our story
It all started when…
For 25 years now, our lives have wound in and out of beautiful neighborhoods, diverse communities, and people working to make the world a place where everyone can flourish.
After falling in love, getting married and finishing seminary, we settled into a Christian learning community in one of California’s poorest neighborhoods in downtown Fresno, Ca. It was in this place that our understanding of faith, place, justice and goodness was shaped. Now, decades later, we can trace the shape our ministries, our pastoring, our writing, preaching, praying and living have been demonstrably influenced by our little neighborhood in Fresno.
During our years in Fresno, Lisa was on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship as a campus minister at Fresno State University and urban project coordinator with the Pink House, an intentional Christian community and urban ministry training center. Through these two unique roles, Lisa trained and discipled college students and emerging urban leaders.
Matthew was on staff with One by One Leadership, a faith-based nonprofit community development organization that was a part of the Leadership Foundations of America network. Through his role at One by One, Matthew trained pastors, church leaders and volunteers in effective outreach strategies and volunteer management best practices. Matthew also served as a lay pastor at Fresno, First Baptist Church and adjunct professor at Fresno Pacific University.
After visiting the Faith Alive Foundation in the early 2000’s, we were commissioned by church and our Fresno community to serve in Jos at Faith Alive.
In Nigeria, we served alongside a community of medical professionals, ministers, volunteers and other people of peace locked in a fight against HIV/AIDS in central Nigeria. During our time there we served with a dynamic team of African doctors, nurses, and public health care providers. We watched people living with HIV, and the ways that they moved through life with dignity and strength.
Our time in Nigeria was briefer than expected and returning to the US, we joined the faculty at our alma mater, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary as Professionals in Residence where we taught classes in the school of Missions. We spent a season training future pastors and missionaries and sharing our stories and lives with the next generation of congregational and community leaders. You can see a bit more about that journey here.
Then along came a young, wild congregation from the land of Elvis, B.B. King and Barbeque that caught our attention. They expressed a desire to love God and genuinely love their neighbors; those close by and those far away. They asked if we would want to join them. We said yes and after 10 years in California, our growing circus nestled on the banks of the Mississippi in a little place called Memphis.
During our years in Memphis, and serving at Living Hope Church, the Watson family grew from 3 to 5 and Lisa began a new adventure where she started a ministry to care for immigrants, refugees and the undocumented and later joined the staff of the Christian Community Development Association where she led the efforts to provide training and tools for pastors and ministers serving in marginalized communities.
Memphis shaped us in ways beautiful and deepened our heart for the unpredictable and expansive Kingdom of God. And yet, God wasn't done sending us places. 5 years after settling in Memphis, we were sent out again, this time as church planters to Washington, D.C.
Initially we joined with a young, vibrant congregation in the heart of D.C. The District Church showed us what it could look like to be rooted in a neighborhood in the nation's capitol faithfully proclaiming God's good story and joyfully displaying God's good love to the people that call this majestic city home.
Eventually, we planted a new church out of the District Church - Christ City Church, which is where we find ourselves now. Matthew is pastoring Christ City, a young, neighborhood church in Washington, D.C. that is looking to see God's Kingdom on display in each life and every sphere of life.
After 8 years with CCDA, Lisa was asked to be the National Director of Missio Alliance, a ministry that aims to shape the church in North America by elevating the voices of Christians from marginalized communities around the world; believing that some of the best theology and missional practice is happening outside and holds lessons in mission, justice, and formation that the American church desperately needs to hear.
To that end, Matthew & Lisa do their best to live and love well in the streets and alleyways of the city that has captured their hearts, prayers and imaginations. This site chronicles many of those experiences.