In an effort to highlight the many Anabaptists engaged in important work and ministry across the country and around the world, we’re starting a new series. Most Thursdays, we’ll publish a seven question interview with a different Anabaptist talking about their life, work, spiritual disciplines and influences. Today’s interview runs on a Wednesday because it’s a holiday week. You can view past interviews here. 

Name: Matthew Hickman
Hometown: Normal, Illinois
Home congregation: Mennonite Church of Normal
Job title: Associate Pastor of Youth and Family Life

Hannah Heinzekehr: Tell me about your call to ministry. Did you always know you were going to be a pastor?

My grandfather, a pastor, asked me as a second grader to preach at the commencement service of his church’s Vacation Bible School; I spoke for about 20 minutes. He had a significant influence on me. I knew even from that early age that choosing Jesus meant that I needed to give of myself to others. Throughout my young life, people affirmed certain gifts of mine: preaching and teaching, mission orientation, prophetic witness, and empathy.

HH: I know you’ve done some writing and thinking about green living. What got you interested in this topic?

In my childhood in a very fundamentalist congregation, I heard it preached that the worse things got on earth, the sooner Jesus would return. I didn’t buy it.

God created the earth and all that is within it and called it good. The Psalmist names the ways that creation worships its creator. The prophets tie human sin to environmental degradation, but cast a vision of renewal of creation. Jesus was bodily resurrected—wounds showed continuity with his life before death—but he was amazingly changed! The New Testament letters describe creation groaning to be released from bondage and Jesus reconciling all things to himself. I guess that’s the risk of telling a precocious child to take the Bible literally.

HH: What changes has your family made as a response to what you’ve learned?

We have only one car. I walk or bike as much as possible. We try to consume less. When we eat meat, we try to choose those which take less resources to grow. We try to eat more plant-based foods. We landscape with plants which support a robust urban micro-community of birds, butterflies and other pollinators, amphibians and small mammals.

Notice I use the word ‘try’ a lot. I’m lazy, a lot, and there are times where I briefly give up. I tell people to commit to caring, and, half-humorously, to retain enough guilt to keep on going.

HH: When Samuel Voth Schrag [pastor of St. Louis Mennonite Fellowship] suggested your name for an interview, he noted that you’ve got some good thoughts on adoption. How did you and your wife decide that adoption was something that you wanted to pursue?

My wife and I chose to have a family. Infertility kept us from having biological children. Instead of spending money for medical treatments to amend this, we chose to give ourselves to children already born and in need of a family.

We began as foster parents while I was in seminary, which seems lunacy in hindsight, but I would choose it again. We pledged to adopt any foster child of ours who became adoptable. We adopted twice that way and once by private adoption. We are in the midst of an international adoption of a child from West Africa.

HH: Is there any advice you would offer to other people who are in the process of adoption?

Becoming either a foster or adoptive parent, you will find yourself living in a fishbowl with your life on display for many to see: agencies, social workers, possibly lawyers, state licensing agents, perhaps the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service and agents of foreign governments. If you commit to fostering or adopting, you simply need to be prepared for this. This vulnerability was the biggest surprise for me.

HH: You’ve been open about the fact that you are in the midst of a “dark night of the soul.” What does this look like or feel like for you? Are there Scriptures, texts, songs, or prayers that give you solace and comfort?

I find myself at mid-life with many weighty questions. What difference am I making in the world? What kind of society are my kids going to be adults in? Am I living out my own calling, or am I living others’ expectation that I will be like my grandfather and how do I know for sure?

The difference between a popular notion of mid-life crisis and a dark night of the soul is that in the dark night one continues to seek for God, rather than trying to salve aches with material gains.

Two scripture verses serve as my bulwarks:
Psalm 18:28: “You, Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.”

Romans 8:26: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

HH: If someone could only read or hear three texts (books, novels, Scripture verses, songs, etc.), what three would you recommend?

Obviously, the Bible, which I assume as a given, so I will name three others:

• The novel A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.;
• Aristotle’s The Nichomachean Ethics;
• and Marvel Comics’ Marvel Masterworks: Amazing Spider-Man 1.