesses who are scared of hiring just one 25-year-old. The drawbacks, however, are also plenty: a level of separation between me and the client, the need for new tax situations and a DBA and other such legal tomfoolery, the eventual need to pay for larger group task-management software like Basecamp.

Of course, the majority of you have nothing to do with web design. But for those of you either in web design or in a position where you might hire a web designer, could you give me a brief thought? I’ll make the decision myself, and of course a blog post is far from the most efficient means of collecting professional advice… but I like my people, and that’s who many of you are. So. Lemme know.

*Update–I mistyped the name of my potential company when checking if the domain for it is free. It’s not. So, unfortunately, if I do go corporate, I’m back to square one in deciding what the name will be.

I took a class my sophomore year of college called “Biological Perspectives on Contemporary Issues.” It turned out to be, “Why Christians are wrong in all of areas of current debate, and scientific proof for why they’re wrong.”

In many cases, I agreed with, or at least could see some serious validity in, the professor’s points; I’m certainly not sold on anti-evolutionist creationism, let alone full-blown Young-Earth creationism. I’m not confident there isn’t a “gay gene.” I’m not some Bible-thumping homophobic backwaters idiot.

However, purely because of the way this professor thought–and thus led the class to think–I felt it my duty to disagree with him often and vocally.

This man had so much faith in the power of science to observe, describe, encompass, and power everything that ever happens that he–and in my mind, much of the scientific community–couldn’t see past the limitations of science.

As soon as I write this (and said it in class), it seemed like I’m some crazed anti-science “reason is wrong, faith is right” nut. I’m not. But science presupposes dozens of things, and as soon as you make presuppositions–assumptions–you are limiting yourself to only describe the narrowed view of the world that’s presented based on your assumptions.

One tiny, and probably very flawed, example I gave: science presupposes the non-existence of God. Right? So if something happens, and a scientist submits a hypothesis, and the entirety of it is this: “God sneezed, and then the stars came out,” this scientist would be mocked. It’s not a legitimate scientific area of study. Sure, you can think that, but can we measure it? No? Well then, science has no interest in it. Instantly, all things not measurable by mankind are outside of the range of science.

I’m not saying we can’t appreciate science, use science, study science, or anything. What I’m saying, and this is inspired much by my excitement in reading this article by C. John Sommerville, is that science is just a tool. It’s not full enough to form the basis for your entire worldview. It’s not capable of describing or measuring all things worth thinking about.

I wish this were longer. I just wanted to get out that one point before I force myself to sleep.

This blog, Twitter, Facebook, and then an IV blog, IV facebook and IV twitter, have given me so many outlets for expression that I’ve reached the point of emptying myself of anything significant to say. I find myself always referring to “that post I wrote last week”, or, “did you see that thing I posted on Facebook?” Something had to change.

This blog, taking the most effort to update, was the first to drop. I’ve begun to limit my Twitter & Facebook updates pretty severely as well. I’m moving more towards generating content I want other people to see, and away from just talking about my life, my frustrations, etc.

Hopefully this is a good sign for the blog, because it’s my best place for generating content. It’s hard to have a teaching moment through Twitter. We’ll see.

It does mean it’ll be harder for people to just keep up with my life through these online mediums. So, if you ant that, and you miss it, please give me a call, email me, text me, comment here, or whatever else it takes to get in communication. I’d love to hear about you, and maybe tell you a little about my life as well.

But, for now, if you want to be kept a little more aware of my goings-on Internet-wise, feel free to follow me on twitter. Otherwise, pray that I use my time, attention, and expression wisely and in a way that helps others, leaves me with impetus for non-Internet conversation, and glorifies God.

This sank in because I had just left the bedroom where my wife slept in our bed (not the cheap college mattress, mind you, but a real bed with a frame underneath it) in front of our TV (not the 15″ one you inherit from your old roommate, but a real brand new TV). I was looking down at the full-sized bathroom that I share with my wife (not my roommates), at my hands complete with wedding band, and thinking about the house we’re hoping to rent for next year.

As I wandered out into the living room to check the thermostat, I thought about the electric bills I care for, the health insurance documents on the kitchen counter, and the cars we have to keep in repair.

Somewhere between the bathroom and the living room it kicked me in the gut: I am an adult. I am a grown man. I am 24 years old, have a facial piercing, and on most days I wear Nike sneakers, jeans, and a t-shirt, so you could most certainly call me an immature adult. But let’s face it: I have a wife, a job, a car, and we have our own place, furniture, and plans. I am, in the ways it is recognized and quantified in American society (or at least in my head back when I was a young pup), a grown-up.

You know what? It doesn’t feel as different as I had expected. I like it, that’s for sure. But I don’t feel much different than 5-year old Matt. I’m even beginning to lean a little toward Matthew, my childhood name.

The reason I put the qualifiers in front of “a grown-up” is that I’m not entirely sure that any of these accomplishments are necessarily tied to my spiritual growth and maturity. It’s interesting to claim myself a grown-up and yet feel so childlike so often. I hope that some aspect of that childlike nature will never go away, but I really do wonder if at some point I’ll feel more grown up. What does it take? A mortgage? Kids, perhaps? I already have a grey hair, for whatever that’s worth.

Praise the Lord for doing what he has in me to bring me to the point where I can love and respect my wife without too often falling into self-centered tantrums. Praise him for parents who taught me responsibility early on to help me survive moving halfway across the country for school. Praise him for a fellowship that nurtured and encouraged me to grow up in the way I look at people different from me. Praise him for my partner in this new part of my life.

We even set up a blog for it… which we then proceeded to forget about.

Our families are coming into town Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

We still have a lot to do before the big day. Today we’ll be finalizing wedding cake details, possibly shopping for some gifts/supplies, paying the florist, and working on our reception playlist.

I don’t really have the brains to write much else. But! I wrote something. That’s a start.

Holy crap.

It’ll be in March. I’m assuming most Michiganders won’t come but will send their best, so if you are one, no worries about not being able to afford a plane ticket and hotel stay and stuff. We understand. However, I will be sending out invitations to some Michiganders just in case some of them are crazy enough to come down.

So, we’ll be getting married some time in March… probably the 21st, but we’re not 100% sure. More information soon.

If you have any tips, tricks, connections on how to get married in Gainesville without spending a million dollars… especially if it’s still with a classy wedding and a bojillion people… I’d love your help.

Also, I plan to take full advantage of every offer for help, so don’t make it unless you mean it.

Finally, the engagement story (because you know you were going to ask):

A few years ago, when we were dating the first time, I created a meal for her (Chicken and Broccoli with a cream sauce over spaghetti) that she absolutely loved, and has been asking for since. So, I cooked that meal for her and served it along with some de-alcoholized wine (didn’t want our senses to be at all impaired for this special moment). She showed up to my house and the food was set out and a mix tape I made her a few years ago for Valentine’s Day was playing.

After the meal, I told her I was taking her somewhere for dessert, so we got in the car and drove over to a park/playground behind her old dorm (Beaty). I had her sit down at a picnic table and close her eyse, and I told her I was setting out dessert. I did set out dessert, but the dessert bag also had the ring box in it. I kneeled down and opened the box, and then told her to look at me. She said, “Wait, where are you? My eyes are closed!” She found me eventually, and I told her to open her eyes. After she took a second to take in the scene, I asked her to marry me.

There was lots of crying and “I love you”‘s, but I think at some point she said “yes,” and I know that eventually she let me actually put the ring on her finger. Then we called people until both of our phones died; I freaked out because we hadn’t called everyone, and then we just gave up and put it on Facebook and prayed no one would get too upset.

That’s it! I’ll keep you updated here.