Ian Mattoon

There is a growing number of people that are on to something great. They are creating life groups and living lives of evangelism that are culturally sensitive and showing people that being a Christian is not about being stiff necked and boring. Showing people that Christians don’t just sit around reading the bible all the time, praying, eating chips with mild salsa, and drinking milk! (all of which aren’t bad things in and of themselves) It is great to show non-Christians that we can be in the world and not of the world.

I am; however, concerned about this. What happens when these groups aren’t reaching out to non-believers. Then they just become a bunch of Christians trying not to look like the typical Christian for no reason. When they get together they don’t read the bible, they don’t pray, all in the name of not being the “typical” Christian group in the hope of making it easier for non-Christians to get involved. Call a spade a spade. If you are just a bunch of men hanging out then let it be so. If you are being culturally sensitive to build up younger believers or reach out to non believers, fine, but don’t leave out the central aspects of our faith, the book that leads us to life, and the way we communicate with our savior! And if you are a leader among other Christians, and you know that people look up to you, respect you, follow you, then woe to you if you lead them astray and you don’t speak up for what you know you should be doing. In this respect I owe many an apology, for being passive and for not speaking my heart. I am sorry.

The books were good, but the man was better. The revealed Word awakened me, but it was the preached Word that saved me; and I must ever attach peculiar value to the hearing of the truth, for by it I received the joy and peace in which my soul delights. - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Saturday I confidently jumped off a cliff into what will be the most dangerous, exciting, exhausting, rewarding, adventure of my life .  I asked Lisa Michelle Howell to be my wife!

This is by far the smartest thing that I have ever done.  Lisa is the most amazing woman that I have ever met, and she makes me the best man that I can be.  I never knew that love could come this naturally or that I could feel so loved and cared for just by the way she places her hand on my shoulder.  She does all of the little things to let me know . . . and most of the time she doesn’t even realize it!  It’s the look in her eye or my name on her lips.  Its offering to treat me to coffee or wanting to hole up with me in Starbucks for the day.  Its being there for me when I’m feeling down or the way that she loves my family. Shes everything I’ve ever dreamed of.

We have been verbally dancing around our future for sometime now, and while there most of everything is still up in the air, its exciting that we are now in a position to make life decisions together.  We know that we want to be be involved with Riverview in some capacity, we know that we want to be involved with Campus Crusade in some capacity, and we know that we want to go abroad to serve the Lord for an extended time.  No matter how that all works out I am confident that the Lord knows how to fulfill our greatest desires and bring us the greatest joy. 

Now for the details of the day (it was a long one so I’ll give you the condensed version)!

Saturday morning Lisa and I were hanging out in downtown Grand Rapids and we were planning on going up to Ferris State later that evening to hang out with some of our friends.  We stopped at Founders for a snack, split a sandwich, and drank a Bourbon Barrel Aged Red’s Rye.  Then I  dropped Lisa off at the Vassio salon under the guise that I wanted to do something nice for her because she had just finished her student teaching.  I dropped of a dress for her to change into when she got done and packed it in a box with a rose.  I picked her up at about 7:30 for dinner, we took a cab to Judson’s Steak House in the Bob. When we got to the table there was another rose and note waiting for Lisa.  The food was amazing, I got a fillet mignon stuffed with blue/goat cheese, Lisa got a center cut steak, and we shared some potatoes, squash, and mushrooms.  I told her that dinner was because of our 1 year anniversary was next week that we were not going to be able to be together for.  After dinner we walked though a light rain back towards my car.  I pulled her aside for one more stop, dessert.  She was confused when I pulled out a key card for a building that did not look like it had a restaurant, and I could tell she was starting to get anxious as we rode up all 16 floors of the old building.  On the top floor, overlooking downtown, I had dessert set up.  Not more than a minute into dessert a friend came out and started playing the cello, at that point I got down on one knee, told Lisa how much I loved her, she said yes, and I slid the ring on her finger.  A bunch of our friends then came out, we had a champagne toast, and we hit the town. Lisa’s sister and her fiance Joe met us at HopCat for a drink. The boys dropped the ladies off at their room and then we went down to the river for a cigar and one last beer! 

For more photos you can check out my friend Brett Maxwell’s photo site on facebook.