In case you've just discovered us...

Steve & Matt are best friends of 30 years after both growing up in rural Appalachia...Steve from Virginia and Matt from Alabama.

Both of us were raised in the Assemblies of God (a Pentecostal denomination) and our paths crossed during our undergraduate years in college in central Florida where we became friends and roommates. A few years after college our paths crossed again when we accepted university administrator roles in the same department and then built houses beside each other with our spouses.

In the middle of our professional careers in church ministry and higher education, we individually realized the ambitions we'd been prescribed felt counter to our values and beliefs. Individually, we stepped away but remained best friends.

In an effort to honor our friendship, and to remind you that you're not alone, we began recording our ongoing conversations and are sharing them here with you. We hope you'll allow these conversations to be what you need them to be for your current place in life.

And if we can ever help, we hope you'll connect with us.

In this conversation: