BROADCASTS.com

Today's gnarly episode is with Connecticut's surfing priest, the Rev. Matt Lindeman, rector of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Milford. He is originally from Nebraska, and both his parents are Episcopal priests. In eighth grade he moved to San Diego, California where he cultivated his love of surf and church.   Matt came to Connecticut in 2009 and began working with the youth group at Trinity, Southport in 2013 while serving as director of family ministries there. Matt lives in Milford with his wife, two children, and  multiple surfboards.   He is a returning guest to Coffee Hour at The Commons. Read a New Haven Register article about the surfing priest.   We talked about surf boards; how he started surfing as almost "morning prayer" before Algebra class, how he eventually got better (after falling and falling and falling), and all of the lessons he learned from his experiences. For Matt, finding God in the wilderness sometimes means paddling into the open water with San Diego or New York or Connecticut behind you.    A few years into his relocation to the east coast, he got back into surfing through his work in Southport, which lead to creating a larger youth group surfing trip ever October, where he still teaching! He has found new places to go surfing (he likes to go toward Rhode Island and the Cape).  Built up relationships with east coast surfing shops in Narragansett, which rented out wetsuits and boards to the youth group.    Now, in Milford, he still takes advantage of days off to head out with a board or two, or sneaking in a few hours before or after a friend's ordination to hit the water, and uses plenty of metaphors from surfing in his sermons.