About Matt

Most bios are kind of boring, so here’s a list of fun facts. Now, if you’re looking for a paragraph or two, scroll to the bottom for a couple of the more official sounding bios that I use…

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19 Fun Facts about Matt

  1. Most of my friends call me Matt. You can too!
  2. My last name is pronounced “Bruff.” “How can that be?” you ask. “I thought it was Brow, or Bro, or Braw.” Try saying the word “rough.” Now put a B in front of it.
  3. When I was a teenager, someone once asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, and I said “the least amount of work for the most money possible.” I ended up being a pastor and an author. Ha! Still chasing that childhood dream!
  4. I love soccer – Stoke City FC is my team
  5. I was born in Stoke City, UK (hence my favourite soccer team) and moved to Canada with my family when I was two years old.
  6. I spell favourite with a “u” because I’m Canadian, eh.
  7. I love the Winnipeg Jets and the Toronto Raptors (are you sensing a sports theme?)
  8. One of my favourite places on earth is Lester Beach. You’ve probably never heard of it, but it has beautiful white sand on a fantastic fresh water lake. A slice of paradise about a 90 minute drive from my house in the middle of Canada! Bonus: My parents live there.
  9. I went to seminary at Vancouver School of Theology and it was a good experience (though, I’m not sure I would have said that at the time)
  10. I have a Science degree with specializations in Math and Computer Science. What that really means is that I didn’t have enough credits in either to be able to say I “majored” in anything. I had almost as many Philosophy credits as I had Math!
  11. I’ve visited all 10 provinces in Canada (I will get to the territories one day!)
  12. I’ve visited 44 States. Somehow I have missed Alaska, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia. C’mon Matt, get it together! Texas is huge – how have I not been there?
  13. I like to travel – could you tell? I’ve been to the Caribbean, parts of Europe, and Malawi, and am looking forward to more.
  14. Steak is very important to me.
  15. I have two wonderful sisters.
  16. I am the baby of the family by 5 years.
  17. I got married in the year 2000. This helps me remember how long I’ve been married!
  18. My daughter was born in 2010. This also helps me with my memory problems.
  19. My wife has a fantastic memory but I do not. She remembers things like random phone numbers and lyrics to songs. I have trouble remembering my own postal code.

Official-ish Bio #1 (The Church and non-fiction one)

Matt Brough has been a pastor of small, faithful congregations for over 15 years. He has served as the director of Cyclical PCC, a Church Planting support initiative of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and has hosted the Spirituality for Ordinary People Podcast. Matthew is the author of the “Let God” books and a series of fantasy adventure books for ages eight and up. He lives in Winnipeg, Canada, with his wife, Cheryl, and their daughter, Juliet.

Official-sh Bio #2 (The fiction author one)

On a road trip across western Canada, a boy and his two older sisters listened as their mother read them The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Although he knew he loved the story, and as a teenager went on to fall even more in love with The Lord of the Rings, it wasn’t until the year he was turning 40 that Matthew Brough felt the full force of these books. That was when he sat down to write a story and out came Del Ryder and the Crystal Seed, the first book in a fast-paced fantasy adventure series for ages eight and up.

Matthew is the devoted husband of Cheryl, loving father of Juliet, and the pastor of a Presbyterian Church in Winnipeg, Canada. In both his reading and writing, he avoids books that moralize or “preach,” but loves stories of hope.

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